Georgia’s budget crisis and flexible spending.

Superintendents and school boards around the state are facing incredibly tight budgeting seasons. The bottom line is squeezed so hard that this fiscal year many districts are already projecting staff reductions and all have hiring and travel freezes in place. This is not the time to come before your local board with materials requests or new budget items. Augusta (Richmond County) cut afterschool programs (see here) and many more such stories will come as boards meet this month.

Dekalb Superindent Crawford Lewis projected Dekalb will be laying off up to 200 non-instructional employees (see here for the AJC story). To his credit, Lewis protects schoolhouse employees, including janitors and media specialists. But the real problem comes down to flexibility of financial resources. 91% of Dekalb's budget is in personnel, which means that any cuts hit the bone pretty quickly. No organization can nimbly respond to an economic downturn given that reality. Even Dekalb's proposal, which is the most dramatic to be released so far, may not take effect until next school year.

I'm not sure we want our school districts to be any more nimble than that with their budgets. If these budget cuts continue – which I expect they will for a while - school districts will have to reorganize their core business processes and redesign job roles and responsibilities to meet such austere fiscal realities. Governor Perdue sent a letter to Superintendents today granting broad flexibility for districts to spend their shrinking pots of state funds (see here for the full letter). With such flexibility, districts will be better equipped to allocate resources to meet local needs, but - even then - protecting schoolhouse employees will no longer be an option.

School Board Redesign in Georgia

A state commission on school board reform released their recommendations earlier this month (see here for the original report and task force presentations, courtesy of the Metro Atlanta Chamber ). The AJC characterized the recommendations as "the right path" (see original article here) and I generally agree with that assessment. The recommendations cut the heart of Board make-up, governance and – of course – training. I'm pleased to see that training isn't the only solution presented because there are much more difficult systemic issues that must also be addressed. Most of the recommendations do require legislative action, so we can look forward to a lot of good debate about this over the next few months.

In their response to the Commission, the Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA) correctly notes that "in Georgia, there are far more success stories than failures." But, in the face of the recent Clayton County debacle (see here (AJC), here (EdWeek) and here (CCPS)), it's hard to argue that the current system is working for everyone.

Here is a summary of the recommendations (again from the AJC). While everyone will be focused on numbers 1, 4 and 6, which address governance issues, I think the tough work will be on ethics (#3) and performance reviews (#8) because they require follow-through and monitoring. It's easy to make a rule, it's hard to implement it.

1. Change state law to allow the state board of education to place troubled school districts in receivership. This would include schools not performing academically, struggling with accreditation problems, financial mismanagement or abuse of power.
   
2. Mandate stricter qualifications for school board members, including criminal background checks and drug screens by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
   
3. Implement a statewide code of ethics and conflict-of-interest guidelines for school board members.
   
4. Prohibit school board members from being paid. Reimburse expenses only.
   
5. Prohibit employees of any public or private K-12 school system in Georgia from serving on a board of education.
   
6. Legislate the size of school boards to be 5 to 7 members.
   
7. Change all school board elections to non-partisan during the general election in November.
   
8. Require school boards to have a strategic plan for timely performance reviews.
   
9. Add more board training and an orientation by the state board of education

NCTAF/GSU Induction Project: The Results Are In!

What happens when preservice, novice and veteran teachers in high-need schools work together in a professional learning community, focused on student achievement? According to a recent project in 12 of Georgia's high needs schools: Retention rates soar, student achievement increases, teacher satisfaction rises and the quality of teacher skills improves. These schools participated in the NCTAF/GSU Induction Project and found that you can improve working conditions for teachers by attending to a few key things:

• dedicate school time to learning communities
• train facilitators
• provide clear protocols for learning communities

Learning communities are definitely a prevalent best practice (see here and here for research overviews), but - as this study shows us again - the implementation of learning communities matters as much as the vision for them.

To read the full results of this three-year study, click here.

Wanted: Chief State School Officers

Recruiting leadership candidates, selecting the best fit for the job and onboarding new school leaders is always a challenge. But, how does the process change when the leader is a Chief State School Officer? This week's EdWeek details the current challenges facing 9 states seeking new ed leadership at the state level, see State-Chief Turnovers Squeezing Talent Pool. Like in any high-profile position, there is a necessary mix of mix of educational acumen and political savvy, especially since most search committees (if they exist) are appointed by an elected Governor. Even so, two of these positions are posted on TopJobs, so get your applications in early!

When we think about hiring new leaders, GLISI attends to the entire Leadership Performance and Supply (LP&S) system. Search committees and national postings in EdWeek may be a necessary part of the process, but a systemic solution includes competency maps, clear job definitions, selection criteria and, of course, an aligned performance appraisal system. Districts throughout Georgia have created these LP&S systems, which will help them weather the inevitable transitions in senior leadership. See here and here (pdf).

Is such a systemic process possible for the State Chief? Perhaps not. But LP&S systems would create a strong bench of leaders in State Departments of Education and expand the available talent pool.

Urban School Principalship

The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality just published a new research brief, Paving the Path to the Urban School Principalship. It's solid work, highlighting findings from focus groups of aspiring principals in three urban districts and making a number of policy recommendations. It's a good reminder of some of the basics, such as:

1. There is a shortage of quality future leaders.
2. The job is stressful.
3. There are many different types of leadership.
4. Preparation matters.

GLISI gets a nice shout-out (page 9) and there is a neat graphic showing a pathway that goes step by step. Click here to read the full report online.

The report concludes with some recommendations, which we've seen before:

1. Divide managerial and instructional responsibilities.
2. Support principal networks.
3. Pair empowerment with accountability.
4. Increase principal salaries.

The authors note that these recommendations are "not new, but they remain untested." True. From GLISI's perspective these steps may be necessary for a performance culture but they are not sufficient. Without a systemic succession strategy that clearly defines and supports performance at all levels of leadership, we'll still be tinkering around the edges.

Finally, this report begs the question: What about the rural and suburban principalship? You can't ride the subway to most of this nation's high-needs schools.

Falcon Scouting

I'm no football expert, but it seems like the Falcon's GM, Thomas Dimitroff, is all about developing a performance culture. In an AJC interview, he described his scouting system and how he is building staff capacity to implement that system.

Then we had an interactive setup where we were all on our laptops. We have what we call a scouting matrix. Each position has 17 to 20 different criteria that we grade on a 1 to 9 scale. After we watched a certain player, we'd all get on our laptops and type in our numbers and it would project onto the screen. You were able to see the matrix in front of us. It precipitated discussions. It was a really good interactive exercise, to make sure that everyone was moving in the right direction and getting on the same page.

Could the same kind of specific criteria be done for teaching and leading positions in our schools? Definitely.

Succession or Progression

At GLISI's quarterly Coordinating Board meeting on August 7th, we had a interesting "a ha" discussion about the term succession planning. Ed Bankston, one of the GLISI Scholars at UGA, noted in his report to the Board that a more appropriate and politically palatable term might be progression management.

This new term better reflects the fact that good succession planning doesn't just fill vacancies. Rather, it is a more systemic strategy that identifies competencies and performance criteria for current and future positions and current and future personnel.

"Progression management" has currency as a term in the UK (see here and here), but does not come up in recent management texts or in a Google search. That's good news if we need a new term to help with local adoption. However, I'm inclined to make the term succession work for everyone because it has resonance with both education and business leaders and has long legs in the business literature.