“Are You Ready for a School Turnaround” by Dr. Rudy L Duran

Before you can begin the process of a School Turnaround, you have to ask some questions that must be addressed. 1. Have key members of your staff had a leadership role in shaping your school turnaround plan? 2. Has the planning team benefited significantly from unbiased outside support? 3. Has the process moved swiftly in order to meet a deadline, and has it been driven in part by clear criteria set by the state? 4. Is your work supported by a lead turnaround partner that will help put your school in the best possible position to meet your student achievement goals? 5. Does your district or state provide you with a choice of support services tailored to meet the needs of a high-poverty setting and to your school’s priorities? 6. Does administration have the authority to shape your school staff to so that you are best positioned to implement the plan? 7. Does the school have the ability to recruit: hiring and placement; freedom from seniority rules, bumping and force-placing; ability to adjust positions to suit student needs? 8. Do the schools have the choice of removal: the discretion to excess teachers who are not performing or are unwilling to participate fully in the turnaround plan for the school? 9. Does the school have the ability to differentiate compensation, providing bonus incentives to attract high-quality teachers and/or performance or responsibility-related pay? 10. Do you, your turnaround partner, and your leadership team have the authority (and resources) to adjust your school’s schedule to suit the needs of your students and instructional approach? 11. Do you and your turnaround leadership team have discretion over budget allocation to support your mission? 12. Is your turnaround plan sufficiently supported by extra funding and outside resources? 13. Are those resources sufficient to provide for substantial planning, collaboration, and training time for staff? 14. Do you have the authority to adjust curriculum and programming to suit your school’s priorities and support the turnaround plan, within a larger framework of program-related decisions made by your district? 15. Are you free to make choices and respond to crises with a minimum of compliance-driven oversight? 16. Do you have the authority to shape the way your school works by creating teacher leadership positions and differentiating responsibilities? 17. Will you and your leadership team be provided, as part of the turnaround plan, with professional development to increase your expertise in turnaround management? 18. Do you currently have the technology, systems, and analysis expertise necessary to implement the frequent formative assessment and feedback that is central to increasing performance in high-risk populations? 19. Do you feel that you have been provided with unambiguous expectations and clear measures of accountability to help you bring urgency to the work of turning around student performance at your school?

We Must Be Ready!

In recent years, there has been significant research done in the area of school improvement and turning low-performing schools around, particularly in schools that are high in poverty. Research in the area of school “turnarounds” has yielded the most significant results for high-poverty and low-performing schools because as a group they need the most assistance. The readiness factors are: Readiness to Learn --Since students living in poverty enter school already well behind their peers, and that gap only widens over time, it is imperative that schools operate in ways that address these deficiencies immediately and consistently. • Safety, discipline, and engagement. A calm and orderly environment is a prerequisite for learning. From the very first day, a student enrolls they will be expected to participate in the calm and orderly environment. Without it, little else can follow. Students living in poverty face extreme difficulties, and the school environment often reflects this. High poverty schools that beat the odds go the extra mile to support each child through each day and to create an atmosphere that facilitates critical connections between adults and students that is safe and orderly. And while we focus relentlessly on achievement in core academic areas, our school will employ curricula and instructional approaches that reflect a broad-based set of techniques, content, and experiences to engage and inspire each student to learn. Research shows that such robust curricula, coupled with project-based and other learner-centered instructional techniques, are a critical element of success for HPHP students. • Action against adversity. Schools must counter the deficits students living in poverty bring to school every day by offering nutritious meals, medical exams and services, and behavior-based training that set students and parents up for success. We must ensure that the teaching staff has human services training themselves, so they better understand the life circumstances of their students and have the basic skills to address them effectively in their classrooms. • • Close student–adult relationships. A major success factor of high-performing, high-poverty schools lies within our ability to forge close relationships with students as the single most powerful lever for encouraging success to a population who primarily come from homes of poverty. We must make personal connections that reach out to our students on an individual level. Readiness to teach—Everything is about “learning” which is the “result” of effective “teaching.” For us to be successful, the entire staff has to take responsibility for student achievement through strategies such as personalized instruction based on diagnostic assessment, flexible time on task, and a teaching culture that stresses collaboration and continuous improvement. The “Professional Learning Communities” model that emphasizes constant collaboration and data analysis will be the foundation of our organizational structure. Three crucial elements support a school’s readiness to teach: • Shared responsibility for achievement. The entire community, students, parents, teachers, and often other community members must be intensively and relentlessly focused on raising student achievement. Adults are motivated to change their own behavior to better assist students in reaching success. Expectations are set high, and the entire school community is engaged in facilitating students’ success. • Personalized instruction. High-performing high-poverty schools organize instruction around a short feedback loop of formative assessment, adapted instruction, further formative assessment, and further adapted instruction. The high-performing high-poverty schools employ the data-driven decision-making techniques of typical standards-driven school reforms but do so with more intensity. The assessments are highly targeted (often no more than 4-5 items) and frequently given (sometimes weekly); results are analyzed by teams within a day or two; and instruction is tailored in multiple ways to address gaps. Small group instruction, individual tutoring, and other strategies that explicitly address specific student misconceptions and learning challenges are immediately implemented after group analysis of student learning trends and individual cases. Assessment is seen by teachers and students alike as a critical tool for learning, rather than a disconnected chore or stressful high-stakes activity. • • Professional teaching culture. Teachers in high-poverty schools must work together and function collaboratively, focusing on formative and ongoing assessments of student learning, every week and often every day. Typical practices should include professional learning communities, joint planning time, and group reviews of student work. We will provide the time and support to facilitate these tasks, which are seen by everyone as a crucial part of their work, rather than an additional obligation. We will require team-based, school-wide professional development that is focused directly on improving instruction and achievement. Attendance at professional development is required and not optional. It is an “ongoing” process and not a one-time event. Readiness to act—School leaders will have the ability to make mission-driven decisions about people, time, money, and programs. They must be adept at securing additional resources, leveraging partner relationships, and developing creative responses to constant unrest. The ability to face the unique challenges of a HPHP school must be in the hands of the personnel who work with students daily. These elements support a school’s readiness to act: • Resource authority—High-performing, high-poverty schools’ resource authority shows up across the gamut of school operations: the daily schedule, often the annual school calendar, the way teachers collaborate with each other and participate in school decision-making, the allocation of the school’s budget and the very nature of instruction will be determined by results. In other words, the team has to be able to make adjustments to the functioning of the organization. • Resource ingenuity—To accomplish what needs to be done, Principal and staff find every mechanism and tap every organization or group they can. We will employ a performance-based pay system that will reward teachers for performance, based on the results of the whole student population, parent approval ratings, student attendance, teachers’ attendance and graduation rates. Acquisition of teaching skills is an expectation that does not warrant additional pay and will be built in the overall schedule. Internal personnel evaluation is considered a group responsibility not a “us versus them” approach. Goals should be realistic and will be reevaluated annually. The staff will hold each other responsible for results, as well as evaluations by administration. • Agility in the face of turbulence—We must find ways to overcome the constant turbulence of a high-poverty school—and be flexible enough to solve problems that crop up each day. This agility is essential to tackle the endless stream of circumstances that conspire to disrupt a school’s readiness to teach and readiness to learn. Responding to rapidly changing and difficult situations requires flexibility and persuasion, rather than rigidity and adherence to narrow standards of operational practice. Research shows that a strong culture of accountability in the face of constant unrest helps establish the expectations among adults and students alike that everyone is working together to tackle the tough work of reaching proficiency. Resiliency --In addition, we must foster a sense of resiliency in our students, defined as the capacity to succeed in spite of adversity or life stressors. Considerable research has shown that students can overcome adversity and in some circumstances can use adversity as a springboard to growth and success. Providing resilient students with the educational skills at all levels will give these students an important internal resource – knowledge – that cannot be affected by external circumstances (e.g. poverty) that are beyond one’s control. In order to achieve our mission of educating resilient students, all members of a school community should adhere to the following core guiding principles: we will set and meet high expectations; we will contribute to the global community; we will exercise choice wisely; and we will get to know one another and allow others to know us.

How Do We Address Schools of Poverty?

In 1994, the Improving America’s Schools Act introduced the concept of holding schools accountable for student performance on state assessments. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 changed that by requiring a regimen of annual testing in grades 3 through 8 and by imposing sanctions on schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress. In the school year 2006–07, 70 percent of 98,905 schools nationwide (64,546) made adequate yearly progress; 10,676 schools were designated as schools in need of improvement; and 2,302 schools were designated as schools in need of improvement restructuring. These schools generally have explored a variety of strategies to improve student achievement, but without rapid or clear success. The reasons they have not been successful are complex and multi-faceted. The strongest issues that have not been addressed very effectively in NCLB are students of poverty; school cultural environment; quality and training of teachers; and the effectiveness of administration. Unfortunately, No Child Left Behind has not been designed to address these issues in a specific fashion. Requiring “high quality” teachers in the classroom based on an arbitrary measure is not enough. At the same time, the issues that face schools attempting to meet the educational needs of Hispanic and Latino populations are compounded by the fact that not only are there language barriers, many times there are learning barriers created by the lack of education in their native language. Migration, war, lack of education facilities, cultural and economic circumstances can all interrupt a student's formal education. Because some students enter a U.S. school with limited or even no history of schooling, they may lack understanding of basic concepts, content knowledge, and critical thinking skills. They may not even read or write in their home language. Nevertheless, they will be expected to develop higher-order thinking skills in English. Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE) are “the highest of high-risk students” (Walsh, 1999). Although the needs of the SIFE population may overlap with those of English language learners (ELL) in general, students with interrupted formal education most often require additional assistance in acquiring fundamental skills that many English language learners already possess. To meet the needs of all our urban students it will require something more than incremental change. We must examine and utilize practices to raise and sustain student achievement within one to three years, not the four to five that many educational change theorists advocate. It is our strong belief that we must use the “New-Model” for education as laid out by the Gates Foundation and the MASS Insight and Research Institute in “The Turnaround Challenge” research to meet the needs of all our students. ISECP will address the major components that research has determined will make urban school students successful. We will also enhance our odds for success with all students by teaching our staff the cultural traditions, norms, practices, values, and learning styles that can enable education professionals to effectively deliver services and connect with culturally different individuals on a deeper level. However, it is critical to keep in mind that all individuals, children, and families are unique; although their ethnic, cultural, and language backgrounds may influence them, they are not fully defined by them. Therefore, differences should be viewed as guidelines, not absolutes; serving to enhance services and communication, rather than to stereotype individuals. The goal of cultural learning is insight, not stereotype. General descriptions and guidelines will not apply to every person or situation, simply because there will always be exceptions when describing individuals. The barriers and walls between cultures begin to crumble when we further our understanding of others’ differences, respect their points of view, and strive toward cultural competence. An expanding body of research affirms that teaching and counseling students with interventions that are congruent with the students' learning-style preferences result in their increased academic achievement and more positive attitudes toward learning.

Curriculum and Staff Development Good or Bad?

Unfortunately, the attitude reflected in the title of this lecture is the attitude that many principals have regarding curriculum and staff development. There are many reasons that this may be the case, but primarily it is because our training in this area is usually limited. We see staff development as something we “have” to do each year at the beginning of the year and a few other times during the year on staff development days. Curriculum is something we have to make sure our teachers know, or have access to in the form of curriculum “guides.” Many times none of the activities or documents associated with the two seem very important to the way things really are. Wrong! These are the two most critical components of being a principal. If you have a staff that is poorly trained, they will perform poorly. If you do not have curriculum that is aligned with the expectations for your school, you will fail. So if we do not become very competent in these two areas we will have poor performing staffs that will fail! So what is our role as principals in these two areas? First, we must be familiar enough with the development of curriculum that we can provide some leadership in its development. Not that we are curriculum experts, but that we know the function of curriculum and what it should do and look like. Today we cannot afford to have schools that are not curriculum driven. We need a plan to get where we are intending to go and curriculum has to be the road map. We must at least be familiar with terms such as “frontloading,” “backloading,” and curriculum alignment. We must be able to determine whether or not we have “vertical” alignment and how it all fits together. The days when we can sit on the sidelines and hope for the best are long gone. Second, we must be knowledgeable enough about research to know that staff development is the most critical component of successful schools. We cannot make changes or grow a staff that is effective without solid staff development. For example, I have been involved in staff development for twenty-five years and I have seen many different delivery models. As a result of this experience and my studies about staff development I have come to the conclusion that as much as 90% of staff development is wasted time and money. Wow! That seems like a lot! Much staff development concentrates on delivering new knowledge in a large dose and then there is no real follow up. This model does not work! We must have staff development that is relevant and directly connected to accomplishing the mission and vision of your school. If it is not connected, do not do it! The day when we can send staff to that “conference” that they have attended for years just because, is over. We must make sure that it is directly linked back to the improvement plans of the campus, if not they cannot go. I know this would create some discontent, but that is where the leadership, including campus leaders, must help determine the purpose of staff development and where the funds will be spent. Of course, I am aware that sometimes the “district” may be the ones who determine your staff development, but you must take an active role in its development if you want your campus to succeed. There are many questions that still remain to be answered in today’s modern education along the lines of curriculum and staff development. For example, how do we use modern technology to help our kids learn? Computers have been around for years, but their actual usefulness is questionable at times. We use them more for bookkeeping tasks rather than true instructional tools. It is not an easy task to get teachers to integrate technology and what does that mean? Integrate – to become a part of something. How do we design curriculum to integrate technology? This is one of those things that will be crucial to you as principal. You will undoubtedly have teachers who refuse to integrate and couldn’t if they wanted to due to lack of skills. This is not an easy task. I would advise any principal who wants to be successful to make sure they have honed their curriculum leadership skills and their understanding of an effective staff development program. Teachers must also be included in the processes that develop both of these. As a principal, you must create opportunities for these activities to take place. That means you must make the “time” for this to happen. That means you must be flexible and creative in the use of training time and curriculum development. At first, teachers will complain about being out of their classroom for these activities, but as they see the results begin to take place in their classrooms long term, they will be much more supportive. I recently, enticed teachers to come in for three days to align curriculum K-12 by paying them a stipend. Initially, they were skeptical, but as the days progressed they suddenly realized the significance of what they were doing and they have volunteered to do more in a shorter period of time than I could have ever hoped for. This is powerful stuff! Get good at it!

Equal Opportunity Education or Equitable Education?

“Equality of Education” does not mean we have “Equity of Education.” Many times politicians and educators alike hold discussions about the topics without a true understanding of the real difference between the two. At the same time, they make the mistake of envisioning the two topics as one and the same. However, they are completely different ideas! I can spend “equal” amounts of money to educate a child in different surroundings and get completely unrelated results. As a matter of fact, many times children of poverty and minorities have more “dollars” spent on their education with second-rate results. This should certainly cause us to question what is being done with the “dollars” that are being billed to the education of children. What we must strive for is “Equity of Education.” We want “all” children to learn and perform well. If we measure children’s learning we should get the same results for all our students no matter their economic standing or ethnicity. Teachers say that they present their learning materials to “all” their students “equally” and it is the student’s “responsibility” to “learn” it through “hard work” and “applying” themselves. We certainly want to teach children responsibility and hard work as critical to success in life, however, responsibility and hard work alone does not “cause” learning. Acting responsibly and applying themselves does not equal “learning ability,” nor does it take into account cultural differences and the impact of poverty on individual learning no matter what race. Students may “apply” themselves and “work hard” every day and still not end up with “equity of education.” Without the proper educational tools and the proper training in place educators will not succeed in getting equity in their results. The performance gaps just keep growing wider if not taken into account in the classroom daily. Many educators today will argue that they are equal opportunity educators and they resent being told that they are ineffective because their results are skewed. The problem is that going into a classroom and teaching everyone there the material as a teacher deems appropriate does not provide “equity” in results as proven when tests are given and when seniors can graduate from school without even being able to read.

“Are You Ready for a School Turnaround” by Dr. Rudy L Duran

Before you can begin the process of a School Turnaround, you have to ask some questions that must be addressed. 1. Have key members of your staff had a leadership role in shaping your school turnaround plan? 2. Has the planning team benefited significantly from unbiased outside support? 3. Has the process moved swiftly in order to meet a deadline, and has it been driven in part by clear criteria set by the state? 4. Is your work supported by a lead turnaround partner that will help put your school in the best possible position to meet your student achievement goals? 5. Does your district or state provide you with a choice of support services tailored to meet the needs of a high-poverty setting and to your school’s priorities? 6. Does administration have the authority to shape your school staff to so that you are best positioned to implement the plan? 7. Does the school have the ability to recruit: hiring and placement; freedom from seniority rules, bumping and force-placing; ability to adjust positions to suit student needs? 8. Do the schools have the choice of removal: discretion to excess teachers who are not performing or are unwilling to participate fully in the turnaround plan for the school? 9. Does the school have the ability to differentiate compensation, providing bonus incentives to attract high quality teachers and/or performance or responsibility-related pay? 10. Do you, your turnaround partner, and your leadership team have the authority (and resources) to adjust your school’s schedule to suit the needs of your students and instructional approach? 11. Do you and your turnaround leadership team have discretion over budget allocation to support your mission? 12. Is your turnaround plan sufficiently supported by extra funding and outside resources? 13. Are those resources sufficient to provide for substantial planning, collaboration, and training time for staff? 14. Do you have the authority to adjust curriculum and programming to suit your school’s priorities and support the turnaround plan, within a larger framework of program-related decisions made by your district? 15. Are you free to make choices and respond to crises with a minimum of compliance-driven oversight? 16. Do you have the authority to shape the way your school works by creating teacher leadership positions and differentiating responsibilities? 17. Will you and your leadership team be provided, as part of the turnaround plan, with professional development to increase your expertise in turnaround management? 18. Do you currently have the technology, systems, and analysis expertise necessary to implement the frequent formative assessment and feedback that is central to increasing performance in high-risk populations? 19. Do you feel that you have been provided with unambiguous expectations and clear measures of accountability to help you bring urgency to the work of turning around student performance at your school?

Change in Education by Dr. Rudy L Duran

We are about to enter into a discussion about the most critical aspect of being a board member, superintendent, principal or the leader of any educational organization in the twenty-first century. The question that we must ask ourselves is, do we need a change? Change in education has always been with us. The difference is the way we go about change in this modern era of education. The day when we can make decisions about change based on the latest greatest flavor is past. Do you mean that we need a valid reason for the change? Absolutely! The problem we see with much of the change that we see in education today is that it is based on poor data or no data at all. We constantly hear the notion that we have seen this or that before in education. Well, that may or may not be a valid observation. We certainly see things that are at least related to one another many times. This may be in part because the fundamental principles that govern how we learn have not changed. We do occasionally discover a better way to get the results we want, but the founding principles of learning stay the same. Only research in areas surrounding the study of the “brain” function do we occasionally find something new. The Program Approach Instead, we see “programs” that are packaged and repackaged to be “sold” on the open market for profit. The number of fliers that I receive on a daily basis is phenomenal, each promising the solution to all of our problems. So, do we need a change? Yes! We need change because we are not getting the results in many educational institutions because we practice things that have never been effective, just tolerated. For example, when you study the research concerning the way most people learn, you will find that very few learn by “auditory” methods. And yet, you can go into most of the secondary classrooms today and still find teachers “lecturing” using the “sage on the stage” techniques of the nineteen fifties. Students who do not learn well through auditory methods will be struggling, and students who do will be succeeding. The others who do well can read texts or have informal discussions with classmates that allow them to survive. Those who have none of these resources will fail. Schools all over the country buy programs every day, as we try and patch the system we have in a place called, education. If we do recognize a genuine problem, we look around for a program that will fix it! How has that worked for us!? It has not worked, and yet we continue to try this approach. Even though “some” programs do have some initial success, most of the time there is no “follow through” and before long we are looking for the next flavor. It has created a very cynical teaching staff in many instances and caused them to be very skeptical. So, in essence, the “program” approach has failed and will continue to fail as long as it is used in its current form. Systemic Change So, what do we do? We need to make a “systemic” change in our organizations. What do I mean when I say systemic change? Well, first of all we have to recognize the fact that our schools are “cultures” that operate on a set of norms every day. In other words, we have a “way” we do things around here. This “way” is the “culture” that has evolved over time. For example, if a student is tardy, there is a “way” that we deal with that. If a teacher is incompetent, there is a “way” that we deal with that. If we change the curriculum, there is a “way” we do that. All of these processes and responses roll into what we call a system. There are other components in any system, but that is not my focus for this discussion. We want to look at the need for change and how we can cause that to happen in a positive fashion. Change is something that happens in every successful organization in the world that is continuously getting better. This is true in business, education, religion or politics. Change must take place, or the organization is standing still and it will ultimately pass away. Businesses who refuse to change find themselves lapped by the competition. An example would be the American car industry in the seventies and eighties. Detroit was so sure they would never be bested that they refused to change. Along come the Japanese, who, by the way, used the processes of an American by the name of Deming to do it, and produce a better car product than the Americans. The result, the American cars we drive today are ten times better than they were back then! Why, because they had to change or be put out of business. No One Can Replace Us One of the problems we face in education is the fact that we know there is no one who can replace us. So, we resist change because we do not see the need since there is no one who can do what we do. It was not until recent years; in this age of accountability that we have been pressured to examine what we are doing and whether or not we are making the grade. As leaders in education, we must face the fact that we must get better at what we are doing for the sake of our society. No longer can we face change kicking screaming that it will go away. With someone looking over our shoulders, rightly or wrongly, we know that we must make every effort to get better. The results around the country have been excellent in some places and not so good in others. Inevitably as someone associated with education, you are going to be faced with the possibility, and the high probability that change in your schools are necessary. Leading Change Through my studies and experiences I have spent a significant amount of time searching for the best way to lead change because I am driven to be the best. I will not accept second rate for any institution that I am associated. The education business is too important to the lives that we touch to be anything but the best. In my studies, I’ve adapted the eight principles of change that are put forth by John Kotter. First, There has to be a sense of urgency. Educators need a reason to change! If you can establish a reason for a change, it becomes much easier to bring the staff on board. You do this by looking at data and identifying problems that exist in your school. Once you have discovered these reasons together, then you can move the organization forward. Second, you need to put your teams together. This is where your discussions regarding learning communities come into play. Establish teams to address specific components of a problem or individual problems. As educators, these teams must be “empowered” to make decisions and proposals that will be acted upon. Third, you need to lead in the establishment of a vision that is more than words on a piece of paper. What will schools look like when you are finished and what will the results be academically when it is all said and done? What will be the strategies used to get where you want to go? This is where your leadership will be so important! Fourth, communicate, communicate, communicate, and communicate some more! Constantly repeat the vision! Keep it before the staff, kids, parents, and community. Paste it on the walls! Put it on the billboard! Put it in the paper! Say something about it every time you meet! Fifth, Look for ways to tear down barriers! If the answer is no at a higher level, try somewhere else. Make sure you do not take no for an answer until you have talked to the person who can make the decision. Do not be stopped by bureaucrats! If the final answer is no from the top, reload and work around the barrier. Get grants; ask the community, whatever it takes to get the job done! Sixth, Create ways to have short term wins. I always push very hard when I first enter an organization to create a short-term win. This is painful sometimes, but when the results start to take place the turn around in attitudes is phenomenal! Seventh, when you start getting the short-term gains, let them create the groundwork for future change. Make them a part of the school culture. Make the expectation that you will get better become a part of the way you do business in your school. You will do whatever it takes to get the job done! Eighth, reinforce the culture in a way that will sustain the systemic processes no matter who is in the driver seat. Schools that I have worked with to develop this continuous improvement culture had never returned to the way it was before I came. Once the culture is created and reinforced by the leadership, it becomes self-sustaining. Past Accomplishments 1) Victoria, Texas is a multicultural town with high poverty. The San Antonio media had recently highlighted the middle school that I was assigned to as a hot spot for gangs. It was not performing well academically, and all of the other problems compounded the situation. In my tenure there we were able to stop the gang activity on campus and raise test scores significantly. An example was the 40% increase in math scores for our African American males. (See Attached) 2) Clear Creek High School, a school, set in a suburban district, it was steeped in a tradition of mediocrity. In my tenure, we were able to change the dynamics of the culture and the results we were getting academically for all of our kids. We narrowed the performance gap between all populations and set it on the course it is on today, exemplary performance. Upon arriving at Clear Creek, I was faced with the attitude from the staff that they were getting “pretty good results” and that they were satisfied with that level of achievement. They were also convinced that they could not do any better. When I left, we had gone from our kids scoring in the 50-70 percent proficient range on all tests to scoring in the 88-94 percent proficient range in all testing categories. The continuous improvement processes we put in place during those years are still in place today. Why would you abandon success? 3) I came to the Dallas ISD with a major challenge. I was assigned a high school that was an inner city and forty-eight percent English as a Second Language population and 90% poverty. I was informed that in spite of the fact that they had a slight increase in testing scores the previous year, the staff anticipated horrible results for the current year because the students in the tested classes were much lower. We implemented the change in processes that I advocate in the school and had significant increases in test scores in every category and subpopulation but one and as much as 40% in some groups. Although I had to leave this assignment early due to a family crisis, we had set the foundation for change and improvement in the school and for several years after they continued to improve. 4) I entered the field of higher education with the idea that I could train others to do the things that I had been so successful at in the public schools. I was asked to rewrite the curriculum for the Educational Leadership program at the University of Central Arkansas. It was to be based on the ISLLC standards and to be performance based. We succeeded in this undertaking and taught cohorts of students based on performance modules vs. disjointed course work. Nearly every student we trained is a current practicing administrator. Those who are not yet administrators are not by choice. Although we were very successful, I missed the day-to-day challenges of the public schools and returned to become a superintendent. I had trained superintendents at the University, and I realized that the quality of candidates was decreasing and that I could be more useful to children by serving as a superintendent.