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On Dec. 15, 1993, The Public Strategies Group became the first private-sector organization to be assigned the responsibility of leading an entire school district. We were contracted to perform the functions usually assigned to the superintendent and provide the leadership necessary to improve student achievement.
We signed the contract with the Minneapolis school board in November, and I took on the role of superintendent a month later. Although I had spent many years in both the private sector and public service outside of K-12 education, I have learned and relearned many lessons about leadership during the past three years.
What follows is a chronological, if slightly fractured, recounting of the lessons I have learned as superintendent along with some thoughts on what I think it will take for public education to restore public support.
January 1994
I had been on the job only a month. My family and I were celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday and our wedding anniversary during a day off from work. We had gone to a movie in the afternoon. As we drove home the radio said that the temperature already had dropped to 15 below zero with a wind chill of 34 below. The forecast was even worse. It looked like this would be the coldest night in recent memory. What, I wondered, does a superintendent do when it gets really cold?
I found the answer when I got home: 57 phone messages were waiting for me from anxious parents, students, and teachers. "Close the schools," they all said. I was totally unprepared. At no time during the endless interviews had anyone ever mentioned that it was up to me to decide whether we would have school or not.
I was saved that night when the governor declared a weather emergency and closed all schools in the state. That was just fine with me. It meant I could go to the office to get caught up. However, from the moment I set foot in the office that morning the phones started ringing. At first I heard about the forecast of continued cold weather and the need to close schools again the next day. As the day wore on I began hearing more and more (with voices increasingly desperate) about the need to "get these darn kids back in school." By the end of the day the callers were evenly divided and extremely emotional!
That's when I learned Lesson No. 1: It doesn't matter what you decide, you're wrong!
Once I mastered this, the work became a lot easier. In fact, I found this lesson to be downright liberating. It means that when we are faced with really tough choices, we as leaders can and should do what we think is best for the students, knowing full well that others inevitably will disagree. (For your information: it was awfully cold the next day, but school was open.)
March 1994
I learned the second lesson on the sidewalk in front of a school I was visiting. I was in the midst of trying to visit every school--all 85 in our district. This particular morning I had arranged to take the bus to school with the students. That would have been fine but for the fact we were joined by both a television crew and a newspaper photographer. The kids just couldn't resist the temptation to show off for the cameras. As a result, the ride was wild!
There we were driving around south Minneapolis with lights flashing and students whooping it up. By the time we arrived at school, everything was at a fever pitch.
The cameras were the first ones off the bus. Then the students and I lined up and started down the aisle. When I got to the front I turned and thanked the bus driver for doing such a good job under such extreme circumstances. She looked up to say, "You're welcome," and utter the words I shall never forget, "Don't forget to use the hand rail."
I was still thinking I knew better as I sprawled face first on the sidewalk. I had missed both the hand rail and the first step.
Lesson No. 2: Listen to the people around you. They can keep you from falling flat on your face.
Leadership is too big a job to do alone. Leadership requires paying attention to those who can and want to help. Although most of us do not fall flat on our face quite so literally, we have plenty of other opportunities. We need all the help we can get.
Same Day
After I picked myself up off the sidewalk I went in to visit the school. I started at breakfast. There I met Amisha. She was very nice to interrupt her meal to talk to me. I quickly found out that Amisha was in second grade. I asked her, "Do you like school, Amisha?" "Yes," she said, "I love school." I couldn't resist. "What is it about school that you really like?" "Well," she said, "it's my teacher."
Intrigued I just plowed ahead. (Someone taught me once to always ask three "why" or "what" questions if you want to gain real insight.) "What is it about your teacher that you really like?" Without hesitation Amisha taught me one of the most important lessons. "She's proud of us!" came her words.
I was stunned. I don't know what I was expecting--probably something about recess or show and tell. Instead I got the chance to see that the real difference between education and other enterprises is passion.
Lesson No. 3: The most important thing is to believe in the students.
Leadership means focusing the passion of an organization on what really matters--meeting the needs of those we serve.
Summer 1994
Even on vacation there are lessons to be learned. In 1994 our family took a car trip from Minnesota to Wyoming and back. Here, in brief, is the story.
Day 2: Car overheats outside of Cheyenne. Can't find a motel. There are thousands of people in Cheyenne for their summer festival. Even the Motel 6 is charging $175. Drive instead to Fort Collins, Colo., another hour away. Day 3: Nice day walking around Fort Collins while they replace the mini-van's water pump and hoses. Car then overheats half way up the Rocky Mountains but we make it over the top.
Day 4: We limp into Jackson, Wyo. Day 7: Car overheats again. Day 8: Apparently we need a new radiator. It has to be flown in from Salt Lake City. Day 11: We get the radiator, see Yellowstone, and end up in Livingston, Mont.
Day 12: Up early to start home. A small puddle of radiator fluid has formed under one of the hose clamps. No problem. I take out my trusty Swiss army knife and ... the hose explodes! At the garage they tell us the hoses we got in Fort Collins weren't installed properly. New hoses are installed and we are on our way. Forty miles outside Bismark, N.D., driving in a light rain at 75 miles per hour the right front tire explodes. Day 13: New tires are mounted, and we make it home.
Now you might think this was one horrible vacation. Quite the contrary. We actually got to all the places we had planned to visit. And we pulled together as a family and dealt successfully with what came our way.
Lesson No. 4: Things don't have to be perfect to be successful.
Leadership means making progress every day toward our goals--in spite of the obstacles we may confront.
Summer 1995
Another trip. This time we flew. We met relatives in Oregon and went camping in the mountains. What a spot! Tall trees, fast-moving trout stream, clear skies.
The four of us settled down in our cozy tent. In the middle of the night it happened. Our oldest rolled over in her sleeping bag and said the words that strike fear in thehearts of every parent. "Ohhh, I don't feel so well." As we jumped up in response she proceeded to throw up all over every thing and every one. This was followed by near panic as we tried to simultaneously calm everyone down and clean things up, all in the pitch dark. We finally succeeded in reassuring all concerned that things were fine and that in the morning everything would be better.
Lesson No. 5: When you're in the dark, things look a lot better than they really are.
Leadership requires optimism, even when it isn't warranted. After all we spend a lot of our time operating in the dark. Education is an act of faith, of belief in the future. As leaders we must believe and help others believe as well.
April 1995
I was driving to a meeting with our building principals when I heard on the radio that it was the 50th anniversary of the death of Franklin Roosevelt. As I listened I was struck byone overriding realization: FDR never had a good day. He became president while the nation was in its worst economic depression. Before it ended we were plunged into World War II. The war was still under way when FDR died. He never had a good day. But Franklin Roosevelt is remembered as one of this country's and the world's greatest leaders.
Lesson No. 6: Leaders make their own good days.
Now is the time to lead, no matter how tempting it might be to want to wait for better times.
Spring 1996
I was out visiting schools when I happened upon a second grader who gave me the best job description I've ever had. She was in a classroom of pretty diverse and excited youngsters.
When I was introduced, the teacher told them I was the superintendent and asked if anyone knew what a superintendent was. Hands started shooting up, the students anxious to respond. One little boy said, "I know, he's in charge of supernintendo!" (Don't I wish.) "No," said the teacher, "he's the leader of our schools. Who knows what a leader is?" Over in the corner was a girl who looked like she was going to jump out of her skin if I didn't call on her. Her answer stopped me cold.
Lesson No. 7: "A leader is someone who gets things done to make things better" (her words)
She's certainly got it right. As Robert Greenleaf said in his book Servant Leadership, leaders are accountable for making those they serve "healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous."
The fact that our students already know this puts a special burden on us to "get things done that make things better." Education is being challenged in a big way, relentlessly, to improve, to restructure, to better meet the needs of students and our changing communities.
The reality on which all observers of public education agree is that we are not producing results adequate to the needs of the 21st century. That is not the same as saying the system has failed. In many ways it has been and continues to be a marvelous success.
This system of education has been the foundation for the greatest industrial democracy in the world, the strongest economy combined with the most extensive and successful system of democratic rule the world has ever known.
But that system is not changing fast enough to meet the demands of a much different world, one that is transforming itself at an unprecedented pace. In the context of such rapid change, the system we invented and supported for 100 years is not good enough. It must change.
Five Myths
Unfortunately, much of the thinking about how to change public education is held prisoner by ideologies that are frozen in time. These ideologies are the source of five great myths about improving education.
Myth No. 1: More is better.
Those who subscribe to this myth believe that the machinery of education isn't working because there isn't enough of it. If only there were more teachers, more schools, more days, more hours, and more central controls, education would work.
But more of what we've got is not what we need. We need better.
Myth No. 2: Less is better.
At the other extreme are those who believe that the machinery of education isn't working because it is too big. For them the answers lie in less: fewer special programs, fewer teacher aides, smaller central bureaucracies.
But less is not what we need either. Our problem is not that our children are overeducated, it's that they are not appropriately educated for the needs of the 21st century.
Myth No. 3: Private is better.
These true believers think that the machinery of education isn't working because it is public--and public bureaucracies won't and can't produce what we need. For them, privatization is the answer.
But there is nothing inherently superior about a private bureaucracy's ability to adequately meet our needs. After all, while the public sector was producing $200 hammers--the private sector was producing the Edsel, the pet rock, green mail, some of the most massive job layoffs and economic dislocations in the history of the world. They also were successfully enticing our students to smoke and drink. Should we trust our children's education to the people who produced those results?
Myth No. 4: Get the right people and you will get a better result.
These folks believe that the machinery of education isn't working because it is being run by nincompoops. But W. Edwards Deming taught us long ago that the source of the problem is not the people but the system in which they work. Immersed in the brine of bureaucracy, even the most creative cucumber soon becomes a pickle!
Myth No. 5: Money talks.
People who subscribe to this myth believe that we can flood or starve the machinery into producing what we want. The facts, however, suggest that while resources count, they don't count in the ways that many assume. There are both high- and low-spending districts producing unacceptable results. Furthermore, it's not the money but the results that are the real issue. People will pay almost any amount for a quality education. It's the quality that counts.
What We Need
These myths are dangerous because they get us focused on the wrong issues. The issue isn't whether the machinery of education is too big or too small, whether it's owned and operated by a public or private bureaucracy or by the right people, or whether it needs more or fewer resources. The issue is that we need a better machine, one that produces better results.
Education reform needs to be about creating that better machine. We will get it either by transforming totally the machine we have (riding the bicycle while rebuilding it) or we will replace it with an alternative (charters, vouchers, etc.).
Regardless of the path we choose, transforming education requires us to leave behind our ideologies, to leave behind some of the most ingrained habits and beliefs that govern education today. The transformation requires us to move:
- from accepting good intentions to rewarding achievement of results;
- from a system in which people follow rules to one in which people chase a sense of purpose;
- from a system that assigns people to its choices to one that serves people with their choices;
- from control over inputs to accountability for outcomes;
- from organizations steeped in the traditions of bureaucracy to ones challenged by the imperatives of service; and
- from an ethic of distrust and mistrust to a culture of high expectation.
The Five C's
In their new book, Banishing Bureaucracy, David Osborne and Peter Plastrick identify five strategies for any organization that hopes to win the competition for public support. They call these The Five C's: Core, Customer, Consequences, Control, and Culture.
No. 1: The Core
Success requires being clear about purpose, direction, and on what constitutes success. Schools have taken on too many responsibilities and lost the focus on what needs to be at the core of what they do. We need to reassert that the moral purpose of our schools is to ensure that all students learn. Success must be defined in terms of a challenging and relevant curriculum with high standards for all students. Schools will get what they expect, and need to expect a lot.
No. 2: The Customer
Students and their families are our primary customers. They give our work its purpose. They also are critical to success. We need their support and engagement. We need a "covenant for learning" that makes all of us mutually accountable for student success. In return, families and students need our commitment to serve their needs. Our customers need the power to affect the quality of the service they receive through mechanisms such as choice and quality assurance.
No. 3: Consequences
Accountability requires four things: clear goals (the core), equally clear authority (control), lots of feedback, and a combination of rewards and penalties. Measurement and reporting are essential. Assessments must be tied to the goals of the system, especially the curriculum. Measurement and reporting provide feedback to the system, and feedback is the breakfast of champions. When people know the score they can and will get better. When they don't know, they can only get cynical.
A balanced system of consequences must include rewards and recognition for those who succeed, support for those who haven't yet succeeded to help them get there, and intervention for those who are not making it. A system that uses penalties as its only consequences will find itself only playing defense because there will be no support inside the system for success.
No. 4: Control
In a system with clear goals (core) and effective accountability mechanisms (consequences), we can make school sites the laboratories and centers for performance. Every school should:
- set performance goals for itself (within the context of districtwide performance expectations);
- be empowered with the authority to make the decisions necessary to achieve those goals;
- accept accountability for success and continuous improvement.
We also can move the central office out of the way. Make it a service center, rather than the center for command and control. Get to the point where everyone in the organization either serves students directly or serves someone who does. Make central-office staff accountable to those they serve. Let schools go somewhere else if they can't get the service and support they want and need from the central office.
No. 5: Culture
Finally, transforming education requires a new culture in public school organizations. Today's culture is one of fear, mistrust, isolation, and failure. The culture we have is the direct result of the bureaucratic revolution that took over public education a century ago. Achievement, courage, trust, and collaboration must become the hallmarks of our schools if they are to succeed. Interestingly, these are the very same qualities we want and prize in our students.
Leading Now
The transformation of education is under way. It will happen because our society will relentlessly demand it. We are still early in the process, stumbling along and trying to learn the lessons fast enough to be able to keep moving.
As school system leaders, we must be a part of this transformation. But we can't let our old ideologies and myths hold us back. We must press for and support the kinds of transformations necessary to the reinvention process. We must challenge all those who come to us with schemes for improvement to show how they've pursued the five critical strategic changes needed to transform education for our children and win the competition for public support.
Finally, we must remember the lessons of the children. The most important thing is to believe in them. They expect leaders to get things done to make things better. They are counting on us.
Peter Hutchinson is co-founder of The Public Strategies Group.
This article appeared in The School Administrator (January 1997)
© The Public Strategies Group, Inc.
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