In Brett Helm's post of March 23, 2011 he asked what a college going culture looked like.  Brett went on to detail a framework for determining what aspects go into creating that culture.  Recently, Brett and I had the opportunity to put this framework into practice by surveying school stakeholders and visiting one of our high schools in NYC.  Here is a snapshot of what we found.

The first part of the framework is “Knowledge and Expectations - The extent to which stakeholders know and understand student PSE & career opportunities.”  Based on stakeholder surveys, most respondents report to understand the value of high school.  They understand that high school is a launchpad to postsecondary plans.  The school has made strides in increasing attendance and retention which could be an indicator that more students understand the process of showing up to school, doing the work and being prepared to apply to college.  When you walk around school, several displays on bulletin boards make a direct connection with careers and the school also offers students membership in professional organizations.   Based on our survey results, parents of students expect their children to pursue postsecondary education and almost all of the educators in the school report do so as well and do things like coach students on their postsecondary options.

 
The second part of the framework is “Academic Behavior and Rigor - The extent to which academic opportunities are available and used, and how well students perform academically.”  Many states and districts are now requiring all high school curricula be “college preparatory” curricula.  This is the case in NYC and the school we visited offers AP classes, dual enrollment credits, and is pursuing additional outside accreditation.  One aspect of this indicator is the availability of technology and computers to students and this school has many computer labs and areas where students can access computers throughout the school. 

The third part of the framework is “Support, Structure, and Tools - The extent to which institutional supports, structure, & tools advance college-going efforts.”  This aspect of the framework includes student awareness of financial aid opportunities, dedicated college counseling and rewarding student improvement as it relates to postsecondary outcomes.  The school in NYC that we visited has outward displays of pictures of students and their academic achievements such as regents passed and credits earned.  The counselors have shared office space and students can visit with counselors or use the computers to print out college acceptance letters.  The school organizes FAFSA events where parents and students can fill out their FAFSA right then and there with professional help from community volunteers. 

The final aspect of the framework is “Signaling - The extent to which the educational community signals the importance of PSE planning and application.”  The walls of this NY school are covered with graduation caps and gowns, College Summit banners with student school acceptances are displayed prominently on a bulletin board, and College Summit milestones are reported on a chart in the hallway.  College banners line the walls of the counselors’ offices and teachers report integrating college going into their everyday classroom lessons.  Though these might seem like “fluffy” ways to encourage college going, they work!  Students see these messages every time they walk the halls in their schools and are reminded why they are there. 

Photo courtesy of College Summit Northern California

Though just a framework, we at College Summit believe that the four pieces of the puzzle here can guide schools through creating a college-going culture that will help more students get to and through college. 

A current hot trend in the school reform debate centers on the time we spent educating students and how that time is scheduled.

As usual with education debates, evaluation of what the data means is somewhat mixed.
Over the course of the past few years, efforts to reform the amount of time students are required to spend in the elementary and secondary pipeline have run in very different directions – just look at the efforts cited below.

• “Our K-12 system largely still adheres to the century-old, industrial-age factory model of education. A century ago, maybe it made sense to adopt seat-time requirements for graduation . . .” - Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education
• "There's no real apparent correlation between time and meeting AYP (adequate yearly progress)," -  Kathryn Matayoshi, Superintendent, Hawaii State Department of Education

In Indiana and Utah the traditional 13 year approach to the public school pipeline is undergoing review by the state legislatures. A coordinated effort to reduce the time from kindergarten to graduation by two full school years is underway in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. The positive effects of 4 day weeks  and shorter school  days on teachers, students and district finances has been the subject of studies painting a positive overall picture, and perhaps offering school systems a way to reduce cost without impacting students learning.

On the other hand, reform focused on lengthening both the school day and the academic calendar has been trending upward as well. These competing reform efforts collide in states like Indiana, where even as the state legislature looks to codify early graduation, Indianapolis schools propose a dramatic increase in seat time for all students. Longer school days are the focus of efforts in Chicago. The data on year-round schooling and extended school days show mixed results but the concept has the support of national leaders, including the President of the United States, who said, "(S)tudents are losing a lot of what they learn during the school year during the summer. ... The idea of a longer school year, I think, makes sense. Now, that's going to cost some money ..., but I think that would be money well spent."

As far as virtual schooling – that’s a subject for yet another blog post in the future. The discussion currently centers on quantifiable numbers, but what lies underneath the debate between more or less time in the classroom is a more complex qualitative issue. In a global study of intended instructional time and official school curricula,  Aaron Benavot defined instructional time as: “official time for non-instructional activities such as breaks, recesses, examinations and the like” He further states that: “Despite expectations to the contrary, there is no conclusive evidence of a worldwide increase in intended instructional time between the 1980s and 2000s . . . many systems in Southwest Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe reduced instructional time.”

Rather defining the debate in terms of seat time, should we be looking more closely at what qualifies as instructional time?  Elena Silva sets forth a qualitative approach to looking at reform in On the Clock: Rethinking the Way Schools Use Time focusing on the following questions:

•    How is time in school currently spent?
•    How much time is spent on academic instruction in a given school day and in a given class period?
•    How well are teachers able to cover the curriculum within existing time constraints?
•    Do problems stem from ineffective teaching or poor curriculum coverage relative to state standards?
•    How much time is lost to poor classroom management or “dead time,” when students are dozing or waiting for instruction?
•    Are events, field trips and testing schedules aligned to complement the curriculum?
•    Do teachers and students feel that they have enough time for learning and, if not, what do they want more time for?

If the time spent on task increases, is it reasonable to infer that total time spent in the school could actually decrease?

• “What matters most are those catalytic moments when students are absorbed in instructional activities that are adequately challenging, yet allow them to experience success…. Only when time is used more effectively will adding more of it begin to result in improved learning outcomes” - Julie Aronson, Joy Zimmerman, and Lisa Carlos 

Yesterday I had dinner with a young lady who just completed her 2nd year at Howard University.  This young lady is from the great city, Chicago, and is an alumnus of Richard T. Crane Technical Preparatory High School.  Why is this important?  Well not only am I from Chicago but I graduated from that same high school ages ago.

Long story short, our dinner hangout was long overdue.  From the conversation I learned that she did not have any family in the DC Metro area, and after her first year, she considered transferring to a school in Illinois.  That news brought sadness to my heart; I remember what it was like being away in school.  How lonely I felt, and I was JUST two hours away, I can’t imagine going back in time and being 13 hours away. When I heard her story last night, I immediately made a promise to be her family and become one of her mentors.

There are many resources online to help you be a more effective mentor. But great mentors come in many different shapes and sizes.  You don’t have to be wealthy or have a 5 page resume to reach out to someone. You don't even have to be an adult; College Summit Peer Leaders can mentor their peers, or younger students in the school. To be a great mentor, start with being yourself and sharing your story, just as I did with my mentee last night.

Did you know there is even a mentoring month? The National Mentoring Month  is January, but you can do it whenever. Take the time to volunteer as little as an hour of your time to teach someone.  Maybe you will learn something in return.  Give someone the pleasure of having you in their lives. Remember the youth of today is the future of our tomorrow.

During President Obama’s most recent State of the Union. Obama reinforced the notion that the United States must produce more college graduates in order to compete in a global economy.  Recent research now underscores the value of reading proficiency in elementary school, specifically 3rd grade, as a predictor for high school graduation. What does this mean for postsecondary educational attainment?

Third grade is an important benchmark both because it is a testing standard under NCLB, and third grade is typically the time when a student transitions out of learning how to read to reading critically. Without the development of those reading skills, students will falter through middle school and are unable to make explicit connections in their other academic subjects. Some schools stop teaching critical reading in middle school, so third grade becomes the only year in which the student can master this concept . Another alarming fact is that the learning often stops once the summer begins and students don’t open a book for three months during the summer vacation. This lack of preparation and inability to build off of the academic year snowballs into the later grades also affecting a student’s ability to write effectively.
One study (Hernandez 2011), released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, found that:

1. One in six children who are not reading proficiently in third grade do not graduate from high school on time. A rate four times greater than that for proficient readers.
2. Rates are higher for low and below-basic readers. Twenty-three percent of those children will drop out or not finish high school on time, compared to 9 percent of children with basic reading skills and 4 percent of proficient readers.
3. Taking poverty into account,  22 percent do not graduate from high school, compared to 6 percent of those who have never been poor
4. The rates were highest for poor Black and Hispanic children, 31 and 33 percent, respectively, or about eight time the rates of proficient readers

The study's recommendations include focusing on schools, families, and local, state, and federal governments:

1. A more integrated PreK-3rd grade approach to education focusing on (1) aligned curriculum, standards, and assessment from PreK through third grade; (2) consistent instructional approaches and learning environments; (3) availability of PreK for all children ages 3 and 4, as well as full-day kindergarten for older children; (4) classroom teachers who possess at least a bachelor’s degree and are certified to teach grades PreK-3rd; (5) small class sizes; and (6) partnershipbetween the school and families.
2. Effective instruction for students to catch up when absent from school
3. Improvement of health and human services, particularly for families who live at or below the poverty line.
4. More local, state, and federal policies that support comprehensive health programs and promote the PreK-3rd initiative.

Elementary academic preparation is now more important than ever if the U.S. wants to reassume its position as the number one producer of college graduates. So how is College Summit responding to this data?

In recent months, College Summit has expanded its reach from high school to the elementary and middle schools through our partnership with the city of New Haven, CT. This partnership, a first of its kind, will focus on building a college-going culture and preparing students for college and career success through our programmatic (9-12 grade) work in every high school in New Haven. In addition to our work with high schools, we are working with a cohort of K-12 educators in the district to develop age-appropriate messaging materials and benchmarks for use in communicating the importance of college and career to students in grades K-8. Besides working on their reading comprehension skills, younger students will begin to see the value and effort involved in attaining a college degree and will be more likely to work harder and more intelligently in high school. College Summit and the city of New Haven will work together to ensure that all young people in the city have the opportunity to launch to postsecondary success.

You can learn more about the New Haven PROMISE program here.

Schools are unique institutions that require special leaders. Given the complexity of school systems, principals must possess a set of skills that dynamically intertwine business practices, a spirit of civil servitude, and ultimately a sheer will for educating youth.

School leadership is a tough job, and those who are called to the role of the principalship must be prepared to face a barrage of challenges from multiple arenas. There was a time when the role of principal was viewed as a manager and a democratic leader who had very little direct interaction with students, and simply delegated task to adults. Today, that is no longer the paradigm for effective school leadership. Principals are now viewed as community leaders and moral agents of change. They are expected to interact with their students, train and motivate staff, encourage parent involvement, and engage the surrounding community. Oh, and let’s not forget, provide high quality equal education to ALL students.

Our seven principal consultants. Standing: Tajah Gross, Yetunde Reeves, Angelique Simpson-Marcus, Jeannie Johnson, Dolores Garcia-Blocker. Seated: Tom Williams and Julian Cazanas.

At College Summit, we’ve begun to explore the special role of the school leader in creating college-going culture by bringing together a cohort of our highest achieving school partners. With the generous support of the MetLife Foundation, we were able to bring together seven principal consultants from across the nation to develop a principal training and support program, which consists of  a suite of training modules focusing on equipping school leaders (principals and assistant principals) with the skills, knowledge and tools they need to build and lead a college-going culture in their school buildings. We hope to pilot these training modules at two-day events in select regions across our network this summer. We see these training events as being crucial to the success of our program, because, as one of our consultants put it so eloquently, “Principals need a roadmap and reference guide to efficiently and effectively create college-going cultures, because high schools need to be launchpads to college and career success.”

With so many demands placed upon principals, however, the need for continuous and on-going support and professional development is great. The School Leaders Network (SLN), headed by Founder and CEO Dr. Elizabeth Neale, is one such organization that is doing just that. College Summit was introduced to SLN, during a recent webinar discussing results from Metlife’s 2010 Annual Teacher Survey in which Dr. Neale served as the presenter. Given College Summit’s current initiatives around principal support and school program ownership, we hope to learn from the work Dr. Neale and SLN has done since their beginnings in 2000.
College Summit recognizes the tough task principals are faced with every day, and commend them for their dedication and commitment to educating our nation’s youth; we look forward to exploring all the ways we might provide support to our principals in their charge to establish strong sustainable college and career going cultures. Stay tuned to learn more about our pilot principal initiatives as they develop!

This week, I came across an interesting article about a chain of corporate-sponsored entertainment centers called KidZania that lets kids try on a variety of careers in a fun, game-like setting. The theory is that by exposing young people to different types of jobs they might choose in the future, they'll be more likely to make well-informed decisions today.

How did you first learn about the career you're in today?

Some of us decided on our dream careers at a young age, doggedly pursuing that dream throughout our entire educatioal experience. The rest of us -- perhaps the majority of us -- followed a winding and unpredictable path to a career that often looks nothing like the ill-informed and amorphous dreams of our childhood selves. Personally, I went through a series of fantasy jobs as a young person: palentologist, archaelogist, commercial artist, poet. Strangely, "educator" was nowhere on that list. Surely, exposure to career options is a huge part of that personal dream process.

But regardless of how we got to where we are today, most of us can pinpoint a time in our lives when we inspired to be or do something. Whether we are in that dream job today or not, that connection to our imagined future selves helped many of us make it tenaciously through the barriers and obstacles of the American educational system.

At College Summit, we recognize the power of connecting your current self to your future career and life goals. In face, College-Career Connection is one of our five Core Understandings that form the backbone of our education products. For example, on CSNav, we help students identify their career interests via the Interest Profiler, an interactive set of yes or no questions:

Once you work through all of the questions, CSNav provides you with a summary of your interest areas, aligned with the Holland Code...

...as well as a sortable list of careers that match your interests...

...each with it's own in-depth career information page, drawn from the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Technology can be a great tool for learning about careers, but how do we help young people connect to career information in a way that is inspiring, engaging, and memorable? Last month, I had the opportunity to serve as a judge for STEMposium, a national contest designed to begin to answer that question by collecting, sharing, and funding the most innovative ideas for connecting young people to STEM education.

During the semi-finals, I heard from a number of engaging presenters who offered ideas for how to engage young people early in order to inspire them to pursue STEM careers. From travelling robots to massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs), the possibility for creating engaging STEM experiences seem endless. Two of my favorite ideas (and two that ended up winning the finals) were probably the least scalable:

Tony DeRose of Pixar proposes a network of "Young Makers" clubs where young people tinker with and make their own designs, presenting them at each year's annual MakerFaire.

Caleb Cheung of Oakland Unified School District, holds annual "Dinner with a Scientist" events where young people get to share an exceedingly geeky meal with local engineers and scientists.

Both innovations expose young people to careers through personal connections to inspirational adults who are willing to spend one-on-one time in a casual setting talking about what they do. It's this personal connection that College Summit seeks to offer at our Workshops and throughout the school year with our Alumni and Regional support. But is there more we could be doing to connect young people to meaningful experiences that might light a spark of inspiration leading them to successful careers?

Share your ideas for how to connect young people to career information in the comments section below.

Here at work we like to plan.  We have project plans, pilot plans, planning meetings, planning documents etc.  We often use the process of back-mapping to create these grand plans.  This means we set an end goal and work backwards to think of all the steps we need to accomplish to reach our goal.  This makes sense and I was wondering where else we could apply this back-mapping strategy.  And because I usually go to bed thinking about work and wake up thinking about work, I got to thinking about the overarching goal of College Summit of getting more kids to and through college.  So let’s take a look at the back-map with the end goal of college graduation.  I thought if we could look at the path, or at least one aspect of each step along the path, we could target points along the path to improve upon and reach our end goal more effectively (Lord knows we aren’t there yet!).

So you have gotten to college (no small feat as we will see below).  But we know that as many as 40% of students have to take remedial classes once they get into college.  These remedial classes do not count towards graduation, they cost money and are teaching content that students should have had, or did have in high school.  This puts them at risk for dropping out of college.  About 37% of students who enter a four year university do not graduate even though almost all students report that they intend to graduate when they enter college.  Dropout #1. 

So, once students get to college, they cannot do the work.  This seems to be a high school problem since high schools are supposed to be preparing students for college (and career).  Even if you make it through high school, you apparently haven’t learned enough while you were there. 

But what about the students who don’t make it through high school?  How does that happen?

We all know the high school dropout rate in this country is appalling.  Last week at the Grad Nation Summit hosted by the America’s Promise Alliance, we were reminded that nationally, 1.3 million students dropped out of the Class of 2010.  Every 26 seconds a student drops out of high school.  Dropout #2.  

Students do not find high school relevant to their lives, do not see how high school leads to college, don’t see how they will pay for college, and sometimes do not see how a high school diploma will lead to better paying jobs.  So again, we have a high school problem (which is good for me since I work at College Summit which tries to improve college going culture in high schools).

But what about the students that dropout as early as the ninth grade?  Oftentimes ninth graders drop out because they do not do well academically and have to repeat ninth grade.  So these students were not prepared in middle school.  Yes, middle school.  Many students are on the path to dropping out of high school before they reach 9th grade.  Dropout (or potential dropout) #3.  

There seems to be a domino effect that begins as early as middle school.

And maybe that is why over the past two weeks I have been hearing about college going culture and middle school linked together.  At the Grad Nation Summit middle school was all the rage and at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning in New York, we heard about it too and in Prince George’s County, MD four turnaround middle schools are eager to begin creating a college going culture as part of their turnaround plans.

We need to work on making sure middle school students take the necessary math and English classes that will prepare them for high level high school academics, we need to help students become financially aware,  and we need to be transparent about the path through college as early as middle school. 

Here at College Summit we are just embarking on this project and are looking forward to seeing where the dominos may fall.

For as long as I have been at College Summit, we have sought to evaluate the effectiveness of our products.  This makes sense.  We want to help more students go to college and we hope that the products and services we offer help accomplish this goal.  When evaluating, we have traditionally relied on educational evaluation methods.  We measure educational outcomes such as evidence of change in students’ lives, whether lesson objectives were met, and the like.  While this approach allows us to say whether we believe a product is effective or not, the information does not provide actionable insight into what opportunities exist for product creation or improvement.  

What are we missing? 

After some research, I believe we are lacking a market-driven approach to product innovation.  This is critical because even if we develop an outstanding educational tool that achieves results every time, if a school doesn’t see its value, it won’t sell and therefore it won’t matter how effective it is.  We need effective products, but equally important is to know what the market is hungering for. 

While “the market” doesn’t lay out what “it” wants, some very smart people have thought about how to understand this.  One of them is Anthony Ulwick who wrote about an intriguing approach in his book What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products.

Ulwick’s approach focuses initially on the jobs customers are trying to get done and the desired outcomes they wish to achieve when doing those jobs.  “Job” can be translated into task, and desired outcome into measure of success.  A good (and marketable) product then, allows customers to successfully complete tasks. 

In the education world, we can take resume writing as an example.  The job to be done is for students to complete a resume.  One of many desired outcomes associated with resume writing would be for students to minimize spelling and grammatical errors in the process.  This makes it plain that educators would desire a curriculum lesson that provides effective coaching on spelling and grammar.  Here we have the solution to a real problem. 

The brilliance of Ulwick’s approach is not in this observation, however.  Understanding all the jobs and desired outcomes would still leave us unsure where to focus limited resources in making product improvements.  Ulwick then recommends that companies ask customers to rate the importance of each job and desired outcome, and how satisfied they are with products that help accomplish those tasks.  An outcome that is highly important and also poorly supported by existing products presents a market opportunity.  With the 12th Grade Navigator textbook, for instance, we could find that resume writing tops the list of “jobs to be done” senior year but that the book does a terrible job explaining how to do this.  This would give us valuable information on where to focus resources in improving the curriculum. 

Over the next few months, we’ll be attempting outcome-driven innovation at College Summit.  Check back to see how it’s going.

“A majority of students believes their school emphasizes college readiness, while many teachers, and especially parents, believe that schools could be doing a better job of informing students about the steps to take to be prepared to get into college and to finance their education.”
- The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Preparing Students for College and Careers

Sounds like a clear, simple and straightforward request from the people who have the most on the line when it comes to college readiness, right?

One problem – just what is a college-going culture and what does being college and career ready really look like? College Summit has identified four dimensions of a college-going culture, and we’ve been looking at what others involved in the process are saying as well. 

Knowledge and Expectations - The extent to which stakeholders know and understand student PSE & career opportunities

 “Schools (must) have clearly defined expectations… Parents with no more than a high
school education are more likely than those who have graduated college to rate their child’s school as fair or poor (53% vs. 34%) in providing information to parents about the requirements to get into college” - The MetLife Survey


“The (Common Core) standards provide a clear and consistent framework designed to help ensure that students graduate from high school ready to succeed in college and careers ” -  US Department of Education College Completion Tool Kit


“According to teachers, parents, students and Fortune1000 executives, the critical components of being college- and career-ready focus more on higher-order thinking and performance skills than knowledge of challenging content” - The MetLife Survey

“Students should have fewer, clearer, and higher standards aligned with college requirements; all students should be expected to graduate from high school and college or career training programs that lead to meaningful employment” - Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic


Academic Behavior and Rigor - The extent to which academic opportunities are available and used, and how well students perform academically

“Schools (must) excel at preparing students in core subjects as well as the interdisciplinary area of global awareness” - The MetLife Survey

 “(P)rovid(e) all students with four years of course work in English and at least three years in mathematics, science, and social studies. . .When students can demonstrate mastery, they should be able to advance” - College Completion Tool Kit

“An emphasis on higher-order mathematics such as trigonometry and calculus is included in the Common Core State Standards as well as numerous other reform proposals aimed at ensuring that students receive the preparation considered necessary to be college- and career-ready. However, half or fewer of teachers (as well as executives) say that knowledge and ability in higher-level science or mathematics is absolutely essential or very important” - The MetLife Survey

“(S)tates should continue to adopt the Common Core State Standards, together with performance standards with real accountability for meeting them.” - Building a Grad Nation


Support, Structure, and Tools - The extent to which institutional supports, structure, & tools advance college-going efforts

“Schools (must) provide a range of information, programs and supports related to going to college” - The MetLife Survey

“Upgrade curricular rigor to higher education expectations by incorporating college placement exam questions into state high school tests” - College Completion Tool Kit

“Parent engagement strategies . . . should be responsive to cultural differences and include prompt notification of academic, behavioral, attendance, or other problems; earlier contact throughout middle school and in and beyond 9th grade on what constitutes success in high school; a single point of contact at the school; information on high school graduation and college admission requirements, including financial aid and assistance every step of the way in negotiating the roadblocks on the way to college” - Building a Grad Nation

Signaling - The extent to which the educational community signals the importance of PSE planning and application

Schools (must) provide a range of information and programs to students and parents - The MetLife Survey

“Schools should collaborate with community-based and national service organizations to provide students with the supports they need inside and outside of school. Interventions can include mentoring and tutoring, targeted literacy and math curricula support, 9th grade academies, extended school time, and a wide range of community-based supports to address academic, social, medical, and mental health needs” - Building a Grad Nation

The conversation continues, and we’re going to keep researching, gathering data and evaluating how schools can get the best answers.

creative commons photo by eirikref via flickr

In 1892, in his “Talks to Teachers,” William James summarized the relationship between schools and scholarship and innovation:

“I say moreover that you make a great, a very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind’s laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use. Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. An intermediary inventive mind must make the application, by using its originality.”

119 years later, we still find the same separation between schools and scholarship and innovation. Most practitioners are thirsty for but unaware of the latest advances in educational research and there are no systematic mechanisms for bringing that research into their practice and to bring practice back to research in order to innovate. In education, there are researchers and there are practitioners and there are innovators but these silos do not speak the same language and rarely work together. What we need is a shuttle service between schools and scholarship and implementation and we all need to be riding that train.

I am married to a physician who specializes in breast cancer. When she goes to bed at night she brings a stack of medical journals with her and flips through them and rips out the articles relevant to her practice. In philosophy, “praxis” is the kind of knowledge where theory is applied to practice or truth is put into action. If you could hear praxis it might sound very much like my wife’s fingers shredding those journals--literally tearing out the knowledge that her patients will need and that may save their lives or at least make her work more efficiently.

In my 25 plus career in education, I have not met very many teachers who take educational research journals to bed at night and rip out the relevant articles for their classroom practice. I certainly did not do this when I was a classroom teacher. At best, we might recall some research we learned in grad school or we might read about research on a list serve that delivers newspaper or magazine summaries of some research to our computers.

There are 3 different enterprises toiling in the field of education reform today: (1) scholarly research including theory, statistical surveys and experimental studies; (2) teachers and administrators working in schools and school districts; and (3) social entrepreneurs or innovators who are trying to bottle the most efficient and effective practices, in effect trying to marry the findings of scholarship with the actual conditions in learning environments to export practices that are both efficacious and easy to do and affordable, hence sustainable.

How do we create structures so that the three enterprises work together seamlessly and systematically? Frankly, I’m not sure just yet how to do this. I think one of the keys, though, is that each enterprise must learn to appreciate and celebrate the other as an equal contributor to the solution of getting all of our kids to achieve. Part of the problem is encapsulated in the military acronym VUCA which stands for “Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.” The art of school leadership and administration is to contain a school’s VUCA through the implementation of a research based, deliberate analytic and moral structure. Any discussion or planning about education that does not acknowledge and account for VUCA is empty and ultimately ineffective. There are plenty of tools and theories about how to increase high school achievement metrics but rarely do these take into consideration the actual day-to-day realities of running a public school-rural, urban, suburban, big, medium or small. In my experience, school reform research and discussion hardly ever endeavors to measure or consider the VUCA context of a school and the difficulty of implementation and achievement within an actual learning environment.  It is easy enough to create pristine theories of change, immaculate tools, and clear dashboards of success. It is another matter to inject them into a school day and year where the only thing to be expected is the unexpected, where on any given day, your entire schedule can be taken up with unanticipated appointments with students, family members, and teachers-as well as district officials, vendors, and even the press. Theories and tools are abstractions and schools are human-as Nietzsche would say, “All too human.”

Too solve for VUCA, researchers must work in schools and teachers must be given the time to tear the pages out of journals and the incentive structures to try new things out.  And the role of the social entrepreneur is to constantly ride the schools and scholarship shuttle, spreading truth as defined by both experimental validation and practical application in as efficient a way as possible.