(We are delighted to welcome John Norton, the former vice president for communications at the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), to our new website and blog. John is an education consultant to several organizations including A+, the Alabama Best Practices Center, the Center for Teaching Quality, and SREB. Many of you may know that John has been the editor of our “Working Toward Excellence” journal and, to be quite candid, he improves my writing from time-to-time as well.
In keeping with the times, we’re changing the format of “Working Toward Excellence” in several ways. First, the content will all be web-based and featured here in our A+ Education Partnership blog. Second, rather than publish one long issue per year, we’re going to deliver frequent shorter highlights and features, similar to the one I wrote about Winterboro earlier this month. We invite your ideas and suggestions as we roll out this new format.
I’ve been privileged to work with John for more than 15 years. He has helped me understand important education ideas more deeply, and he certainly has helped me become a better writer! His insights, incredible ability to synthesize huge volumes of materials in clear and pithy ways, and his commitment to public school excellence are second-to-none. Please join me in welcoming John to our “blogosphere.”
– Cathy Gassenheimer)
A series of stories about districtwide accountability and reform in the magazine of the American Association of School Administrators has me thinking about the leadership of Roy Nichols in Mobile County.
The February issue of “School Administrator” features a cover article by Harvard professor Robert Kaplan, who co-created a progress-monitoring tool for business called “The Balanced Scorecard” and has since helped adapt it for school districts. In the story, Kaplan and co-author Dylan Miyake describe how the Atlanta Public Schools system has used the tool to drive many positive improvements in the past decade.
Over at the Public School Insights blog, Claus von Zastrow hailed the scorecard as an example of educators learning the right lessons from business. Claus also highlighted Atlanta’s progress using the Balanced Scorecard, but he could have looked to an Alabama example just as easily.
When Roy Nichols assumed the superintendency in Mobile a couple years ago, he brought the Balanced Scorecard with him. Here’s an excerpt from our Fall 2009 issue of ABPC’s “Working Toward Excellence” (WTE) journal that tells some of the story:
…The Scorecard uses up to 100 indicators to track the progress of individual schools and the district as a whole – from state test data, graduation rates and incidents of quality staff development to discipline, attendance, teacher turnover, fiscal management and stakeholder (including student) satisfaction.
In an article…Nichols said he uses the Scorecard, adapted from the business world, on a weekly basis as a tool to assess progress, regain focus and facilitate communication among members of the leadership team. Also, “each school is required to develop goals and strategies aligned with system targets and the balanced scorecard serves as the centerpiece for supervisory discussions about school or departmental progress.”
Schools are encouraged to share their Scorecard data with parents and the community using engaging charts and graphs. At George Hall Elementary, instructional specialist Liz Reints used a baseball scoring metaphor to create a lively bulletin board in the entrance hall. “It’s got all of the same information but it’s broken down differently and it’s pleasing to the eye,” she says.
What’s particularly interesting to me is how Nichols and deputy superintendent Martha Peek have taken the powerful Balanced Scorecard concept and infused it into a new system that uses school feeder patterns as drivers of reform.
Here’s another excerpt from last fall’s WTE story, which I co-wrote with education writer Jennifer Pyron:
For the 2008-09 school year, Mobile completely revamped its method of school supervision, abandoning the traditional oversight by school level (elementary, middle, etc.) in favor of a K-12 approach built around the district’s 13 high school feeder patterns. Three assistant superintendents—women with strong elementary instructional backgrounds—work 4 or 5 feeder patterns apiece. Principals regularly meet one-on-one with their assistant superintendent to examine performance data, up and down the grade levels. [Each A.S.] also meets frequently with all the principals in a feeder pattern to discuss common issues and concerns and examine performance data from across the K-12 spectrum.
“We want to encourage vertical communication,” says Nichols. Elementary schools have shown the strongest student achievement, and now they are putting on the pressure, he adds. “The message is: ‘We’ve done our job and we’re handing them to you. We expect (the middle school) to hand them to the high school just as ready, and the high school to send them out into the world fully prepared.’”
…The new system is wildly popular among the elementary and middle school principals we interviewed. They offered many examples of how the new strategy promotes better instruction through idea-sharing and data discussions that often draw on the Balanced Scorecard.
Aimee Rainey is principal at rural Calcedeaver Elementary, one of three elementaries that feed into Lott Middle School and Citronelle High. When the five principals found problems in math, Rainey says, “we brought in some of our lead math teachers (from each school), sat around the table together and looked at the data to see what the children really didn’t know.”
The elementary principals returned to their schools, shared the problem with teachers, and brainstormed solutions. “We decided we would start all the way down in kindergarten and build understanding all the way up through sixth grade,” Rainey says.
That’s a prime example of “vertical communication” and the impact that is possible when educators collaborate up and down the grade levels.
As you read the articles in the “School Administrator” special issue on data-driven district reform, think about how Mobile’s vertical approach magnifies the impact of the Balanced Scorecard indicators — helping transform all those data points into large-scale professional collaboration on behalf of students who are climbing the academic ladder toward high school graduation.
And if you’re using the Balanced Scorecard, vertical collaboration, or other another interesting districtwide improvement strategy, please tell us a bit about it here.
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