________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT October 10, 2005 - Vol. 5, No. 39 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  Covering education news in Vermont and beyond... Informative, provocative, unique... Published by Vermonters for Better Education  VBE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence. Libby Sternberg, executive director: VTBetterEd@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... AN INTERVIEW WITH DIANE MUELLER  The Vermont Education Report continues its occasional series of interviews with State Board of Education members. This week: Diane Mueller, a Howard Dean appointee and former SBOE chair. VER: How long have you served on the board, and how long were you chair? DM: I have been on the board for seven years and was chair for two years. VER: What is your background in education? DM: I was on the Green Mountain Union High School Board for almost 10 years, 9 as chair. I have served for approximately 13 years on the technical center board in Springfield and am still a member. I was involved in the evolution of the center as the Howard Dean Education Center came into being and also serve on that board. I serve on the Okemo Mountain School Board and have been chair for several years. It is a tutorial program for student athletes who ski and snowboard. Several have made the US teams and competed at the Olympic level. I am also a trustee on the Champlain College board and am pleased to be involved with an institution that I believe is an innovative leader in higher education. VER:You are now serving on a board that has members appointed by two governors, from two different parties, with two different outlooks on education. How do you find serving with folks whose ideas might differ widely from your own? DM: I enjoy working with people who share my zeal for educational excellence, always have. I do not think that the perspectives of the current board members vary as much as some believe they do. As has always been the case, all board members are focused on what they believe is best for our students. Some people feel the board that served under the Dean administration was of like mind and others feel that is the case with current board, the majority of which are Douglas appointees. Of course implementation can be a challenge…the devil is always in the details. I think that the state board has always been respectful of others opinions and tried to work towards solutions and initiatives that improve student learning. One component that I think is important in terms of board composition is having board members from different backgrounds. I think that Howard Dean probably put me on the state board because of my background in both business and education. I think state board members need to be dialed into the impact their decisions might have on local educational entities. Our students and their parents are our “customers.” On the fact that state board members have been appointed by two political parties…I hate it when education is politicized. It is about students, not politics. Unfortunately politics is part of the equation. Having appointed members, not elected members as some states do, makes the state board less political. In my mind there is no room for political comments around our board table. VER: What do you think is the most difficult challenge the SBOE tackled during your tenure? DM: Hiring and retaining an excellent Commissioner of Education. No entity can reach its full potential without strong leadership. During my tenure we have had four commissioners, all of them great hires. Richard Cate is doing an excellent job and maximizing the potential of the DOE staff. Having worked with the department for seven years, I have to say that these people are committed to our students and set a good example for educators at the local level. Richard has them focusing their energies on the Strategic Plan that was the collective work of the state board and the department. VER: What do you think is the most difficult (or one of the most) challenges facing the SBOE today? DM: I think that the NCBLA presents challenges as it makes it harder for us to deliver educational services as a small rural state. The NCLBA has laudable goals, but was designed for larger states and cities. Our commissioner is doing a good job of meeting the criteria of the NCLBA without significantly compromising what is important to Vermonters. I am hopeful that under his leadership we will be able to maintain what works for Vermont students. VER: What accomplishments of the SBOE are you most proud of? DM: While I was chair we worked on board operations and defined the roles and responsibilities of the state board and the commissioner. This has enabled us to be more effective in how we address the Strategic Plan we developed in conjunction with the Commissioner and the DOE. In articulating how we operate, we included the rationale behind each operational procedure. This will be useful to future boards as they decide whether or not to keep the operational procedures as we have defined them. It is my hope that local school districts will adopt a similar model because I think we reinvent education far too often as board members come and go. Understanding the criteria and rationale behind a decision should inform boards as they consider operational changes. VER: Were you surprised/disappointed by Sen. Susan Bartlett's characterization of Douglas appointees to the board as right wing and extremist? DM: I have not heard comments made by Senator Bartlett. I do hope that those in the legislature and on the board do not make comments that espouse to a political persuasion. Although school boards are accountable to the public, it does not mean education needs to be politicized. Our students’ education comes first and in my mind political views don't even come in as a close second. VER: Anything else you'd like to add? DM: My focus in the past seven years has been on improving educational leadership at both the board level and administrator level. I believe that we can have excellent instruction and programs, but without superior leaders on our local boards and in our superintendents’ and principals’ offices we will not provide our students with the educational experience or the learning environment they deserve.  EARLY ED ADVOCATES SHOULD READ THEIR OWN REPORTS The Vermont Department of Education has added a new section to their web site entitled Early Education Publications and Resources. It contains some useful publications for parents about getting children ready for school. But it also features a link to Vermont's early childhood web site where you can find more resources, including a report prepared by the Windham County Child Care Association and the Peace and Justice Center. This report, entitled The Economic Impact of Vermont's Child Care Industry, was conducted in June 2002 and it makes the case for aggressive efforts to include private providers in any publicly-funded preschool plan, whether the authors intended this message or not. According to the report, "The total economic impact of the child care industry in Vermont is approximately $426 million annually ($208 million in direct expenditures and an additional $218 million in indirect spending)." The report also helpfully points out that "the child care industry employs 5,000 people in Vermont. If these individuals worked for one employer, it would be larger than Fletcher Allen, IDX or C & S Wholesalers." And, the report also says that "the child care industry also generates employment through the goods and services the industry and its employees purchase. At least 2,232 indirect jobs are also created and sustained by the child care industry." If all these things are true, why would the state of Vermont want to decimate that industry by offering the same services these providers offer but with one distinct and grossly unfair advantage -- the state, through public schools, will offer these services for free.  DON'T MISS FREEDOMFEST - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15 Saturday, October 15 will be an excellent opportunity for free-market thinkers to gather in Vermont for the FreedomFest to learn about important issues facing the state. The event, which is sponsored by the Ethan Allen Institute and FreedomWorks-Vermont, will take place at the Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and will feature a presentation by Stephen Moore, founder of the Club for Growth and a recent member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Presentations will center on the economy, taxes, health, education, environment, energy, and cultural renewal. The $25 registration includes lunch. For more information, go to http://www.ethanallen.org.   *   *   * FROM ELSEWHERE... From.... The Fordham Foundation On the web at: http://www.edexcellence.net CULTURE SHOCK by Jim Williams Becoming a public high school teacher after nearly 30 years in business required that I adapt to a culture whose priorities, norms, and incentives are upside down. Public schools operate in ways that conflict with their core purpose--teaching children the basic knowledge and skills required to lead successful adult lives. These dysfunctional practices are a source of deep frustration for teachers because they understand that it's the students who are shortchanged. Consistently, research shows that teachers are critical to improving student achievement. School officials celebrate teachers with motherhood-and-apple-pie ceremonies, but in practice they do not treat teachers as scarce, valuable resources. Instead of enabling teachers to focus on working effectively with students in the classroom, schools require teachers to invest excessive time, energy, and attention in overcoming daily obstacles. Unwelcome distractions include preventable problems (such as running out of copier toner and paper), redundant clerical duties (e.g. requiring teachers to keep both handwritten and electronic reports), and tracking minor administrative inquiries, all of which create ceaseless, unproductive diversions from classroom teaching. At first glance, such diversions may seem trivial. But the cumulative impact of these messages day after day, both objective (the time and energy spent outside the classroom handling administrative tasks) and implicit (you aren't a "true" professional), make good teaching unnecessarily challenging. A situation early in my business career contrasts vividly with my public school experience to date. I worked in a distribution operation located in a fast-growing market. Our corporate office was out of state. The explosive growth in my area was not typical of the rest of the company, whose policies and procedures reflected a mature, stable business. Our boss recognized our market's potential and told us he would provide the tools we needed to succeed. And then he'd get out of the way. He asked everyone for their input concerning efficiency and effectiveness, and when my co-workers and I made suggestions that produced a positive business outcome, he modified production schedules, adjusted staffing, and acquired the equipment needed to support our productivity gains. Our boss recognized that many of the practices followed throughout the rest of the company interfered with accomplishing what was possible in our market--growing quickly and profitably while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. His willingness to work with us created a sense of mission for me and my colleagues and created a local culture that emphasized results rather than procedural compliance. Moreover, our disproportionate financial contribution to the corporation's profitability earned us not only absolution, but recognition and appreciation. I hope that the increasing emphasis within public schools on measurable outcomes will bring more local discretion for school-based leaders. To build high performing schools, they need the ability to shift focus away from process and procedure and toward empowering teachers and relentlessly emphasizing student achievement. But that hasn't been my experience to date. For example, by failing to include teachers in reaching significant instructional decisions, and using "top-down" communication methods, public school officials too often treat teachers more like hourly industrial workers from a bygone era than high-value professionals. Consider typical district-wide efforts to improve student performance. Most often, the emphasis is placed on implementing standardized curricula and installing instructional programs developed outside the school. This practice ignores the considerable evidence demonstrating how achieving high performance in any field results from engaging people on the front lines. More than twenty years ago, business organizations began to understand the dramatic potential of collaborative management practices. I learned the value of collaboration while trying to address a major operational problem in my previous firm. We were losing money on our customer delivery operations, while simultaneously creating significant customer dissatisfaction. Partially out of desperation, I looked to collaborative management practice, which I had recently read about. I formed a working group of hourly employees to look into the problem. This group included representatives from every part of the business: delivery drivers, our dispatcher, warehouse clerks, and customer service representatives. We met on Saturday mornings (people were paid for their time) and looked at the problem afresh. The seriousness and creativity these people brought to the discussions was quite impressive and, in less than a month, we completely overhauled every function in our delivery system. Within two months, our costs were under control, we were making money, and we greatly improved customer satisfaction. This approach to managing organizations is now widely accepted practice in most places. Unfortunately, this kind of genuine collaboration with teachers to address significant public school performance issues and outcomes is conspicuously absent. My sense is that most teachers really want a set of arrangements quite different from what they have. Unfortunately, teachers' organizations reinforce the prevailing industrial model: hierarchical organization, proceduralism, and "top down" communication. All of this increases adversarial discussions and discourages fundamental reform proposals. Still, there is a large reservoir of dissatisfaction within public education, and that dissatisfaction presents a significant opportunity for school reform advocates. I'm optimistic that reformers can build support for alternative models of public education among a genuinely critical group of stakeholders: public school teachers. In the end, I would argue that choice-based school reform proposals significantly improve most teachers' situations. The challenge for reformers is to find ways to describe the inherent limitations of the existing system (which are quite familiar to experienced teachers) and then to present concrete ways that charter schools, and other educational alternatives, could benefit teachers. One selling point, obviously, is reduced administrative busywork. Some heavy lifting (and stronger evidence of results in terms of student achievement) is necessary before a case for public school reform can be made to teachers accustomed to hearing status quo arguments. But if we fail to make the case, we will have missed an important opportunity. Jim Williams teaches both special and general education high school students in Northern Virginia. He entered the teaching profession through the George Washington University Fairfax Partnership Project.  *   *   * WHO COVERS EDUCATION IN VERMONT? We do! Consider a gift to Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of the weekly Vermont Education Report, Vermont's ONLY continual source of education news. Send donations to: VBE, 170 Church Street, Rutland, Vermont 05701. VBE is a nonprofit organization and contributions are tax-deductible.  *   *   * The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701, 802.773.5240 Contact VTBetterEd@aol.com for more information.   Subscribe Here SubscribeRemove

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