Questions for the New Schools Collaborative
Monday, May 12, 2008Written by: Alan Gottlieb
It’s exciting to read about the budding New Schools Collaborative, an effort to bring to
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So, just to prove we’re not overly beholden to our masters, let me pose a couple of questions to the collaborative’s honchos:
1) Do you have the attention span to stay focused on this effort for as long as needed for it to take root and produce results? We’re probably talking a minimum of five years, and possibly much longer. It’s easy to get distracted by some other attractive reform effort sashaying past. Other big efforts have crumbled to dust because the conceivers have lost interest.
2) If you think the current Denver Public Schools administration can be recalcitrant and hard to work with on new schools issues, how will you deal with what comes next? As far as reform-minded regimes go, Michael Bennet and company, by and large, are significantly ahead of the curve. What happens if the next superintendent is more old-school? How will you handle the frustration of being resisted on every front? How will you deal with the temptation to collect your marbles and go home?
Good luck. It’s a noble enterprise.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
While it is debatable as to what degree I’m a honcho (I report to a foundation president and board, they make most of the hard decisions), I’ll do my best to answer the questions from my own perspective and not that of the collaborative or the Piton foundation.
It is important to know that the group of folks described in the RMN article includes schools, funders and other support groups, not just the three foundations. I would say that we are still in the early development phase. There is no formal organization with a board and set of detailed operations.
Okay on to the questions-
1. Commitment- It is too early to tell but there are a few clues from several of the organizations and individuals involved. Many involved in this effort like myself have been supporting schools like KIPP, DSST and others for nearly a decade so while many reformers do have short attention spans, I suspect this strategy will endure for a number of us. We know that we need to continue supporting systemic reform but it can’t be the only strategy. Many of the best urban superintendents in the country (Joel Klein, Arne Duncan and Alan Bersin) have learned that you need a “two bet” strategy to improve urban systems. Accountability systems, money, professional development, new teacher contacts etc can’t do it alone without examples of schools that dramatically demonstrate success. This is especially true when it comes to secondary schools.
2. Partnering with districts- You are right, it is hard to imagine Denver getting a better team than Michael Bennet and Co. This is why it is important to partner with DPS and other districts while not handing over all of the new schools development to the districts. New York and Chicago have created organizations (New Visions in NYC) and structures (charters in Chicago) that are designed to last beyond Klein and Duncan. This effort will take five and probably ten years to see a measurable impact on student achievement across districts as large as Denver. It also has risk as any school reform strategy does but it seems one of the few strategies that have begun to significantly change the lives of poor children. And as hard as school reform may be, it still is one of the best levers for supporting people to escape the cycle of poverty.
May 13th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
A wise person once told me that success in most any endeavor depends on only three things: leadership, leadership, leadership.
What I have read so far about the New Schools Collaborative is intriguing, but I continue to wonder where the leadership will come from. When I consider some of the principals that are often identified (and rightfully so) as leaders in our local field, people like Kristin Waters at Bruce Randolph, Rob Stein at Manual, Chris Gibbons at West Denver Prep, and if I may say so, Vernita Vallez at Escuela de Guadalupe, I know that these sorts of people are not in abundance.
I would like to hear more about the New Schools Collaborative’s plans for leadership development.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
David…you couldn’t be more right! This is the number one challenge for getting more high performing schools in Colorado.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
David, good question. Three points from my perspective at West Denver Prep:
1. Expanding to additional schools produces more opportunity to organically develop leadership talent. It is hard to groom school leaders from a small base; with additional schools come more opportunities for increased responsibility and professional development. We believe expansion is critical to develop future school leaders - it is far easier to develop an exceptional leader for a fifth school from four existing schools than to develop an exceptional leader for a second school from a first. Success engenders success.
2. In addition to organic development, it is crucial for Denver to attract outstanding school leaders from other parts of the country. A group such as the NSC, by uniting different high-performing schools, can provide an additional emphasis to attract leaders who might neither find nor be attracted to any single school. A larger presence from NSC - like the KIPP or Uncommon Schools networks — is likely to be able to attract more and better-qualified candidates than any single school can do on their own.
3. There is an entire economic body of research on “clusters” (Michael Porter at HBS)- small groups of organically developed companies or organizations whose related development has a compounding effect on innovation, efficiency, and productivity. A key driver is having numerous organizations both compete and cooperate, thus attracting, retaining and developing a broader pool of people with related skills and expertise. This workforce should be mobile within the cluster, sharing ideas and expertise among different organizations. The enhanced development and focus on exceptional schools, a rise in local service organizations (such as TFA), and a gentle coalescence among local foundations on the key drivers of educational reform may well produce such a cluster, and spur additional leaders from a variety or organizations who would not develop these leaders alone.
Time will tell, but it is clear that leadership (and I would add overall teaching talent) is paramount to initial success. However I also believe that as educational systems solidify and thrive, leadership becomes less “discovered” and more “developed.” It is a lot easier to have 4 successful schools and develop a fifth than it is to do the first one.