NASBE Session :: What Do We Now Know About Preparing School Leaders - and How are We Doing?

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Panel Presenters
Paul Manna, College of William & Mary, Wallace Foundation
Jonathan Supovitz and Bobbi Newman, Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania
William "Bill" White, Chair of School Leader Study Group, West Virginia State Board of Education


NASBE: State BOD chose two study groups: one on career readiness & the other took a look at the adequate number of school leaders - - lead to this report, partially funded by Wallace Foundation. At the same time that the study group was working on this, Paul Manna published his report for the Wallace Foundation: Developing Excellent School Principals to Advance Teaching and Learning


Paul Manna

• A Tale of Two Reports: The Wallace Foundation's Developing Excellent School Principals to Advance Teaching and Learning: Considerations for State Policy AND NASBE's: Successful Leaders for Successful Schools: Building and Maintaining a Quality Workforce

• The need for high-quality leaders -->not high priority on state policy agenda - currently, more attention to teacher-related issues than principal-related

• A focus on "school leadership" conflates the principal's role with the roles of other school leaders

State Policy Levers Examined:
- Setting principal standards;
- Recruiting aspiring principals;
- Overseeing principal preparation programs;
- Licensing principals; supporting professional development of principals; evaluating principals

• ON Recruitment: Wallace FDN has a big focus on Urban Emphasis --> have to also talk about rural settings

Examples:

• North Carolina: NELA (Northeast Leadership Academy), mission to recruit, train, then place in rural locations in North Carolina. There are some common needs in both rural and urban; explicit training for rurals, like how to find resources for their particular settings; recruits also learn to write a grant

• Illinois and Kentucky: they have had principal preparation programs for over 10 years

• Massachusetts: on Licensing, Performance Assessment for Leaders ("PALS") - -> emphasis is on practice; with a focus on training

Local Contexts
- Educational governance
- Diversity of locales
- Capacity of state agencies and local districts and schools to implement policy
- Policies and practices

"... perhaps a principal's job is to go to work and decide which law to break because there are so many conflicting rules and policies..."

State boards of ed have The Power of Collective Voice to affect change:

1. The Power of Policy - authority to officially adopt and enact rules and regs to govern an area of the education system (often referred to as "rule-making")
2. The Power of the Question - as a body, has authority to ask agencies individuals, or organizations for information updates, and assistance on nay matter regarding the education system
3. The Power to Convene - for the purpose of discussing issues and collaboratively working toward solutions involving the education system in areas were the Board retains policy authority, as well as where it does not

With this in mind, SBEs could do some kind of systematic audit that bear on the Principals' job every day - - with an eye to removing 4 or 5 things...!


Dr. Jonathan Supovitz & Dr. Bobbi Newman

• How do we look holistically at the system of support for capacity for school leaders?

• Framework: Leadership Standards - Individual Supports

• Data: used for monitoring and informing continuous improvement (Distributed model for review of data - -Organizational Supports and Individual Supports)

• Hoping the study group report will help you

Organizational Supports
In the course of contacting all 50 states about their programs, spoke to lots of SEA folks

Program Approval & Licensure --> go hand in glove
Licensure:
- requirements for leaders
- leadership exam

Partnerships:
- partnerships provide the conduit through which candidates can better access these pathways
- findings

Sponsorships
Financial support for:
- recruitment programs
- induction programs
- mentoring
- recognition

Emerging TRENDS:

• IL: sunsetting programs and asking folks to reapply

• AZ & MA: high standards for leaders

• DE: new report cards focus on a cycle of continuous improvement

• many states have "grow your own" programs for leadership

• developing "teacher leaders": many states have the requirement that prospective principals have teaching experience, but no evidence of leadership is required - - this needs to change

Going forward: guiding questions for policymakers (begins on p. 22 of the NASBE report)


Bill White

• in addition to the guiding questions, check out  REFERENCES, beginning on p. 28

• need to look at the way we do leadership development, beginning on p. 17

The take-away: There are bright spots, but no exemplary states

There's more in the Storify
- - -
Note:
There's an excellent twitterchat for aspiring administrators called #Admin2B. Drop in Monday nights, 8:00-9:00 PM (EST). Check out archived convos HERE and HERE

NASBE Breakfast Keynote :: Disruptive Demographics :: Thursday, October 22, 2015

Keynote Speaker: Dr. James H. Johnson Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Asks: How do we properly educate needs of diverse students?

Unprecedented, disruptive demographics around us present incredible challenges and opportunities

Finds 6 disruptive themes from 2010 census:

1. The South Rises...Again
2. The Browning of America
3. Marrying Out is "In"
4. The Silver Tsunami is About to Hit
5. The End of Men
6. Cooling Water from Grandma's Well...and Grandpa's too!

The South Continues to Rise...Again...

• we are a mobile society
• our migration trends are immigration driven
• movement is happening in 4 states in the South: 71% of 14M people going to Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina

The Browning of America

• immigration driven
• 1921-1961 most people migrating came from Europe
• 1961-1988 most people migrating came from Asia
• 1987-1998 migration from Europe fundamentally disappears
• migration and immigration are age-selected
• more young people are coming to US - having children at higher rates and "completed fertility" of white women is between 40-44 year-olds means school systems are impacted by this fundamental biology

The Graying of America

• at the same time the Browning of America is going on, the graying of native born is on the rise - the silver Tsunami is about to hit...
• also, changes in longevity - HUGE
• AND declining fertility
• longevity due to  better lifestyles (healthy eating, more active lives)
• multi-generational workforce
• succession planning and accommodations for elder care - organizational game changers!

Marrying Out is "In"

• profound shift in marriage patterns
• intermarriage trends on the rise
• no one-size fits all - kids coming in will not fit (and will not let you make them fit...!)
• children living in grandparent and non-grandparent households on the rise
• family arrangements have changed
• much more diversity
• women are about to surpass men as majority in workforce

All of this has a huge impact on the history we will tell and how we will tell it. Education is necessary but insufficient.

Q&A
Q: Very compelling presentation; great portrait of demographic shifts in US - to what extent do these impact globally?
A: Only region of the world not experiencing these trends is sub-Saharan Africa; a global phenom

Q: School to prison pipeline: what can we do to reduce it?
A: Rebuild a better, robust system of public schools that offer protection, affection, correction, connection. Engage our boys in a different way. Better preparation for new generation of teachers. More training in youth development.

There's more in the Storify
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Notes:
More about Dr. James H. Johnson, Jr

The End of Men

2010 US Census Data

NASBE15 Pre-Conference :: Student Data Privacy :: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 :: 1:00 PM*

Pre-test: Can you identify what the following acronyms stand for?

• SOPIPA

• PII

• SBEs

• FERPA

• COPPA

• PI

• PPRA

• SEAs

• PTAC

Presenters

State Law and Policy Trends:
Rachel Anderson, Senior Associate, Policy and Advocacy, Data Quality Campaign

Amelia Vance, Director of Education Data & Technology, NASBE

Common Pitfalls of Contracting with Education Technology Providers:
Michael Hawes, Statistical Privacy Advisor, US Department of Education

Security 101:
Jim Siegl, Technology Architect, Fairfax County Public Schools

Overcoming Policy Hurdles to Help Kids Succeed:
Elizabeth Laird, Lousiana Deartment of Education

Federal Data Privacy Legislation Panel:
Reg Leichty, Moderator, Founding Partner, Foresight Law + Policy
Jon Bernstein, President, Bernstein Strategy Group
Paige Kowalski, Vice-President of Policy and Advocacy, Data Quality Campaign
Kobie Pruitt, Education Policy Manager, The Future of Privacy Forum
Mark Schneiderman, Vice President for Government Affairs, School Messenger
Elana Zeide, Privacy Research Fellow, NYU Information Law Institute

State Boards of Education (SBEs) have some authority over education data privacy (Here's what's posted on MA/DESE website - remind me to follow up on any further BESE authority).

School as we know it is changing:

• Technology and information needs are evolving faster than policies.

• There's a lack of communication with parents and the public about the value of educational data.

• Talking about privacy can be challenging.

• How do we address the personal nature of privacy?

Since September 2015, 187 Bills on student data privacy have been introduced in 47 states; legislative themes include:

Thirty-three states have passed student data privacy laws since 2013. Laws prior to 2014 gave State Education Agencies (SEAs) and SBEs^ authority to:

• Rule-making

• Override authority

• Adopt & implement privacy policies

• Provide a public data inventory

• Appoint Chief Privacy Officer

• Review potential new data elements to be collected/linked/shared

• Ensure role based access to data

• Notify parents of rights

• Create a data security review team

• Provide oversight of vendor contracts

[^ Again - noted for follow-up with DESE]

Rachel Anderson:

• One thing Congress doesn't do is work from scratch

• Congress is attempting to use/update FERPA for student data privacy issues - - it's complex because the law was written in 1974 and it has a hard time fitting into today's educational context:

• 1974 student "educational records" could be locked in filing cabinet with a key...that's out of touch with 2015

• There's no "educational record" now, there is "student data"

Jim Siegl:

• There's a trade-off between what's useful and convenient for teachers in the classroom and a rigid system for "protection"

• Biggest risks to security are the mistakes made by people with access to data in systems every day (as opposed to "data breaches")

• How is your district handling educator training of day-to-day data?

• Ongoing staff training is a must - anyone handling student data should be trained in

• how to use data, and
• how to protect data

Elizabeth Laird:

• Welcome to Privacy-pa-looza!
• Louisiana schools struggle with strict privacy law
• Louisiana is the only state with criminal penalties
• Time for a longitudinal data system
• Lousiana's plan to protect student privacy

Take-aways on student data privacy:

• SBEs have been collecting student/school data for 100 years

• Technology and data can sound abstract
• the philosophy of "protection of data" at the intersection of "education" makes it a challenging issue

• Need to consider state and federal interaction
• How to consider investing scarce public resources to student data privacy?

• What is the appropriate federal role?
• The "role of consent" in some of the federal bills is an "over-correction" > > > must strike a balance between "privacy" and data's "value"

• The potential for over-reach; must consider the role of technology in education and the consequence of passing draconian legislation, lest it become too burdensome for educators

• Still...laws are not enough - we need leadership from the education community to build trust and best practices.

Suggested foundational elements of a state data privacy and security policy to include:

• Statement of the policy/law's purposes - - To include talking about both the VALUE of educational data and the importance of PROTECTING that data)

• Select the person/s in charge - - Who will answer people's questions? Who creates policy and guidance? Who enforces the state's laws?

• Transparency plan - - In the absence of being transparent...anything that can be said will be said...SBEs haven't been good at communicating the VALUE of educational data and the importance of PROTECTING that data. It can (and should) be simple.
• Explain the "who, what, where, why, and when" of data collection.
• Make the data easy to find and understand.
• Give details for those who want to read them.

• Limiting vendor use of data - - Limit data use for non-educational purposes. Check contract provisions for data use and storage. Define who has signing authority on contracts. Beware of "click-wrap" agreements.

• Statewide data privacy & security plan - - Have a comprehensive plan to address privacy, and also address administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Ongoing staff training and methods of encryption.

• Ongoing staff training - - Anyone who handles student data should be trained in: How to use data and how to protect data

Pre-test answers:

• SOPIPA: Student Online Personal Information Protection Act. A California law, the first state law to comprehensively address student privacy. Effective January 1, 2016

• PII: Personally Identifiable Information

• SBEs: State Boards of Education

• FERPA: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (of 1974!) A federal law designed to protect the privacy of student "educational records". Established the rights of students to inspect and review their educational records.

• COPPA: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act - a federal law designed to protect the privacy of children under the age of 13

• PI: Personal Information

• PPRA: Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment. A federal law that affords certain rights to parents of minor students with regard to surveys that ask questions of a personal nature.

• SEAs: State Education Agencies

• PTAC: Privacy Technical Assistance Center - provides guidance and best practices.

* I found the presentations and panel discussion to be an excellent complement to the morning visit to Halstead Academy.

NASBE :: Data Privacy Resources

There's more in the Storify

- - -

Materials from the Session available online:

NASBE :: Comparison of 2015 Federal Education Data Privacy Bills

Why Does Student Data Matter?

10 Things We Would Lose Without Data

Student Data Principles

10 Steps Every District Should Take Today

Parsing Student Privacy: Creating a Parent-Focused Framework for Conversation

Is Student Privacy Erased as Classrooms Turn Digital?

Parental Support for Technology and Data Use in Schools

A Parents' Guide to Student Data Privacy

Student Privacy Pledge (with statements from NSBA, CCSSO, Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), National PTA, more)

#Storify: 9Cs

Our state budget reflects the choices we make to strengthen communities, support vulnerable populations, and build a thriving economy.

This past Tuesday, February 3, 2015, Governor Charlie Baker announced a series of reductions to the FY15 Budget in an effort to close a $768M projected budget deficit.

I created a storify story by pulling together some tweets and other resources related to the recent 9Cs - view my storify story embedded below.