Tag Archives: public schools

What If We Were Starting from Scratch?

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For the past few years I have been suggesting that if we are not getting the outcomes we need from our public schools—if too many kids are failing—it is time to go back to the drawing board. This is, also, what Chris Weber (@webereducation) has written about, when he suggests the question we should all be asking is:

“How would we design schools, classrooms, teaching, and learning if we started from scratch?”

Starting from scratch is what I have done to create an education model that I believe will enable us to give each child the quality education they deserve. In the white paper that accompanies my education model and that provides the logical foundation for it, I wrote:

“What I have endeavored to do is apply a systems’ thinking approach to examine public education in America, and the educational process at work within that system, as an integral whole. Systems’ thinking, introduced by Peter Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization (Doubleday, New York, 1990), allows one to challenge his or her fundamental assumptions and to understand how a system is structured to produce the results it gets. One also begins to see how one’s own actions, as a player within the system, contribute to its disappointing outcomes.”

And,

“Through the utilization of the tools and principles of systems thinking, positive leadership, and application of organizational principles, we need to identify clear objectives for the creation of an educational process that will produce the results we want and for creating the structure to support those objectives.”

The new process we create must be engineered to facilitate, in every conceivable way, the specific components we determine to be essential if we are to teach the whole child.

Since I have been active on Twitter the number of times educators—teachers, administrators, principals and superintendents—have been talking about the importance of building relationships with students has increased exponentially. Particularly in the aftermath of the most recent school shooting, everyone has been stressing the importance of conveying to kids that they are loved. When some students are unable to form close relationships with their teachers and other students they are at risk of becoming isolated, picked on, bullied, or even ignored. These are the kids who may feel driven to do desperate, dangerous things.

Now, think about your own school and classroom and examine where the responsibility for building warm nurturing relationship with students falls on your priority list. Think about how much of your time are you able to allocate to this activity that we understand to be so vital.

Also, think about the 5 and 6-year-old students who arrive for their first day of school. Where on their first teacher’s priority list do we find “work to develop warm, nurturing relationships with each child” and how much of that first-year teacher’s time is allocated for that purpose? Is it 100 percent? Is it 50 percent? Or, is it somewhere below 25 or even 10 percent? How does that percentage change as class size increases from 20 to 25 students or even to 35 students?

How much of a teacher’s time can be allocated to winning the trust and affection of each child? How do we find time to do all of the other things demanded of us as teachers?

As it turns out, the relationships, themselves, are key to accomplishing all that is demanded of us. If we have the relationships it makes everything else easier. Most important of all is that once we have built the relationships, everything else we do reinforces and helps us sustain them.

After we have worked so hard for an entire school year to build and solidify our relationships with our students, and have worked to lay the foundation for learning does it really make sense to sever those relationships. Is it truly in the child’s best interests to say goodbye to their favorite teacher and ask them to start all over in the fall, with a teacher who may be a complete stranger? Is this really how we teach the whole child?

If we are honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that the existing educational process was not created for this purpose and it can only be bent and stretched so far.

So, what is the answer? If we truly believe that forming these special relationships with our students is of vital importance, how do we give it the priority it deserves? And, how do we do all of the other things that our students need if they are to succeed?

The answer, today, is that we cannot do it all because the existing education process is neither tasked, structured nor supported to give the whole child what he or she needs to learn and grow.
What we must do is reinvent, re-engineer, or redesign the process in such a way that its priorities are clear.

Effective systems do not just happen, and rarely can a dysfunctional system be sufficiently repaired to do what we need it to do. Systems, organizations, and processes are designed with great attention to detail to ensure that purpose and objectives are clear and that the structure is created to support that purpose. They are complex systems of human behavior and students of the disciplines of organizational leadership have worked to understand their inner dynamics. We cannot just hope the organizations and processes we create will accomplish their purpose and produce the outcomes we are seeking. We must ensure that every activity undertaken exists to support our purpose and mission and we must provide relentless positive leadership to sustain our effort.

The education model I have created has been designed to do this and more? I urge the reader to take the time to examine the model, not it search of reasons why it will not or cannot work rather with the hope that it might. It is available for your review at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/

Time: An Essential Variable in the Education Equation

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In recent posts we have talked much about the critical role relationships play in learning. Strong, nurturing, enduring relationships between teachers and students is one of the essential variables of the education equation. If parents can be pulled into the relationship as partners, sharing responsibility for the education of their children, the students’ probability of success will soar.

One of the other essential variables in the education equation is time. Not just time by itself, but time and our patient attention. In most school settings; whether public schools, private, parochial, or charter schools; the education process is structured around arbitrary schedules of time. This is not surprising because everything human beings do is done within the context of time. Not all things are meant to be on a predetermined schedule, however.

If you have ever been a part of a child’s life from birth to adulthood, you know that each child is unique and learns at their own pace. The human brain, particularly a child’s brain, is a remarkable thing, possibly the most remarkable thing in all creation. A child’s brain is programmed to learn; it is like a sponge that soaks up the world around it. While science has determined that there is a clear developmental path through which children grow and mature, the variance in rates of childhood development can be great. If your eldest child walks at 12 months and speaks in sentences by 18 months, there is no reason to be concerned when you second child takes a first step at 13 months and says only a few words at one-and-a-half. The only thing that matters is that the important bases are touched and that once a skill is acquired the child can utilize it, effectively.

When children arrive for their first day of school, we see much the same pattern. Some are already reading by that monumental first day but many of their new classmates are not. Some know their letters and numbers, others may know colors and shapes. Where they fall with respect to an academic preparedness continuum is determined by the unique characteristics of their individual lives and genetic capability. Not only do they have varying starting points, some learn more quickly than others and their manner of learning may differ. Just like early childhood development, however, the bottom line is that they all can and will learn. The question is: How can we best help them learn?

Everything else changes beginning on that first day of school. No longer is the pace and direction of a child’s development determined by nature or a child’s interests and talents. Pace and direction are now guided by academic standards that are essentially an arbitrary determination of things educators believe children must learn if they are to enter adulthood with choices. When I suggest that the standards are arbitrary, I am not suggesting they have been poorly researched, rather that there is an underlying assumption that the standards and their accompanying timelines are appropriate for all “non-special needs students.” This assumption has a powerful influence on the academic success and failure of our students.

No longer is learning a natural and fun process that progresses at the child’s own pace. The first change with which children are confronted is that specific learning objectives have been identified and prioritized. The second change is that the specific learning objectives have also been correlated to a schedule that provides guidelines for the pace of learning. The expectation of teachers is that they guide their students down an academic path, as outlined by state standards and at a pace that conforms to what has been determined to be an acceptable rate of progress. Teachers have some latitude to help if the number of students who are getting off to a slow start is small. The larger the population of students who struggle and the older they get, however, the more problematic it becomes for teachers.

To gage how well students have progressed through the outline of academic standards, competency assessments have been developed. It turns out that the performance of students, on these assessments, has been determined to be an effective way to hold schools and teachers accountable for the performance of their students. Therefore, the process has come to be known as high-stakes testing.

The process begins to break down when individual students are unable to keep pace and we can be certain that learning is no longer fun for these children.

As it turns out, the two most essential variables of the education equation; which I have suggested are enduring relationships between teachers and students (not to mention parents) and that children are given however much time and patient attention they need to learn at their unique pace, are difficult to provide within the context of the current education process. The education process is comprised of two essential components. The first are the academic standards and schedules and their accompanying competency assessments; and, the second is the way teachers, classrooms, students, and resources are organized to achieve their purpose.

Think about the current education process as a conveyor belt designed to move kids along the path outlined by academic standards and that the speed with which it moves is an arbitrary schedule intended to correspond to the benchmarks placed along the path. The way we have organized teachers is that they ride along with their students as the conveyor belt moves toward its destination.

When we place a diverse population of children on that belt it appears to work well for many of our students. Other students, however, lack the skills (academic preparedness and pace of learning) that enable them to remain secure in their seats. Gradually, these children begin to fall off the belt and they lack the ability to climb back on, unassisted. Their teachers reach out to them and retrieve as many as they can, while others fall quickly out of reach. The students who have been retrieved still lack the skill necessary to hang on, however, so they fall off again and again.

Never are teachers able to retrieve all students who have fallen behind and the population of children who are failing at school grows, unrelentingly. These young people have fallen off the conveyor belt and they have no where to go other than to be swallowed up by a maelstrom of poverty and failure that plagues our society.

Until we abandon the conveyor belt as obsolete and replace it with an education process that is engineered to meet each child’s unique requirements, students will continue to fail no matter how hard our teachers work; even with innovative and sophisticated tools and methodologies that are being developed.

If, however, we utilize our imaginations, in combination with our education and experience, to design and construct a process around the way children learn, and that empowers both teachers and students, we can help each child receive the best education of which they are capable. A nice bonus will be the discovery that, in the right environment, most of our innovations with which we have been struggling will work.

Once again, I urge you to take time to review my white paper and education model to see one way we can create a teacher/student-centered education process. Please read it not in search of reasons why it will not or cannot work, rather in hope that it might work. The model, which will be available for public school systems to use, free of charge, is available for your review at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/ You are also invited to peruse the other 150 plus articles posted on this blog, Education, Hope, and the American Dream.

How Many Kids are Failing and What Does It Tell Us?

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Here are some numbers to gnaw on from a well-respected, diverse midwestern public school district reporting on students who did not pass both the Math and ELA components of the state’s competency exams. Please note that the public school teachers and administrators to which we refer are all well-qualified, are dedicated professionals, and work hard to help their students. Although there are low-performers in every profession, the majority of our nation’s teachers are unsung American heroes.

Elementary school

Black students not passing both exams = 1,343 (76.6%)
Hispanic Students not passing both exams = 825 (64.4%)
Children of color not passing both exams = 2,816 (68.2%)
White Students not passing both exams = 1,498 (46.0%)

Total Elementary students not passing = 4,314 (58.4%)

Middle School
Black students not passing both exams = 1,030 (81.7%)
Hispanic students not passing both exams = 558 (66.7%)
Students of Color not passing both exams = 2,078 (72.5%)
White Students not passing both exams = 1,190 (52.5%)

Total Middle School students not passing = 3,268 (63.6%)

Total students unable to pass both exams = 7,582 (60.6%)

Many states commence the process of testing students for levels of competency in the third grade and continue testing through the eighth grade. Thereafter, competency testing shifts toward assessing eligibility for graduation. When results are reported, we will see that a certain percentage of students were unable to pass the Math and English Language Arts components of the assessment tool, as in the case of the above public school district. In another jurisdiction, the results may be reported as students being at, above, below, or approaching “proficient.” The term “proficient” typically implies a high level of mastery in subject matter and also and ability to utilize that knowledge in the real world. In others, the broad descriptors may be relative to where a student is relative to “grade level.” Always, the results offer some manner of comparison to state academic standards.

Although results vary depending on the level of diversity or segregation of school districts with respect to race. ethnicity, and relative affluence the above data are representative.

This is just one of more than a thousand school districts reporting comparable performance, and of course there are many smaller school districts with students who struggle, and even our nation’s highest performing districts have some students who perform poorly. Think about the numbers for a moment. We are talking about many more than ten million American children who are performing poorly in school, and these data reflect performance only in public schools. Private, parochial, and charter schools also report students who are not performing well in school.

There are a few patterns that emerge from the results of competency examinations that deserve discussion.

The most common is that, typically, black students perform well below their white classmates and moderately below children from other minority groups. Hence, the “performance” or “achievement” gap, and public education in general, are often referred to the Civil rights issues of our time. That so many children of color perform poorly in our public schools has tragic consequences for our nation and its future.

With respect to relative affluence, students from low-income families generally perform below their more affluent classmates. Another pattern with respect to children who perform poorly on competency assessments, is that their performance often drops by the time they reach middle school. Each of these patterns have been widely discussed and researched for decades. This is not “News!” fake or otherwise.

What concerns me are the students who consistently perform poorly on competency assessments, from one year to the next. My assumption, which you are invited to challenge, is that the “population of children” who perform poorly, beginning in third grade all the way through eighth grade is comprised of the same boys and girls as they move from grade to grade.

What does it say about the education process if the same children who fall short of expectations beginning in the first round of competency assessments, administered when they are eight and nine years old, are the exact same children who perform poorly every year thereafter? What does it say when there is a decline in the performance of this population of students after they reach middle school?

If, indeed, we have these huge populations of children who perform poorly all the way through elementary and middle school, what does it say about our focus on the purpose of public education? What does it say about our strategy. Does it work?

My answer to these questions is that it is time to re-evaluate our assumptions, our purpose, our strategy, and our practices.

It is my assertion that this phenomenon exists because the education process—what educators are asked to do and how—is not consistent with our purpose or mission. Rather than focus on making sure each child is ready for middle school by the time they reach the age of 11 or 12; for high school by the time they reach the ages of 14 and 15, and ready for the responsibilities of citizenship by the time they reach the age of 18, teachers are expected to move students from point to point on the outline delineating the academic standards adopted by a given State as a group, whether they are ready or not.

What the results of competency examinations tell me is not only is our focus misdirected, it is also uncompromising. The education process demands that teachers permit students to fail because giving them the time they need to learn each lesson is not even a consideration, let alone an expectation. Certainly, many teachers strive to give extra help but, depending on the number of struggling students in a teacher’s classroom, rarely is there sufficient time.

We instruct our teachers to record, in their grade books, the results of each lesson in each subject area before moving on to a new lesson. The natural consequences of this practice are students who are increasing less prepared to be successful as they move from lesson to lesson and grade to grade.

Now, step back a moment, and let’s think about what we know about the children who arrive for their first day of school, at age 5 or 6:

• We know that the disparity in their level of academic preparedness runs the full range of the continuum;

• We know that the pace at which they learn is equally disparate;

• We know many are away from their mothers and other family members for the first time; and, therefore, need to connect quickly with a caring adult;

• We know that there are some children who have few adults who care about them, if any at all; and,

• We know that many are unprepared for most of the new experiences they will face.

Now, think about our purpose but do not rush to answer.

What is our objective with these children? Think hard about what it is that their community will, someday, need from our children?

As simply as we can state them, their community needs each child to grow into:

• A well-educated young man or woman who is prepared to accept the responsibilities of citizenship in a participatory democracy;

• Who has sufficient knowledge, skills, and understanding of the world to give them choices about what to do with their lives to find joy and meaning; and,

• Who can provide for themselves and their families.

What is the best way to accomplish these objectives?

Is it to push them along so they move from lesson to lesson, grade to grade, with their classmates, ready or not?

Or,

Is it to help them progress; from where they are intellectually and emotionally on that first day of school to become the best version of themselves that they can be and to learn how to create success for themselves?

If it is the latter, what we do today is not what children need and, clearly, it does not work. The data is indisputable.

Someday, we might be able to eliminate high-stakes testing, but that is not within our power, today. The best we can do is figure how to utilize the process to our best advantage and for the best advantage of our students. The same is true for the grading process in use in our classrooms. The purpose both types of assessments must not be to pass judgment on our students and teachers rather to gage our progress so that we can determine next steps, as we strive to fulfill our purpose.

Our primary goal is to prepare children for life after completion of their formal primary and secondary education. Our intermediate goals are to help them get there, one step at a time. We want to start at the exact point where we find them on their unique developmental path and begin to lay a foundation for intellectual and emotional growth and development. Once we have laid that foundation, our purpose is to help them master, one successful step at a time, the knowledge, skills, self-discipline, and understanding they will need in life. We are concerned about the whole child:

• We want them to have the healthy self-esteem they will need to control most of the outcomes in their lives;

• We want them to be able to develop healthy relationships with the people in their lives;

• We want them to be able to express themselves through all forms of human communication and interaction;

• We want them to understand and appreciate the diverse cultures of humanity as expressed through the arts and social sciences;

• We want them to understand history so that they can apply what we as a people have learned from our mistakes throughout the millennia;

• We want them to have sufficient understanding, through science, of the complexity of the world in which they live, so they can make thoughtful decisions about issues facing society;

• We want them to be able to create value for themselves, their families, communities, and society; and, finally,

• We want them to have a sufficient understanding of the role and principles of government so that they can participate in their own governance.

We cannot help children develop these crucial things by lumping them with a group of other children; by assigning them to teachers in such a way that forming close personal relationships is problematic; by imposing arbitrary time frames, or by allowing them to fail. Kids learn from their mistakes. Mistakes are not failures, they are opportunities to learn. Failure is when we say to them, “I’m sorry but we cannot justify spending any more time with you on this subject matter; we have more important things to do.”

We can reinvent the education process to give our nation’s children the quality education they deserve if we are willing to challenge our fundamental assumptions about the way we teach our children and then open our hearts and minds to a new way of doing what we do. My education model, which is designed to do just that, is available for your examination at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/ I encourage you to read it not in search of reasons why it will not or cannot work rather in hopes that it might.

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Like An Old Pair of Shoes!

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Recently, I described the American education process as being like an old pair of shoes that you feel comfortable wearing, but don’t dare run in, at least not too fast. In other articles, I have used the parable of storing new wine in old wineskins to compare the process with which we teach our children in most private, parochial and public schools in America.

Public school teachers and administrators have long grown comfortable with the current education process, but it does not always produce the outcomes they seek. Teachers do their best and in some classrooms, in some schools, nothing seems amiss. Those teachers feel good about what they do. In other classrooms, sometimes in the same school, and certainly in many other schools, things do not go so well. Not every student is successful and some who eventually achieve success, do so only after an extraordinary effort on the part of teachers and parents. Most teachers have at least one student who represents a challenge and requires that level of effort.

In other public schools and classrooms, most students struggle and in some, all but a few, struggle. For many students, success rarely happens. Are these teachers not as good? Is their something wrong with the school building? We know the students attending such schools present a different challenge but is that the only reason why outcomes are so disparate?

What if you were asked to trade students with a colleague who has a challenging class? Would the performance of that teacher’s students turn around, remarkably, once they spent time with you or would you likely face the same difficulty as your colleague? How would the students from your classroom perform with the other teacher?

If you are one of the fortunate teachers to have only one struggling student, imagine what it would be like if more than half of your students presented such challenges. What if the exception in your classroom was one student who is successful? How different would your experience be? How good would you feel about your students, classroom, and school?

The problem is not just the students and it is neither the teachers nor the school buildings. Rather, the problem is a brittle and inflexible education process that has been in place longer than many of you have lived? It seems to work okay for some children but the evidence that it does not work for all children is compelling and irrefutable.

There are millions of children who struggle in our nation’s most challenging public schools. If your classes are performing well, does that mean that you need not concern yourself with the challenges that other teachers face? Most often, the teachers in these low performing schools are just as capable as you; work just as hard, received the same education and training. Some of them might even be former classmates of yours.

If teachers in high performing schools choose to ignore the challenges of their colleagues is it okay? Is it okay for you to turn your head and be thankful that you are in a better place? Or, is that leaving your colleagues hanging out to dry. Do not all teachers and all students deserve better? Are you not comrades-in-arms in a noble profession?

If the only thing that is different between your high performing classroom and the low-performing classroom of your colleagues is the academic preparedness, motivation to learn, and parental support, what does that tell us about the effectiveness of the education process. If the process is incapable of adapting to the unique needs of its students, how can it serve the best interests of the American people and their sons and daughters?

The wonderful news is, “it need not be this way!” We can reinvent the education process to support every single teacher, in every single classroom, for every single student. And, no, it does not matter that all will not succeed at the same level. What our expectation can and must be is that we help each child learn how to be successful so they can be the best that they can be. We can ask no more of our children, their parents, or their teachers. We want every teacher to be the best of which they are capable, and we want each of your students to grow up to be the best men and women they can be.

The education process in place in our public schools and in most of our private and parochial schools is not capable of meeting the needs of a diverse population of children, no matter how capable their teachers, no matter how innovative their methodologies, and regardless of the level of sophistication of our tools. When taxed beyond its limits the education process will break down just as will that old pair of comfortable shoes. It does not allow teachers to adapt to the unique needs of their students and this is unacceptable and unnecessary. How can our nation compete in an ever-more challenging global marketplace and political arena if our children do not rise to their potential?

Once again, unless you have already done so, I ask that you review my education model at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/ Examine it not in search of reasons why it will not or cannot work rather in hopes that it might.

The Recurring Theme of Obsolescence!

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It is a recurring theme, I know, but the existing education process, which has been in place for most of our lifetimes, is neither tasked, structured, nor resourced to give our students what so many of you consider to be the essential variables in the education equation.

Whether it is making certain our students feel important, cared about, and confident that their teachers are one hundred percent committed to their success because relationships are an essential variable. Relationships are everything and all the knowledge, talent, and achievements in life pale in comparison to the importance of the people in our lives; people who care about us unconditionally. We must understand that it is only through our relationships with our students that we can compete with the power of the peer group.

Whether it is the belief that we must, somehow pull parents into the process as partners sharing responsibility for the education of their children.

Whether it is knowing that children are more than just test scores and that high-stakes testing forces us to teach to the test.

Whether it is knowing that teachers need to be guided and supported by visionary, positive leaders who exist to help us be the best teachers that we can be rather than search for what we do wrong. Just like our students, we need help to learn from our mistakes. This is what positive leaders do.

Whether it is wanting each child to be given the opportunity to learn from mistakes even if it takes more than one or two attempts. We know, from infancy, learning is all about making small adjustments based upon the mistakes they make and that all kids are on a unique time table. A child’s brain is programmed to learn, relentlessly; to soak up the world around them. How is it that somewhere along the line we throw obstacles in their path that cause them to stop trying, convince them that learning is anything but fun, and dampens if not destroys their motivation to learn.

Whether it is the belief that each child has inherent, if unknown, potential and that the job of our public schools and teachers is to help them discover who they are and who they can become, if given the chance; to help them create their own unique futures. Who knows, there may be a child in your classroom who could grow up to be President of the United States, if only we were able to help them through the, often, challenging learning process. Whether or not they will become a real President and not a pretender may well be up to you.

Whether it is believing that we must make the effort to understand the unique level of academic preparedness of each child when they arrive at our door for their first day of school because it is only when we understand what they know and where they lag that we can chart out a unique academic path and truly provide personalized learning.

Whether it is believing that we need to be open to and free to explore all the innovative ideas, personalized learning, digital learning, and other approaches, tools, and methodologies until we find what works for each child; recognizing that what works for one boy or girl may not work for another.

Whether it is knowing that we must teach the whole child and not just fill their heads with facts, numbers, and knowledge. Understanding that we must help them learn how to think creatively and critically; help them learn how the world really works so they can be contributing members of society and make informed choices about the critical issues of their time. Or, helping them be wise to the false promises, jingoistic dogma, or confidence schemes with which they will be showered.

Whether it is being convinced that we must help them understand history so that they can learn from mistakes of the past and make certain they understand the principles of democracy and the form and functions of a participatory democracy.

Whether it is a commitment to make sure that our students learn to understand and appreciate the diverse cultural fabric of humanity through the arts and social sciences. We want them to learn to be tolerant, understanding, and have empathy. And, we want them to learn to express themselves through literature, oral communication, art, and music.

Most of you believe that these are all essential variables in the education equation and vital to a child’s motivation to learn; that it is these things, rather than charter schools and vouchers, that will save public education in America.

If we are truly committed to the teaching profession, we want young people to leave our public schools with a portfolio of knowledge, skills, and understanding that will give them choices about what to do with their lives to find joy and meaning, provide for their families, and participate in their own governance. We want them to have the healthy self-esteem that comes from being able to control as many of the outcomes in their lives as possible.

As a former employer, I have always been surprised that so many public school teachers and other educators think corporations want our schools to produce automatons who will become replacement parts for their machinery. Some educators do not seem to understand that the frustration of the business community that feeds the “choice” education reform movement is that candidates for employment seem unwilling to work and unable to think creatively, accept responsibility for outcomes, and strive for excellence.

The only way to shut down education reformers with their platform of “choice” and their focus on high-stakes testing, charter schools and vouchers is to render them irrelevant; to make our public schools the “preference of choice.” This cannot be accomplished with the obsolete education process we have today. We must have an education model that frees teachers to give each of their students what they need and we can have this if we are willing to open our hearts and minds to a new idea.

This is exactly what my education model is designed to do. Don’t reject it without taking the time to understand it and, once you understand it, don’t hesitate to improve it so that it will truly help you meet the needs of each one of your students. Please learn about it at: https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/

Brainstorming Session!

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How many times throughout your lifetime have you heard other people say “Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it!”

The way you are asked to teach your students, today in 2018, is because someone, many decades ago, sat down and designed an education system in a way they thought would make it easy to teach kids. In present times, we continue that tradition of one teacher per classroom of 35 or fewer children.

Now, imagine that you and the other teachers at your school decided to create an opportunity to spend a day brainstorming, without the participation of administrators telling you what you can and cannot do. Imagine that the challenge you were given was to create an education model from scratch that would enable you to do all the things you have always wanted but were unable to do with and for your students. Would it look anything like the education process in which you work today?

Go ahead and try it! Plan a brainstorming session some weekend and see what happens. What do you have to lose?

Like seeds, ideas germinate the easiest when planted in fertile soil so, to kick it off and get everyone in an “exponential-thinking mindset” so you can all think outside the box. Someone told me recently that “think outside the box” has become cliché. The phrase might be cliché but the process of getting outside of one’s frame of reference is an essential tool of creative thinking.

Suggest to your colleagues that they review my education model before arriving for your brainstorming session at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/ just to get a glimpse of what might exist beyond the boundaries of conventional wisdom. Then, set both my model and “the way you have always done it” aside and have at it. Start with a clean whiteboard and no constraints. There is no such thing as an idea too crazy to consider.

Start by going around the room and asking every participant, one after another, to identify anything and everything they can think of that children need in order to learn. Do not stop until there are no more ideas. Then, work together to try to consolidate and prioritize that list, but do not erase anything. Remember, you want to teach the whole child and even the smallest things might make an enormous difference. Once you have completed this step then start back around and begin to suggest ways you could organize yourselves to ensure that every child has every one of his or her needs, met.

Remind yourself that the existing education process was designed a century ago and things have changed since then; in fact, everything has changed since then, many times over. Educators have experimented with modifications and there have been many innovative approaches, tools, and methodologies over the decades, but the original model is still at work in public schools, as well as private and parochial school, all over the U.S.

The reason these ideas have not proven successful is not because they were bad ideas and not because teachers are incapable. The innovative approaches, tools, and methodologies have been disappointing because we tried to force them into an outmoded and brittle process. As I have written, before, it is like the parable of storing new wine in old wineskins that leak and turn sour the wine we had worked so hard to produce.

Today, you are teaching in an archaic structure and process only because that’s the way we’ve always done it. This would be okay if the way we teach worked for everyone. But, of course, we know it does not.

Some of you might be thinking, “it works in my school” but if there is a single failing grade in even one teacher’s gradebook, then a child has failed. There are many schools where it we be difficult to count all the failing grades that have been recorded in the gradebooks of all the teachers in a given school over the course of a semester.

We have been conditioned to think this is the best we can do and that the responsibility for the failure of children who live in poverty, a disproportionate percentage of whom are also children of color, must be borne by society, not our public schools.

As education reformers and other critics of public education have become more aggressive and are now offering alternatives to traditional public schools, it is only natural that public school teachers have grown defensive. That it is why it is vital that public school teachers, administrators, and policymakers step back and challenge their fundamental assumptions about what they do and why. It is my belief that teachers are in the best position to take responsibility for this process because they are close to the problems. Teachers live with the challenges of teaching every day and they witness the struggles and failure of children.

Consider one last chilling thought. We have noted that educators suggest that it is up to society to address the problems of poverty before teachers can be expected to teach millions of our nation’s disadvantaged students. Guess what? Society has done something to address the issues of poverty that make it so difficult to meet the needs of all our nation’s children; needs that are often extraordinary.

Over the past fifty years, American society has spent trillions of dollars building school buildings in communities all over the U.S. and have staffed them with the most qualified teachers our colleges and universities can produce. Society has been waiting on you, the best teachers we can produce, to find a solution because the American people don’t have a clue. You, America’s teachers—unsung heroes all—are the only Americans who truly understand the needs of the children with whom you work every single day.

America needs each of you to put your heads together and come up with a new way of teaching that will allow every child to learn and be successful in the classroom and that will refuse to let a single child fail. You know better than anyone that your students do not start off from the same point with respect to academic preparedness and with reference to your state’s academic standards; you know that they do not all have supportive parents; you know they do not all learn at the same pace; and you even know that there is no expectation that they will all arrive at the same destination. You also know that they are children and that they need us to like them, to be patient with them, to support them in every conceivable way.

You also know that our nation’s disadvantaged students, are the most vulnerable. They need us to tailor an academic process to their unique requirements and they are also the students who need us the most no matter how challenging it might be to teach them. Remember, the child who is hardest to love is the one who needs it the most.

What you may not have considered is that American society needs these kids every bit as much as they need us. We can no longer afford the enormous cost of caring for a growing population of Americans who lack the academic skills to support themselves and their families. We can no longer afford the incalculable opportunity cost that these generations of children represent if we are to rise to the unprecedented challenges the balance of this Twenty-first Century will present.

Finally, we all need to understand that we cannot legislate an end to the prejudices in the hearts of the American people. Neither can we legislate an end to the resentment, bitterness, and anger in the hearts of Americans who are frustrated that they are asked to pay taxes to support people whom they perceive to be unwilling to support themselves. What we can do, gradually, is to reduce the population of Americans who have become entrapped in a maelstrom of poverty, failure, hopelessness, and powerless; thus, leaving others to find something else to be angry and embittered about.

This is not something that can be done in a day. After all, it takes eighteen years to raise a child and it takes thirteen years in school to help them acquire the skills, knowledge, and understanding they will need to have choices about what to do with their lives to find joy and meaning when they leave high school. They must, also, be able to accept the responsibilities of citizenship in a participatory democracy.

Teachers, I urge you not to wait for someone else to fix the problems in our nation’s public schools. And do not forget that education reformers are working hard and spending huge sums of money to take that responsibility away from you. Scariest of all, these reformers haven’t taken the time to understand the real challenges in our public schools and are oblivious to the harm they do. You, our teachers, are the only ones who can stop the reformers and the only way to stop them is to render them irrelevant.

Embrace Change If You Want Something Better

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This morning I retweeted and responded to three people whom I follow and respect who were independently talking about the same thing: changing what we do to get better results.

It began with Jimmy Casas @casas_jimmy who tweeted:

“Thought for the day: We need to stop saying educators hate change. Not true for most. They hate not having support, resources, & most importantly, time! Provide these three things & you’ll see most will embrace it. #culture”

My comment in my retweet was:

“They’re scarce because the current #educationprocess isn’t set up to provide them. Why not embrace #CHANGE to a model created [specifically] to give support, resources, & time for teachers and kids. These precious commodities don’t fall from the sky. We must reach for them.”

Within seconds, a tweet popped up on my screen from Bruce Van Horn @BruceVH who posted a great Meme saying:

“You must be willing to do something you have never done before to get to where you have never been before.”

And, again, seconds later, another tweet appeared, by Burton Brown, Sr. @BurtonBrown:

“Be Brave! Take off your clothes and put on some new ones. @DonnaReiners #quote”

The first thing that “popped” into my mind was my favorite motivational speaker of all time, Zig Ziglar, who once said:

“If you keep doin’ what you’ve been doin’ you’ll keep gettin’ what you’ve been gettin’!”

The most important issue on the American agenda is public education and the achievement gap between black students and their white classmates is the civil rights issue of our time, as is the achievement gap between white children and other disadvantaged students, many of whom are also minorities.

These children are failing by the millions and, contrary to the claims of education reformers, they are failing in spite of the heroic efforts of public school teachers.

Why is it so hard to recognize that we must change and put an end to a flawed education process that has produced multiple generations of American men and women who have always failed in school and have always been poor. These Americans produce whole new generations of children and send them off to school with little, if any, expectations that an education will provide a way out of the cycle of poverty and failure. These Americans have no reason to believe that the school experiences of their children will be any different than their own. For so many of these men and women, the American dream is a false promise; an illusion. It is the civil rights movement, unrealized.

Make no mistake, the burden of supporting this population of the poor and dependent, and especially black Americans, is the basis of the ever-deepening bitterness of millions of other Americans who resent having to support them. This generation’s-old pattern, they believe, justifies their prejudices and bigotry and, as much as anything else in American society, explains why so many people are so upset with life in America that they elected Donald Trump to be President of the United States.

Yes, I know how incredibly difficult it must be for the teachers in our most challenged public schools to stand up and proclaim that what they are being asked to do does not work when they know they are being blamed for the failures. We must move past talking about blame and begin talking about who will accept responsibility for change. If we wait for others do it for us, we may wait forever.

I also understand why so many teachers who teach in higher-performing schools feel the need to defend themselves against the attacks by reformers and resist their focus on “choice,” charter schools and vouchers.

Deep down in their hearts, many public school teachers know there is something horribly wrong when outcomes never seem to change no matter how hard they work or how many new ideas, methodologies and approaches they are asked to try. They also know that “choice,” charter schools, and vouchers are not the answer just as they know prejudices and bigotry are not the answer to our nation’s future.

If teachers and advocates for public education would only step back a few steps and look at the education process as an integral whole, they would see that it is a process that has grown obsolete. It is a process that not only fails to support teachers and students as they go about their important work, it impedes their efforts; it forces them to overcome one obstacle after another.

As has been so eloquently pointed out by Bruce Van Horn, Burton Brown, Sr., and Donna Reiner, the answer to your question, Jimmy Casas, is that the only way we can give teachers and students, especially disadvantaged students, the “support, resources, & most importantly, time” is to change the way we teach.

Michael J. Fox posted a meme some time ago, to which I have referred, often, and which many of you have communicated in your own words:

“If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”

Please, please, please take the time to read my Education Model and accompanying white paper at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/

Teachers say all the time that “kids are more than test scores” and that an education must be more than teaching to a test; that we must teach creative thinking. The first and most important aspect of creative thinking or “thinking outside the box,” which I prefer to call “exponential thinking,” is to force ourselves to step back, far enough, that we can examine a system or process as an integral whole, challenge our fundamental assumptions about what we do and why, and begin to think about other ways we could go about doing whatever it is that we do. So that we are not just teaching to a test and can show that our kids are more than test scores.

I am not so arrogant that I believe that my education model is the only way we can change public education, no matter how confident I may be, but I do believe it will help educators undergo a paradigm shift and see the education process—the logical process through which we deliver a service to our nation’s children—in a new light. It will show you one way we could begin to do things differently and end the failure of so many of our nation’s precious children. If nothing, else, it should provide a catalyst that will #ignite your own imagination.

I also challenge black Americans and other minorities, and their advocates, to seize this opportunity to bring MLK Jr’s dream to life and make it part of a real American dream.

The Education Process Should Support and Empower not Constrain!

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So many schools and teachers are doing wonderful things with their students and yet million of children fail, particularly disadvantaged kids. That teachers continue to work hard is a testament to their commitment and to how much they care.

Employing innovative ideas, methods, and approaches should not require extraordinary effort on the part of teachers. Why should teachers be forced to jump through hoops and overcome obstacles to give each student the unique amount of time and attention they need to learn and grow; to experience success in the classroom? No matter how hard they work, the current education process is not structured to allow teachers to meet the needs of each child and this is especially true in public school districts that serve a diverse population of children, including many disadvantaged kids.

The current education process in place in American private and public schools, has not changed materially in decades while the world in which we live has changed exponentially. An effective education process would be engineered to enable, facilitate, and empower teachers to go, virtually, to unlimited lengths on behalf of their students with full confidence that the education process would support them at every step along the way.

It helps to consider that the education process on which we rely was not created by educators striving to find a way to optimize a teacher’s ability to teach and a student’s ability to learn. The education process has evolved over a period many generations and is based more on tradition than functionality. The education process is like a software application that has been subjected to so many minor modifications and fixes that it has degraded over time and no longer performs the tasks and functions for which it was created.

The education process has grown obsolete and no amount of tinkering will make it work the way our children and their teachers need it to. Neither will incremental improvements allow the education process to meet the needs of 21st Century America. The process we have today is, in fact, a consequence innumerable incremental changes, jury-rigged fixes, and being stretched and pulled in every possible direction to accommodate new methodologies and approaches that never quite seem to fit. It is time to think about how we would construct an education process, today, if we were starting from scratch.

So many great educators tell their stories on Twitter; inspirational stories about their successes in the classroom. I love the messages about the importance of connecting with our students on a personal level, responding to their needs for supportive care, safety, and affection. So many of you talk about how important it is that our students do not give up and stop trying; that making mistakes or falling down are not failure. You talk about how important it is that children learn how to be successful and gain confidence in themselves.

The education process, however, is not structured to facilitate the efforts of teachers to make our students feel special nor does it permit teachers to give students however much time and attention they need to learn each lesson. Often, teachers must go above and beyond to achieve these things. The process is not designed to treat each child as a unique individual. Teachers might be told that this is the expectation but the expectation against which their performance is measured is something else, entirely. The “real” expectation is a function of the evolution of high-stakes testing.

States do need academic standards and they must rigorous. Where we go wrong is that the focus is on moving an entire classroom full of 20 to 35 students down a path, as a unit, in conformance to state academic standards. Teachers know there is great disparity in the level of academic preparedness of the students who arrive in their classrooms on the first day of the school year, especially in schools serving a high percentage of “disadvantaged students.” They understand that students do not start from the same place on an academic preparedness continuum nor do they learn at the same pace. We do not even expect them to arrive at the same destination.

Think about how the process deals with student performance. We give our students tests on each lesson and record both passing and failing grades in our gradebooks before moving on to a new lesson. Teachers might find time to give extra help to a small number of students who struggle but when failing students represent 25, 50, 75 percent, or more of the class there is not enough time.

If the process was structured to help each child down their unique path, our students would not be pushed on to a new lesson for which they are unprepared. Rather, the expectation would be that we let each student move on to a new lesson when they are ready and that teachers take however much time is needed to help them get ready; to help them understand. Student’s should not be expected to keep up with classmates and neither should students be asked to slow down until others catch up.

Students must be able to experience success and they must learn that they possess the ability to create their own success. They must learn that success is a process and we must help them master that process. When students give up and stop trying it is because they no longer view success as possible; as something that is within their power to achieve. Whenever we accept failure—and that is what we do when we record a failing grade—and tell students time is up and, then, push them ahead, we are depriving them of the opportunity to experience and master the process of success.

It does not matter if our leaders tell us that we are dedicated to the success of each child. As in everything else in life, what matters is not what we say, it is what we do. What matters is what happens to kids within the context of an obsolete education process. What matters is the degree to which that process constrains teachers and children and how it impedes our important work. What matters is how we keep score.

Think, also, about how well the process helps teachers form warm, nurturing relationships with each of their students. Teachers have one school year to bond with anywhere from 20 to 35 children. For some kids it happens quickly, for others it may take the entire school year, and for some it may never happen. At the end of the school year those bonds we worked so hard to form are severed as kids move on to the next grade in another classroom with another teacher and start all over. At least the kids with whom we have bonded will be able to hope that their new teacher will like them. What will be the expectations of the students with whom we were unable to bond? Some children have no idea what it would be like to have a special relationship with a teacher because it has never happened to them.

There are many kids who progress all the way through elementary school who never experience the kinds of special relationships that can change their lives and it is not for lack of effort on the part of teachers. The education process is structured in such a way that forming special relationships is a hope but not an expectation.

When our students perform poorly on state competency exams it is the teachers who receive the blame. No one even considers that it is the education process that is the problem. Because we never give such consideration, nothing is ever done to address the reality that the process has become obsolete. Most teachers have not even noticed that the process is obsolete but they do know it doesn’t help them do what needs to be done; they have a sense that things are not as they should or could be.

So many of your twitter, Facebook, and blog posts say that we need to teach the way children learn. Why don’t we start now?

Over the last ten years I have worked to develop an education model that I believe is teacher/student centered. It was developed through the application of 45 years of experience: working with kids; providing and teaching organizational leadership; reinventing production and service-delivery processes that produce unacceptable outcomes; and, walking in the shoes of public school teachers while working as a substitute teacher, part-time, over a period of ten years. The model is also as result of the application of the principles of positive leadership, organizational development, and systems thinking.

You will find the model at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/ along with an accompanying white paper.

I also encourage you to browse the 150+ articles on this blog, Education, Hope, and the American Dream.

For those teachers who work in high-performing schools and who have confidence that what you are doing works for your students, consider that what you are doing does not work in every school or for every student. Also think back on your experience and recall those occasions when you thought, “if only we could do this, or that.”

For those of you teaching in schools where many of your students struggle, consider that it doesn’t have to be this way. Think about how nice it would be if you could give your students the time, support, and attention they deserve. Think about how nice it would be if you could go home and feel good about what you have accomplished, every day. Consider that both you and your students deserve better.

Ask yourself, “if we could go back to the drawing board and create, from scratch, an education model that applied everything we have learned over the last half century or more, what would it look like?” Also, ask: “what would our nation be like if every high school graduate walked off the graduation stage with sufficient knowledge and skills to give them a whole list of choices of what to do with lives?”

Let’s not waste any more time. I know that most of the men and women reading these words are not happy with the way things are going in America.

Did you know that you are among the very few people who can actually do something about it?

Ignite!

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In a recent exchange of Tweets, I saw that Stella Pollard (@Stella_Pollard) had started a blog she is calling Voyage of Inquiry at www.voyageofinquiry.blogspot.com/ in which she announced that she has chosen the word “Ignite” as her #OneWord for 2018.

I’m not that familiar with the One Word Challenge but I love the word “Ignite” because it denotes action that will spark an explosion of new ideas and a new level of commitment; to revitalize something—in this case—public education in America. We must ignite a movement to stop the failure of disadvantaged kids a disproportionate percentage of whom are black or other minorities

For those of you who do not know, I am a former organizational management and leadership consultant who opted to close out my consulting practice to pursue my life-long dream of writing books. It wasn’t long before I realized that I still needed to keep some revenue flowing. A family member suggested that I try substitute teaching.

Over the next ten years (2002 to 2011) during which I wrote four books, I subbed part time for my local public school district. This proved to be a marvelous opportunity to walk in the shoes of public school teachers. The public school district in my community serves an urban community that is diverse by almost every conceivable measure. Once I overcame the shock of being immersed in the challenges with which public school teachers and their students must deal, I began to look at what was happening around me much like I would examine a production or service-delivery process for one of my consulting clients. My clients were primarily small, privately owned businesses or not-for-profit organizations who were struggling to produce the outcomes that were acceptable to their customers.

Once I decided to step back and strive to understand what was happening around me as an integral system, it was immediately apparent that something was not right. This led to an in-depth assessment of public education as a process, just like any production or service-delivery process, and ultimately to the release of the last of my four books, Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream: The Challenge For Twenty-First Century America (2013).

Although the overwhelming majority of the public school teachers for whom I subbed were dedicated professionals working to give their students a high quality education, it was apparent that this was not only a difficult thing to do but also that the way teachers, students, and classrooms were organized and the way they have traditionally gone about the work of teaching children made it seem an almost impossible job, no matter how hard teachers worked. Even in the highest performing classrooms, in this diverse school district, it appeared to me that the education process was more of an impediment to the important work of teachers and students than an enabling and empowering force.

It would have been easy to conclude, as education reformers with their focus on “choice,” that the poor performance in so many of the classrooms in which I subbed was the result of bad teachers and bad schools. It seemed clear to me that education reformers who are so critical of our publics school teachers and schools have not spent time in our classrooms nor have they made an effort to understand why so many schools and students are struggling.

There are many things that influence the academic performance of students in our public schools. These factors of influence include poor academic preparation; low motivation to learn; a lack of parental support; the consequences of poverty; and, once in a great while, a teacher who seemed to be in the midst of a burnout. I can assure the reader that although some teachers surely are at risk of burning out, they are at risk because they do care. It is the difficulty of what we ask them to do, and how, that is driving so many good men and women out of teaching.

One of the other contributing factors is the quality of leadership being provided by principals and superintendents. Before reacting to this statement please understand that the overwhelming majority of our principals and superintendents are every bit as dedicated to serving the best interests of our nation’s children as are their teachers. It is my assertion that issues with respect to quality of leadership have to do with the fact that our school administrators are trained to be, well, administrators and that very little of their formal education is devoted to teaching them how to be powerful positive leaders. Graduate schools of education that do not offer leadership courses are remiss.

Some people have a natural and intuitive understanding of the principles of positive leadership and many of the teachers who are fortunate to work with such people are nodding their heads as they read these words. Most of the other administrators, good men and women all, are neither natural-born leaders nor have they been taught. Leadership, particularly positive leadership, is a set of skills that most of us must learn. All organizations, including schools, reflect the quality of leadership being provided. Effective positive leaders view their role as a champion and supporter of their people and judge their own performance by how effectively they are able to help their people be successful. Most other administrators preside over their organizations, rather than lead them, and spend most of their time enforcing rules and looking for things to criticize rather than striving to help people be successful.

The biggest failure of leadership in education and in any other venue—and this is not the fault of individuals—is that one of the most important roles of leadership is to make sure their people have a structure and process that is designed to serve the needs of both their people and their customers. Like other educators, many principals and superintendents are so immersed in the traditional view of education that they fail to recognize that the education process at work in schools, both public and private, has grown obsolete. An obsolete process does not allow teachers and their students to perform at their optimal level. The process constrains—it has become an archaic mechanism that regiments—rather than a process that liberates teachers to adapt to the unique requirements of every single student. Students who arrive for their first day of school with a level of disparity that is cavernous, re: academic preparedness and motivation to learn, is one of the biggest challenges teachers face.

I challenge all educators to rally around our colleague Stella Pollards #oneword and “ignite” a conflagration—a wildfire that will challenge all of our assumptions about public education in America and transform, from within, that which reformers are attempting to destroy.

I offer my education model as a starting point and challenge educators to read it not in search of reasons why it will not work but as a tool to expand, exponentially, our paradigms so that we can view the American education process as an integral system https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/ . Only then can we reinvent it to produce the outcomes that our children and society need, so desperately.

Such an “ignition” would be the perfect way to begin 2018,

How Do We Reinvent the Education Process to Provide Every Child with the Highest Possible Quality Education?

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Educators understand that our students deserve the absolute best that their teachers have to give and also that teachers deserve the gratification that comes from our students’ success. Similarly, many of you recognize that giving kids the time and attention they deserve is often made difficult by the existing education process. You also know that in this environment, made toxic by high-stakes testing, it is hard for teachers to feel appreciated when test results are used, not as a diagnostic tool to help us do a better job, rather to justify blaming teachers and our public schools for the problems in public education

Teachers who have been around for a while know that the teaching profession has been under-appreciated for decades and they have seen many colleagues burn out and leave the profession they entered with such high hopes, expectations, and dedication.

The fact is that the world has changed exponentially over the last half century while the education process has remained relatively static. Certainly, new tools, techniques and technologies have been introduced but not all have made a teacher’s job easier. Many do not work the way they were envisioned in every teaching environment or for all students. Incremental reforms have been going on throughout the lifetimes of most of us and the best measure of their lack of success is the dread teachers feel in the anticipation of a new wave of education reforms.

I urge teachers to consider that there is an entire field of knowledge with respect to organizations and the processes utilized to serve each organization’s mission and purpose and to achieve their objectives. One of the things organizational leaders and specialists come to understand is that a process that continues to produce unacceptable outcomes, no matter how hard people work or how qualified they may be, cannot be patched, jury-rigged, or duct taped to fix that which is broken. Neither can new tools and technologies be utilized to fix an obsolete process any more than we can adapt a 747 for a trip to the moon. Elsewhere I have used the parable of new wine in old wineskins to illustrate why we haven’t been successful in fixing public education for every student through the introduction of new methodologies and technologies.

Systems are complex logical processes where the internal mechanisms that have been designed to serve the organization’s mission and purpose are integrated and interdependent. Like complex software, when we mess with the internal logic without understanding the whole, our changes will reverberate through the process creating an adverse impact on our outcomes and for our customers. Such patchwork solutions also make the work more difficult for every organization’s most valuable resource; its people. Even the best processes will degrade over time, no matter what we do.

The process utilized to reinvent an obsolete process can be replicated in almost any venue. It begins with:

• A re-clarification of an organization’s mission and purpose;

• Listening to and understanding our customer’s ever-changing requirements;

• Challenging all of our assumptions about what we do and why;

• Listening, also, to the people on whom we depend to produce our goods and services and who see flaws of the underperforming process in real time;

• Research to makes sure we are using state-of-the-art tools and technology;

• Creating a process designed to produce the outcomes we seek and that supports all of the people and resources engaged in that effort;

• A performance management system to solicit feedback and measure outcomes against expectations, not to fix blame but to help us learn from mistakes;

• To problem-solve disparate outcomes in a relentless pursuit of excellence; and, finally,

• Research and development to anticipate changes in the dynamic environment and marketplace in which we live and work.

I encourage the reader to examine the education model I have developed as each of the above components have either been completed or are in the process of completion. You can find my education model at my website at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/ along with an accompanying white paper written to introduce the education model’s logical foundation. You will also find my blog, Education, Hope, and the American Dream, with over 150 posts on the challenges facing public schools, their teachers, and students.

The education model is based upon my 40 years of organizational leadership and consulting experience; my experience working with kids, which began in 1966 and included nine years as a juvenile probation officer and supervisor, as a board member of a Montessori School, and as a co-founder of a Boys and Girls Club; two masters degrees, an MSEd in Psychology; and an MPA in public management; my own research and writing in the areas of the principles of positive leadership, organizational development, and systems thinking; and, my experience in the classroom over a ten-year period from 2002 through 2011, during which I walked in the shoes of public school teachers as a substitute in a diverse urban, public school district.

Although I have great confidence that my model will work to produce the outcomes we seek, I have and offer no illusions that it is the only possible solution. Also, I can assure the reader that it is and will always be a work in process. The reader is challenged to use my education model as a starting point to help you understand so that you can offer suggestions to improve my model or develop a better solution, if you can. You are advised, however, to relinquish any and all beliefs that the existing model can be modified, incrementally, to meet the needs of all of our nation’s children. Incremental changes to the current process is what got us where we are today and can only complicate things more than they already are.

Finally, I challenge the reader to understand that all the complaining and talk in the world will not fix the problems in public education. Neither will our complaints deter the efforts of the powerful men and women promoting what they call “Choice.” To stop them we must render them irrelevant and the only thing that works to solve such real-life challenges is applying the imagination of human beings working together for a common purpose.

Whether my model or yours, I challenge all of you to rally behind a solution as a united group of professional men and women dedicated to providing the highest possible quality of education for the children of our nation. It public education on which the futures of our nation’s children depends and it is our children on whom our nation’s future depend.

Please share this article, education model and white paper with everyone you know and ask them to join you in a crusade to transform public education in America. It may be the most important thing you will ever be asked to do for your country or for society, as a whole.