Ray McNulty
In the last six months, I have traveled around listening to students, educators, community members, legislators, business leaders, and civic groups in an effort to understand from many perspectives the challenges we face in public education. Just before leaving on one trip, I read in a journal the following comment of a former CEO of a large U.S. business: "The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of the people in an organization is going to blow the competition away."
It made me pause. What are we doing in our school systems that holds us back from using the collective genius of all our people?
In ensuing visits, I pursued the answer, although I expected it would be as complex as solving the Rubik's Cube. The consistency of the two themes that arose from the responses of diverse groups amazed me: the need for leadership and a clear focus.
Leadership Density
We all know the usual views about leadership: "there aren't enough leaders to go around," and "no one wants to be a leader," or "tell me what to do and I will get it done." Yet those with whom I talked offered some fresh and atypical definitions. They said that leadership is a skill that we all need to develop and use every day. Most pointed out that leadership is not a position, but a way of doing for everyone in a school system. In other words, all members should take on the responsibility for the whole by ensuring that they direct their energies toward organizational priorities. Getting everyone involved in leadership as a way of doing builds an organization's leadership density, which yields benefits for the whole.
For example, one district's teachers, disappointed with the math scores of their students, took it upon themselves to survey their students about the quality of the math curriculum and instruction. Teachers weren't told to do it; they knew it was the right thing to do if they wanted better results. They learned first-hand that students felt bored and disconnected from the math program. This helped teachers create a more rigorous, focused program that challenged all students with algebra and connected math content to student experiences.
Clear Focus
During my visits, the conversation on leadership would then shift almost like clockwork to the topic of clear focus. If we want to harness the collective genius of everyone in a school system, many said, we can't keep doing everything. We need to make hard choices about what we do. Establishing a clear focus thus fits into the concept of leadership density: If everyone in a system understands the goals, then the work of leadership by all should have a laser-like focus on what's most critical.
On a visit to New Zealand, for example, I found elementary teachers and principals unified in saying that literacy and numeracy skills were key targets for elementary students. They agreed that a child without such skills in today's knowledge-based society would be relegated to poverty.
And at High Tech High in San Diego, Calif., three principles drive the curriculum: real-world immersion, personalization, and performance-based assessment. The clearly focused curriculum is designed to produce high-tech leaders and engaged citizens. By intention, it does not offer 150 courses. The tight nature of the intellectual mission focused on technology helps students, educators, and parents understand not only what the school is about but also what it is not about.
Building on Our Strengths
There are many other wonderful examples of schools around the world that practice these two essential skills of leading and focusing each and every day. The schools are generally small in size, tend not to have all-encompassing curricula, and offer active, in-depth learning for their students. They also tend to support both student and adult learning in an effort to establish a culture where learning and leadership are part of the system for all to experience.
There is little doubt that if we could harness the collective energies of all the educators, students, and staff in schools around the world, we could make the changes needed to educate all our children. Leadership density and a laser-like focus are great places to begin.