A few years ago, my son brought home his 6th progress report and I had to ask myself how a school system that spends so much time evaluating our children (too often from a deficit mindset) seems to skirt holding themselves to the same standard. Especially the higher in the organization you go.
Students receive formal performance data eight times a year counting progress reports and quarterly report cards. Shifts due to the Every Student Succeeds Act mean teachers are evaluated 2-4 times a year. Most principals see feedback twice a year from a supervisor. For district leaders and the superintendent, it is often annually. And yet the school board, in most cases, does not receive feedback outside of perfunctory self evaluation annually or the occasional election. That’s if they’re not appointed!
If school boards are not accountable through evaluation of their performance, they are unable to create a culture where data is feedback to help everyone in the school system grow. Instead, it is used as a hammer used to blame.
My work in school systems reinforces the idea that organizations are, for good or bad, inherently coherent. Whatever you see at any particular level (think classroom, school, department) you will see at the others. If you observe teachers trusting students and students taking informed risks in service of their learning, you will likely see principals creating aspects of a similar environment for teachers, and district leaders doing the same for principals. However, if you see blaming or avoidance behavior in the classroom, you will see its parallel in the teachers lounge, the principal’s office, and department meetings.
You, and your fellow citizens, are the boss of your school board. It is your job to evaluate the school board and provide feedback on how they are doing.
With the transition to an elected school board in Chicago, some colleagues and I started sharing a “Chicago School Board Report Card” along with a weekly news publication that provides context to the work of the board. The purpose is to start a conversation within and across our communities about what exactly we want from our schools and what sort of board we need in order to achieve those dreams for our young people.
We started tracking how much the board talks about student learning and how much they engage in governance conversations about budgets, policy votes, or evaluating the superintendent. We also track how much time is spent focused on adult priorities including unrelated stories from members’ past experiences, performative appreciation that is unspecific or unrelated to goals, or wringing their hands about issues outside of the board’s control, like how evil the President is. Let’s be clear, the current president is evil and incompetent, but that conversation is a distraction from the board’s responsibility to ensure the school system improves learning.
The results show that we have work to do. Last year, our board only spent 14% of its time discussing how to improve student learning. With only 25% of our children proficient in math and 40% in reading, it is impossible for us to spend enough time talking about student learning.
While there is work to do, we also have to look at the ways in which the board is finding and elevating the assets within our system of schools. Do they spend their time getting curious with questions or making statements? Do they find positive outliers or critique gaps in performance? Our school system will only improve if we model for the other adults what we want them to model for our young people.
So check out the report card. What is your school system getting right? What evidence do you need to gather to see to what degree your community’s children are served well. Your school board needs you to be a good boss. That means telling them what is expected, showing them how they are doing, and supporting them to improve.
Let’s start working together to improve America’s school boards.
