The extraordinary economic crisis worldwide has caused many people to rethink their priorities. During this crisis, we have witnessed people losing their homes, massive job losses, and banks and other financial institutions going bankrupt. This crisis has touched every segment of our society and we are now witnessing it creep into the financial resources of the public school system.

During this time of crisis, many schools have to tighten their belts. This can mean that schools can lose staff and academic programs and in many places anything beyond the bare necessities are being eliminated in order to weather this financial storm. Things can appear hopeless to school leaders when they assess their resources and they are unable to provide the same services that they did just five years ago.

How does a leader deal with these conditions? He/she must refocus the school on its fundamental purpose, the education of children. Tough economic times can oft times teach us a lesson about priorities. These times can make us assess which things are really critical and which expenditures or resources truly support the goal of student learning. Companies that go into bankruptcy reorganization oft-times emerge more efficient and more viable as a result of a temporary hardship. As long as we have access to students, we can have great schools. Learning can take place anywhere and under any condition if we properly engage the minds of young people.

To leaders who are struggling through these times, I make the following recommendations:

1. Reconnect your educators to the noble cause of education; educating children
2. Maximize your resources! Don’t be afraid to spend, but do your research and only spend your scarce resources on the things that support student growth.
3. Be the example! If leaders whine and constantly voice frustration about lack of resources it will become contagious. Remember, you are the leader!
4. Look at the current state of affairs as an opportunity to reorganize and become more efficient. The public school system is not going anywhere and good economic times will eventually return. Money is helpful, but money does not teach kids!

As an educator of over twenty years, I have seen a lot in my time in the profession. One reality that I have witnessed is the disconnection from reality that many educators exhibit. Non-traditional educators, those who have chosen education as a second career, are oft-times flabbergasted by some of the attitudes and dispositions displayed by some of their new colleagues.

An unfortunate result of the traditional isolation of the school teacher and schools in general is the perception that educators operate as independent contractor. This isolation does not allow the educator to objectively evaluate his/her performance and an attitude of contempt can easily develop for those students and parents who do not comply or coöperate with the standard education program. Additionally, the traditional relationship between home and school has established that the educator is the expert and therefore his/her judgment in the areas of curriculum and pedagogy is indisputable. This is especially true in areas that serve the children of poor and uneducated parents. Consequently, good parental involvement has been judged through the lens of how successful parents are at convincing their children to comply with the school’s program. Finally, because of the difficult nature of our job, many educators feel as if we are doing the public ‘a favor’, instead of serving the common good as public servants. This attitude has turned many educators away from any discussion of internal improvement and resentment for policies that make schools accountable for improving student learning.

Obviously, educators cannot accomplish universal student achievement alone. They need the coöperation of parents and other members of the community, but there are things that we, as a field can simply do better. Classroom strategies tend to primarily focus on students with auditory and visual learning styles and other forms of cognitive stimulation are not considered, assessment systems are oft-times antiquated and do not accurately diagnose student learning, and constant and institutionalized professional development rarely exists.

If education is going to move forward as a field, there are certain truths that we are going to have to confront as a field:

1. We are not independent contractors, we are public servants. We are an arm of the government, funded by the public, with the specific purpose of educating the children of our community.
2. Complaining does not change reality. If we are unhappy with an exorbitant amount of outside regulation, we need to better analyze our performance and place a premium on self-improvement.
3. We chose this profession. If the conditions and challenges of our schools are too much, there are other things that we can do. If we cannot properly respect or connect with the members of the community in which we serve, we can choose to serve in a different community. Remember, we have many more options than the students that we serve.
4. We do not educate ourselves; we educate our clients (students). We have the professional obligation to educate the students that we serve using the methods that work best for them, not the methods that make us the most comfortable.

This era of renewed spirit in our country cannot afford to skip the school house. I call on all educators who care about our field to start to speak up in the halls of America’s schools. No longer can we allow a small group of dissatisfied people ruin the climate in which we work. I became an educator because I love kids and I want to see them grow and develop into powerful human beings. It is unethical and unprofessional to want anything else.

The Bell Curve just won’t do anymore. Schools need to ensure that all students learn. Some say this is impossible — that a disparity in student performance is natural. Although when the results are scrutinized, it’s true in nearly every school across the nation that lower economic and minority groups are highly represented in failing populations. Is the Bell Curve really nature or a result of a societal self-fulfilling prophecy that creates the Achievement Gap?

In schools today, it is unethical to continue on that path.

This new school year brings a fresh set of smiling faces to you, kids whose hopes, fears, and loves all rest in the hands of their teacher. For the time shared during the school day, teachers are everything to their students: parent, partner, and mentor. If you know that you are not addressing the educational needs of ten, twenty, or thirty percent of your student population, shouldn’t you do something tangible about it? How would reaching those students change the rest of their lives? What would academic success with all of your students mean to you? What would it mean to them?

The reality is that shining examples of what is possible with student achievement are available throughout the nation. I believe that a core group of educators can begin a revolution to change their school and the lives of the children they serve. I believe this is our duty as educators, to open our students’ minds with carefully crafted curriculum and teaching that is connected to our student’s lives and interests. I believe that teachers who dedicate themselves to the ideals of change and tender their duty with enthusiasm and modern pedagogical philosophies can eliminate the achievement gap in their schools. The result of such practices is nothing short of changing the world, one student, one class, and one day at a time.

Parent involvement is a key component in an effective school. Unfortunately, many struggling schools do not get the type of support from the homes of their students to support the initiatives that they would like to develop. This creates a dilemma since parents are not subject to the school’s authority. So, what can schools do to boost this very critical component of student development?

First, schools can be flexible in their outreach efforts to parents. Traditional methods like PTA meetings held on the same night of the week every month at a time that fits educators schedule may not fit the diverse needs of parents. Parents who do not have post-secondary degrees may have to work “shift” jobs that may not allow them to attend this critical meeting. Also, moving critical parent meetings to alternative sites like community centers and local churches, etc. may boost participation.

Successful schools operate under the assumption that parents want their children to be successful. Problems arise when parents do not know how to create this positive outcome. The problem is exacerbated when the parent themselves had a negative experience in school as a child. So, simply gathering a group of parents for school events may not address the critical home/school partnership issue. My research has found that schools that focus on precisely what they want parents to contribute in this partnership, and organize their efforts to educate parents on strategies that they could use at home to support their children, get great returns.

Low expectations for student performance have a crippling affect on schools that serve students from underrepresented achievement groups. The work of researchers like Jerry Brophe, Larry Lezzotte, and Robert Green has provided scientific evidence of the effect of adult expectations of student performance. In my research I have found three powerful forms of “predetermination” that cripple the educational potential of children: Perceptual, Intrinsic, and Institutional.

Perceptual predeterminations are preconceived notions about the actual or potential achievement of children based upon stereotypes that are by-products of the socialization of the adult educator. This form of predetermination varies from individual-to-individual based upon their socialization. Unless a person grew up in a vacuum, this form of predetermination is hard to avoid. This obstacle can be pretty easily addressed by an instructional leader who provides his/her educators with evidence contrary to the predetermined obstacle.

Intrinsic predetermination is the self-defeating attitude that students transport to school from their homes and community. If a student is not surrounded by academic role models and evidence that performance in school leads to success in life, they are very likely to conclude that school is not important and people who look or live like them are not expected to do well. This form of predetermination can be countered by providing disenfranchised students with real experiences that send messages contrary to those outside of school.

Institutional predetermination is locked into the very structure of traditional schools and guarantees a normal distribution of achievement. Examples include rigid master schedules that predetermine the number of students who take rigorous, regular, and remedial courses before the students ever step one foot onto the school campus and summer school programs developed before grades post in anticipation of a certain amount of student failure. This form is more difficult to combat due to the fact that most people do not even recognize its existence. Once recognized, the fix is pretty simple, make your system fit the needs of the students instead of making the student fit the need of the system.

Resistance to change is a reality in many schools, especially those schools with traditionally underperforming students. The pressure to change and improve student performance through the mandates of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) make this an even more difficult task. In order to understand how to tackle this complex issue, school leaders (including teacher leaders) need to understand the dynamics of school culture. Schools have three major categories of players in the school culture arena; Believers, Tweeners, and Fundamentalists.

Believers are educators who are predisposed to the ideas and programs that support the egalitarian idealism of education. They are willing, and in fact seek, the best models to support the universal achievement of their students.

Tweeners are those educators who are new to school culture. These educators are given a probationary period of two-to-five years to pick sides in the school tug-of-war. Unfortunately 50% of new educators leave the field in their first five years of employment and this number jumps to over 70% in urban areas. This group is critical to school improvement because if high-risk schools do not retain qualified staff members, school reform because nearly impossible because long-term initiatives become impossible and there is no organizational memory.

Fundamentalists are educators who are comfortable with status quo and they organize and work against any viable form of change. There goal is to be left alone. They have many tools that they use to thwart reform initiatives, and without the proper leadership, they are generally successful. The interaction of these complex groups of individuals make school reform difficult at best and only disciplined and informed leadership is qualified to untangle this web and focus the school professionals on the singular goal of total student success.