Gamers, trendsetters, rule followers.  Those were just three of the rather obtuse categories we outlined to try to capture a truly diverse sample of students.  The goal was to get 300 students of differing ages and perspectives to talk to each other and to us about a vision for the high school of the future. To do that, we needed to create a learning environment that was open, creative, critical, and fun.  “Why don’t we just find 10 adults on campus who can hand out 30 tickets each.”  My suggestion was met with a rather frustrated look from the deputy superintendent, David Haglund.  “How could you think of anything more boring than that?” came the response.  Point taken.

Visual artists, athletes, community-minded.  We settled on a much more subversive plan.  We would meet beforehand with 30 students from a range of grades and interests, and give each of them ten colored tickets.  Each ticket represented one of our categories, and the students had 48 hours to pass out their allotment of tickets.  At 9:55 on Friday, anyone with a ticket was instructed to get up and walk out of class.  Wes Kriesel, our Coordinator of 21st Century Learning, was the third member of our planning team.  “Are we going to tell the teachers what’s going on?”  There was some back and forth discussion about minimizing disruption while encouraging a lingering buzz about what was going on.  Ultimately, we tipped the staff to the 9:55 walkout, but left enough ambiguity to encourage discussion.

Performing artists, overachievers, rebels.  It was 10 am, and students started streaming into the gym.  Energy was high as the entering mass of sought out tables that matched their tickets, music pumping in the background.  “What does everyone at the table have in common?” was the first question, and then students were asked to pull out their cell phones and text something unique about them up to the three giant video screens at the front of the room.  Before they could settle in, students were again on their feet, this time seeking out a table with someone from each of the ten categories.  They repeated a brief discussion about what they had in common and what might be unique about them.  Our team of three planners had expanded to nearly a dozen adults who flowed around the room with throwable microphones that we would use to share pieces of the discussions unfolding at each table.

Then we settled in to the main activity.  We put ten topics on the front screens, each topic connected to a primer video or image and a discussion question. I called the activity cool squares, but was alone in my enthusiasm for the title.  Students used their phones to vote for the topics they wanted to talk about.  I’m not a morning person launched us into a conversation about school schedules, while What inspires me got them talking about how high school might encourage or hinder them from focusing on their interests.  Other topics were introduced by phrases like The school to prison pipeline, or Stop telling me what to do.  Students reflected individually for a moment on each discussion question, and then engaged with their table mates, all the while the adults in the room tossed microphones to students as they shared their thoughts with the group.

When we got to the school to prison pipeline, an energized student called for the mic.  “I don’t think you guys know enough about what this is talking about…”  This young woman’s passion for the topic was clear as she stood to engage the crowd.  Another student’s insight was equally powerful.  “Listen, there is a difference between learning and passing a class, and sometimes it seems like the entire system just cares about passing.”  Sometimes students broke into spontaneous applause.  Other times tables engaged in a healthy debate, passing the mic from student to student.  The discussion pulsed from cell phone voting, to primer video, to individual thinking, to small group discussion and then large group share out and then back again.

To close, each table put up five priority statements on poster paper.  The walls of the gym were lined with text, and then students engaged in a gallery walk using colored stickers to help prioritize their statements.  As they left the gym to head out to a BBQ lunch prepared especially for them, they each placed a post-it note on the metal gym doors, indicating the most important thing they wish the adults around them could figure out when it comes to their opportunities for learning and success.

Now we are engaged in the hard work of reviewing the data, identifying patterns, and setting priorities – not to mention engaging students in similar ways at all the high schools throughout the city.  We are serious about our commitment to integrating student voice into our work and the way we think about our schools and systems.  As students streamed out of the gym, one of them asked me a question that sums up our purpose and our challenge.  “Are you actually going to do anything about what we’ve said?”

I sat down at a meeting this morning and started to pull out my computer and settle into my space.  “You know Daniel, I haven’t heard any of your positive messages recently.”  The comment came from the principal of one of our middle schools who was sitting next to me.  Not exactly the unsolicited feedback I was anticipating.

The comment was innocent enough.  As I engaged her in a short conversation about what was behind her statement, she seemed to be referencing more narrowly a practice I have of texting out motivational quotes at random times.  Whether she meant her comment more universally about my leadership, I don’t know, but regardless, it thrust me into reflection mode.

Now, when we list off desirable leadership characteristics, I usually don’t see “thoughtful” on the board.  At the end of the day, we have to be accountable for the learning outcomes of our students, and not for handwriting thank you notes.  Yet I’ve come to believe that it is often the little things, the small efforts we make to acknowledge the worth and efforts of others, that make the difference in leadership.  Those small efforts are exponentially more powerful when they are unanticipated and outside of the normal work flow.

I think the comment this morning was poignant for me because it reflected a missed opportunity on my part, and I know better.  I know that the hand-written thank you note, the unexpected catered lunch, or the positive quote in a text, are powerful motivational actions whose impact far outweigh the time or resources it takes to make them happen.

Truth be told, the pace and rigor of the past few weeks has to some degree pulled me away from the strategic stance that helps me prioritize thoughtful leadership.  I’ve only been at my new job for a few months now, and already I have moments when I allow the daily exigencies of the work to cloud my long term vision.  Under compression, we take things and people for granted.  We look for shortcuts.

This morning came as a gentle reminder that I cannot allow myself to be swallowed up by the enormity of the task.  My drive to get work done should never crowd out my ability to reflect on whether I am doing work thoughtfully along the way.

My wife and I huddled over our spreadsheet listing 50 schools down the left column. Systematically, we calculated data for each kindergarten we were considering for our oldest daughter – distance from home, academic performance index decile ranges, similar schools rankings, racial/ethnic demographic composition.  Most of the data is publicly available, but you have to know where to look.  Of course each school had a website that listed its programs and traditions, but as an educator myself, I wanted to get beyond the superficial offerings.  Every school offers programs.  Not every school offers strong classroom instruction.

This was our experience as parents trying to choose a school in San Francisco Unified.  Ultimately, our daughter’s kindergarten request form included 38 different elementary schools, ranked from first to last priority.  This complex process has its genesis in school desegregation orders, evolving more recently during the school choice craze that’s now in its second decade. We’re increasingly told that the neighborhood school is not what is best for families and communities, especially when the school down the street is struggling to get academic results.

Tread carefully.  First, I must admit that I am both a proponent and a beneficiary of school choice. I was the principal of a spectacular little charter high school in San Francisco.  As parents, my wife and I have gone to some lengths to ensure our kids are enrolled in Spanish Dual Immersion programs – often not the closest school to home.  There is little doubt now that in districts across the country, the arrival of choice options has injected urgency into our discussions about what is best for our kids.  For some families and students, choice has delivered on its promise of providing a better option.

Yet despite its deceptively simple logic, school choice is not simple in practice.  Here are three aspects of school choice that should give us all pause for reflection.

1 – Public vs. Private Governance

This challenge is not a technical one, but an ideological one that probably has no resolution.  I can attest to the fact that charter school staff bristle when they are not referred to as a “public school.”  If your “publicness” is determined by whether you take taxpayer money in lieu of tuition, then charter schools are clearly public schools.  Charter schools pass a similar public litmus test when it comes to rules of open enrollment and accountability measures.  However, charter schools are not governed by publicly elected boards, and this sometimes bothered me about my own experience as a charter principal.  You could argue, as many do, that publicly elected boards introduce unnecessary politics and tension and take decision-making authority away from professional educators.  Yet local school boards are in our democratic DNA.  They ensure that local community members call the shots, as opposed to board members recruited for their fund-raising capacity or fiduciary expertise.  Yes politics can be messy, and local politics especially so.  I still happen to have an ideological streak in me that still believes that local school boards are an important part of the fabric of our democracy.

2 – Segregation

This is a fraught topic of policy that we cannot avoid, no matter how uncomfortable some people may be when topics of race and segregation surface.  School choice as a policy has always had implications for issues of segregation.  In many urban districts, the desegregation orders that followed Brown vs. Board and extended across subsequent decades drove white families out of the public schools (and often out of our cities).  Many urban districts utilized aspects of school choice as part of their desegregation plans.  Magnet schools, pilot schools, and community schools were often used as forms of choice and reform that figured predominately in desegregation plans that sought to integrate and improve schools without having to revert to direct busing.

School choice initiatives led by districts were often successful in terms of integrating schools because districts were under direct judicial order to do so.  One of the primary data points of interest for matters of accountability, therefore, was the racial makeup of the school.  Where schools and districts weren’t successful, the program had to be adjusted, by legal mandate.

More current charter school legislation, beginning in the late 90’s and extending into what we have today, was never terribly concerned about issues of segregation.  In practice, there is growing evidence to suggest that charter schools on the whole have actually contributed to segregating our schools.  Simply stated, when given an unrestricted choice, some parents will choose schools where the majority of students share the same racial and ethnic makeup.  This was my anecdotal experience in San Francisco, where charter schools, including my own, struggled to maintain a diverse student body compared to the general population of the city.  If having integrated schools is a priority, we need to rethink some of the policy mechanisms of school choice.

3 – Lack of transparency

For me, this is the most challenging and troubling aspect of school choice.   School choice has done little to open up the black box to see what really happens in schools.  In the context of competition, schools are less transparent – we want to broadcast what we do well and hide our warts.  In my own school, we were very proud of our college-going outcomes.  Our Hispanic and African American students outscored their counterparts in virtually all of the district schools nearby. We had some powerful and compelling data that we were very proud of.  We also had a much higher suspension rate, and parents had less recourse to argue with our decisions about discipline.

Funding is driven by enrollment.  Enrollment is driven by the perception of success.  There are powerful incentives for schools to promote their own success.  Of course I believe schools can and should promote themselves and celebrate success.  The challenge comes when schools start using single data points to sell themselves at the expense of nearby schools.  These data points are rarely transparent about important corollary data.  How does the level of parent education compare across schools?  How does student suspension data compare – or how about cohort graduation rates?  Charters are rarely forthcoming about this type of data as there is absolutely zero upside to sharing it.  Even when asked directly, if the data is unfavorable, it’s hard to get a straight answer.

This lack of transparency strikes at the heart of charter schools as a reform movement.  In order for parents to “vote with their feet,” they need access to high quality, honest data.  That’s not what they typically get.  They’ll get advertising and marketing.