I love to lead.  There, I said it.  I think that working with people, using language and actions strategically to boost motivation and skill, and guiding teams to take on big challenges is terribly exciting and important work.  When you ask school administrators why they left the classroom, more often than not they will tell you a story about how they resisted the invitation, how they had to be coaxed over time.  Ultimately, you might get some acknowledgment about the opportunity to have greater impact on kids, but even that comes begrudgingly.  In education, leaving the classroom is, to a great degree, the unpardonable sin.

I have always known I would become an administrator.  Who admits to that?  Administrators are supposed to pretend that they never really considered anything but teaching.  I suppose for a lot of school leaders, they genuinely never planned on becoming an administrator.  We call it “turning to the dark side” when a teacher leaves the classroom, and I premeditated my crime!  My premeditation was so severe, in fact, that I spent my last year going through the National Board Certification process to help build my credibility as a leader of teachers.  I was already out of classroom when I was formally notified that I had received my Board Certification.

So let’s just come clean.  I got into education to lead.

Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely loved my time in the classroom.  I love the act of teaching and I love talking about teaching.  Mostly, I love interacting with students each day.  Their energy and enthusiasm – or even their disdain – bring an urgency and authenticity to the work.   Teaching is a beautiful, if not the beautiful, profession.  Yet I have to recognize that no matter how well intentioned my decisions or genuine my respect and admiration for teachers, I’m not really part of the teacher club any more.  I left the classroom.

And to be honest, we need more strong teachers to do the same.

Let me give you an example.  Both my mother (in Arizona) and sister (in DC) are 3rd grade teachers.  They are both tremendous educators whose skill in the classroom is rivaled only by their love for kids.  It shouldn’t be surprising that at some point when I talk to either my mom or sister, the conversation inevitably turns to education, and when it does, we often talk about their principals.  It’s not always pretty.  Let’s just say that not all principals are created equal, and that effectiveness variability has a huge impact on the professional and emotional lives of teachers and students both.

Leadership in education shouldn’t be an accident.  It shouldn’t be an afterthought.  We’re need to develop a cadre of effective, equity-minded school leaders that are not apologetic about the decision to leave the classroom.  If their ambition is rooted in a genuine desire to provide powerful learning environments and programs for kids, then that ambition is good for teachers too.

We’re building a new school of the arts in Santa Ana.  It’s anything but straightforward, especially as we try to wrap our heads around the skills, attitudes, and mindsets today’s artists and designers need to thrive.  How do you prepare a freelance artist, an aspiring filmmaker, or a precocious dancer to translate their talent and art into a sustainable way of life?  How do you deliberately develop artists with a social media presence as commanding as their stage presence?

We don’t have a lot of high school models to go on.  I’m not just talking about a traditional arts conservatory.  If we were primarily after a program that prepares students for dance companies, philharmonics, and established theatre troupes, then a traditional arts school would be more than adequate.  Heck, Santa Ana is already home to a highly regarded art conservatory (albeit not necessarily one primarily focused on the youth of Santa Ana).

Of course, artists are highly skilled workers whose preparation is dependent on high standards of quality and instructional rigor.  I’m a big fan of conservatory art schools who believes we need more, and not less of them.   Yet somehow, and perhaps more particularly in the context of students living in poverty, the conservatory model does not seem like enough.

We’re thinking about preparing entrepreneurial artists.  Artists whose modes of expression don’t yet have a broad audience.  We’re talking about art whose destination will be new media platforms, whose reach goes beyond privileged concert halls or hushed arts galleries.  We want graduates who are as adept at building relationships and creating niche markets as they are writing a screenplay or harmonizing a melody.

Quite frankly, we don’t completely know how to do this.  We don’t come with all the answers.  What we do bring is commitment.  We’ve brought together our most talented faculty, partnered with professional arts organizations, and cultivated pathways into post-secondary arts programs.  We’re prepared to develop a personalized, multi-disciplinary course of study for each of our admitted students.  All of this comes with the goal of preparing graduates with the aptitude to fashion a life that allows a full expression of their artistic vision.

As soon as I saw the Facebook post, I knew I was in trouble.  My daughter’s 1st grade teacher was being promoted as a literacy specialist, and she was going to be replaced, mid-year, by a beginning teacher who had just finished her student teaching.

For some parents and educators, this might not be seen as a problem.  We live in a society that worships at the altar of youth, and this is perhaps no more apparent than in education, where new teachers are valued for their passion, energy, and cheap salaries.  Administrators often value new teachers  for their willingness to try new things, take on challenging assignments, and contribute to improvement projects without invoking the union contract.  Many education reform organizations base their entire theory of action for improving schools on the malleability and commitment of new teachers.

I have heard many school leaders and reformers say something to the effect of, “you can train for skills, but you can’t train for passion and commitment.”  Perhaps I’ll break that statement down in a future post.  As a parent, however, I want both skill and commitment, but mostly I want skill.

When I was in my third year of teaching high school Spanish, I received a surprising and perhaps unwarranted recognition.  Each year, the 150 teachers  at my school nominated and then selected the Teacher of the Year.  The list of past recipients read like an all-star list of educators whose impact on learning and dedication to students was both long and noteworthy.  Nobody with less than 10 years of experience at the school had ever been selected.  Certainly a third year, non-tenured teacher such as myself had never even been considered.

Here’s the problem.  I was neither the most dedicated nor the most skilled teacher at the school.  Not even in my own department.  I had passion in spades, and volunteered for just about everything.  I was the embodiment of youthful zeal and professional optimism.  Yet privately I was conflicted about the award.

Denice Morales, for example, was a long-time Spanish teacher in my department.  She was old school.  You didn’t mess around with Ms. Morales. She was even reported to have flushed a student cell phone down the toilet when the student made the mistake of pulling it out in class.  Not exactly tech-friendly.  She possessed that matriarchal steadiness and steeliness that gets results from kids, and she did it year after year.  Instructionally, she was very talented.

Now, I’m a futurist and believer in the power of technology to accelerate learning.  As a former principal myself, I recognize how zest and enthusiasm are key strategic elements for building a student-centered and creative learning environment.  Ms. Morales would probably agree that zest was not an adjective she used to describe her reaction to new initiatives.  Her default reaction was skepticism, although she could be convinced over time.

Ms. Morales’ skill, like that of all skilled teachers, was hard fought.  It took time to develop.  While I’m excited and hopeful that my daughter’s new teacher will bring new energy and innovation to the classroom, I also know that she’ll struggle.  It’s hard as a parent to swallow.

I love working with school principals.  Perhaps it’s just me, but I simply prefer grizzled optimism borne from real experience over idealism.  Most principals have buckets of this type of energy and perspective.  These are people who have been around the block more than a few times.  They love kids.  They respect teachers.  When things don’t go according to plan, or when they go completely sideways, they have the emotional fortitude to provide stability and direction – even if internally they are suffering.  Over time, they develop a strong leadership intuition informed by both research and experience.  Student learning is their North Star, and they know how to laugh at the same time they are pushing hard for results.

So you can imagine my delight at getting an hour with over 50 school leaders to mine their thoughts and design considerations for our XQ super school design.  While our session together was explicitly designed to gather data and insight into our new school design, we also hoped the learning would be reciprocal and provide impetus for building momentum in the redesign and transformation work our principals do at their own schools.  Indeed, the entire XQ theory of action for transforming education stems from a desire to disrupt the status quo for all 50 million high school students in the country, not just the students who enroll in the 5 schools that ultimately win the prize.

I started our session showing the XQ: Rethink video.  It’s provocative; a direct repudiation of how we’ve allowed our high schools to stay frozen in time.  It calls our schools “outmoded” and invites us to “throw out the blueprint” for traditional high school design.  Those could be considered fighting words when your livelihood and daily leadership struggle are situated directly in the institutions that are coming under fire.  I asked our principals to quickly journal about their reaction to the video, and then to stand and array themselves physically in the room in order of strongly agree to strongly disagree.  My initial assessment was that the activity did not work very well.  Almost everyone clustered around the strongly agree end of the spectrum.  I thought perhaps they associated too much danger in strongly disagreeing with a video just shown to them by a district official (me), despite my efforts to encourage honesty in their reactions.

Then the principals started talking.  One by one they articulated their aspirations for meaningful, authentic learning.  They voiced their disdain for the structural impediments that keep us collectively from unlocking the full potential for student engagement and learning . They were eager to engage in the design process, and insightful in their contributions to it. Frankly put, school leaders are deeply, if not painfully, aware of the struggles in their schools, and their desire to bring about meaningful improvement is tangible and persistent.  Even those in the middle of the spectrum shared a strong desire to disrupt the status quo, although with major concerns over the policies and institutional disincentives that mitigate change.

In the end, we enjoyed a productive conversation focusing on critical elements of our school design.  As we’ve done in previous design engagements, principals individually brainstormed design elements, and then engaged in an interview protocol in an attempt to truly understand the primary design considerations of their colleagues.  Then we transferred those ideas to post-it notes and organized them according to the six development categories outlined in the XQ proposal materials.  It’s just another step as we journey together towards a school design that reflects our best thinking around what it means to completely rethink the high school experience.

A few years ago, I sat in a principal leadership team meeting just prior to the start of a new school year.  As often happens during a good welcome back meeting, we started off with some team building activities.  Some of you may be familiar with the River of Life protocol.  Basically, you take some time individually to reflect on your life memories and experiences that have shaped you personally and professionally, and you create a visual map that represents your journey through life.  Then you share.

It’s a fun and often poignant activity.  It’s also one I have done probably half a dozen times in different settings with different groups.  Back to the principals’ meeting, I decided that this time around I would chronicle my journey through the mentors who have taken an active interest in my professional development.  While I have always known I’ve had advocates and supporters on my journey, taking time to actually map out the names and unique influence each mentor had in my life filled me with a tremendous sense of gratitude.

I thought about Dr. Alex Molnar, director of the Education Policy Studies Lab at Arizona State University, who gave me a job as a research intern while I was still an undergraduate.  My first project was to go through a soon-to-be published research report that needed serious revision.  I spent countless hours reworking citations, rewriting sections, and bringing uniformity to the report format.  When the report went for publication, Dr. Molnar added me to the author list.  I had my first taste of real academic publishing, and over the next three years, he would give me opportunity after opportunity to contribute and learn.  Dr. Molnar’s mentorship led to university recognitions, a Fulbright scholarship, and most importantly, the development of an academic skill set that I rely on every day.

I thought about Dr. Gregg Good, the International Baccalaureate coordinator at Westwood high school where I was employed as a Spanish teacher.  Dr. Good recruited me to teach IB Spanish, and to co-sponsor a Model United Nations program.  Those opportunities brought access to tremendous professional development, ongoing collaboration with many of the strongest classroom teachers at the school, and chaperoning student trips to Paris, Dublin, Athens, and London.  Our office chats yielded some pieces of advice I took to heart – never be afraid to ask for money if it’s for kids, don’t ever be an assistant principal (it’s how the system beats out all of your creativity), and surround yourself with doers who refuse to accept that things cannot change.

I thought about Gia Truong, superintendent and now CEO of Envision Schools who mentored and supervised me during my initial years as a high school principal.  She was a champion for equity who constantly challenged me (and everyone around her) to raise expectations for student learning.  She would rarely tell me what to do, but used thoughtful questions to help me work through my decisions.  Her leadership advice challenged me in deep, personal ways.  Her invitations to embrace difficult conversations and continually interrupt the use of language that isolates or demeans continue to ring in my ears.  She was and is a powerful woman whose urgency for the work continues to inspire me.

I am greatly indebted to these and other professional mentors who have sharpened my skills and shaped my perspectives on the difficult and deeply meaningful work of educating young people.  When the urgency of the work could draw them to other, productive uses of their time, these mentors chose to focus on me.  Perhaps that personal investment in others is the true hallmark of great leadership.

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.

One of my good friends from high school, an education visionary in his own regard, sent me an excited e-mail (if e-mails can have emotions) a few weeks back announcing his intention to put together a school design team to compete for the XQ super school competition.  I hadn’t yet heard of the XQ, but in opening my Facebook page I noticed several of my connections sharing the announcement that Laurene Powell Jobs was sponsoring a 50 million high school redesign competition.  I shared the idea with the deputy superintendent of Santa Ana Unified where I work, David Haglund, who enthusiastically invited me to put together a team and start the process of engaging students, community partners, and our own staff in putting together a proposal.

The XQ is an open invitation to design the next great American high school.  Of course it’s a call to innovate.  Yet it is an invitation that goes beyond setting aside convention. It is a call to draw on what we know about how students are motivated and learn, and then distill that knowledge into a viable educational program.  The design of the school is only half of the design challenge – building the organizational capacity to translate a plan into a sustainable, replicable school requires tremendous creativity and leadership.  To be frank, this sobering reality makes me think school districts were probably not the target audience of the XQ competition. Fairly or not, school districts are not always associated with nimbleness, flexibility, and risk-taking.

With that said, we’re in it to win it.  The XQ builds on our efforts to prioritize creative problem solving and engage our own students and community in conversations about their conceptions of the ideal high school learning environment.  Even more importantly, the design and development exercise will strengthen our organizational capacity to more tightly align our programs and systems with what we know about how students learn.  It’s a chance to approach our work with fresh eyes.  In this sense, the XQ is adding a fun twist to work that we already know we have to be doing.

So this is the first of multiple posts focusing on our journey to the XQ – how we turn both internally and externally to gather ideas, feedback, and insights to inform our design.  In reviewing application and promotional materials, we got a very clear sense that like us, the XQ values innovation not only in product but process as well.  We wanted to engage stakeholders in a process that would build excitement while simultaneously producing the data we need to make community-informed decisions.  We’re now engaging in a series of “design engagements” which represent our initial efforts to utilize a process that is both data rich and collaborative minded.  I’ve posted a video of our first design engagement.  Check it out.