What Does the Public Want From Our Schools?

Several prevailing themes raised by the latest PDK/Gallup Poll that superintendents could incorporate into their own leadership narrative

One of the hardest things for a superintendent to do is construct his or her own narrative. Superintendents are stewards of their community’s values — as manifest through the elected school board. Schools, the larger community, and the culture of a locale were there long before the superintendent, and will be there long after.

For superintendents who are from the community, it can be hard to differentiate themselves from the system and culture in which they grew up and the people with whom they grew up. For a superintendent new to a community — as I was both in Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County, Md. — there are learning and trust-building curves on all sides.

Constructing your own narrative is made even more difficult given the political climate that surrounds a school system and the multiple layers of governance that exist — from school boards to local funding authorities and regulatory agencies, state departments of education and the federal government. There’s not a lot of wiggle room for superintendents to move beyond what’s required and expected, especially in an era of declining resources.

Yet the need to create a narrative, a compelling vision of why the superintendent is doing what he or she is doing is more important today than ever before. The results of the 2015 PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools show that the public wants leadership from the local level and is dissatisfied with the current national agenda. The public is hungry for leadership — and superintendents are well positioned to provide it.

Parental Priorities

Respondents to our 2015 poll want higher standards for students and teachers, although Common Core State Standards and standardized testing aren’t necessarily seen as the vehicles to get there. The public believes that who is teaching and what they’re teaching are the most important factors in determining school quality. This provides a powerful opportunity for superintendents to engage the community in constructing a narrative about school improvement that reflects the context of the community.

When I was superintendent in Stamford, Conn., a diverse school district of 15,500 students, I was challenged with de-tracking the middle and high schools. There had been rigid tracks of classes for decades, with black, Latino and poor students in classes with lower standards than white and more affluent students.

In order to sell the reforms to the community — especially skeptical white parents — I had to ensure the instruction their kids were going to get in the new heterogeneously grouped classes was going to be better than what they had before. So we created core assignments in social studies, identified core texts in English, revised the science curriculum so that at least 40 percent would be hands-on and made math more engaging. In addition, we provided significant professional development to teachers so they were prepared to teach a higher standard to mixed groups.

While there was certainly resistance from some who just didn’t like heterogeneous grouping, most parents were fine with it because the standards for both students and teachers were higher than they had been, and students were able to achieve them. I was able to sell the idea because it was grounded in what people are most interested in: the quality of instruction.

Equity and Economy

Respondents to the 2015 poll want the youth of America to graduate with a sense of hope and be engaged in school, and they want a stronger link between school and future career success. This provides another opportunity for superintendents to construct a local narrative about how to improve schools and student outcomes.

The two major challenges with increasing the alignment between schools and careers are history and accountability. American public schools always have served as the great sorting mechanism for American society with less-advantaged students placed in classes that prepare them for lower-level careers than more-advantaged students. The demands of both the 21st-century economy and the equity agenda make this irrelevant today, yet we must constantly work to resist its gravitational pull.

Moreover, current federal and state accountability systems do not reflect the desire among parents, educators and the business community to increase career readiness in schools. When I was superintendent in Montgomery County, we began engaging the business community in conversation about increasing career readiness. I always would begin by sharing with them that the primary thing I was accountable for was student achievement on state standardized test scores in English language arts and math. In Montgomery County, like many districts, we also held ourselves accountable for Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and SAT scores and disaggregated the data to ensure equity.

The situation becomes more complicated when local budgets are challenged and every year more vulnerable students enroll. So the call for an increased alignment between a public school education and career readiness is easier said than done.

Yet superintendents can construct their own narrative by focusing on curriculum — and poll respondents support the idea that what students are being taught matters greatly. In Montgomery County, we began engaging the business community, as well as retired scientists, in the design of curriculum that would be aligned to career expectations. Because task predicts performance (an idea best propagated by Harvard’s Richard Elmore), we looked at how to use real-life problems within the day-to-day work of students. What kind of math does a financial analyst have to do? What are real problems that scientists or engineers are trying to solve?

Increasing career readiness won’t happen through internships alone. It has to happen through curriculum reform and professional development.

Choice Vehicles

While poll respondents generally are not supportive of the overemphasis on standardized test scores, they do support the idea of choice. Choice looms large in the current national education reform debate, although charters and vouchers are typically the only choice mechanisms discussed. Yet many respondents say they don’t have enough information about options within their community.

In both school systems where I served as superintendent, we had robust magnet programs — a long-standing choice option that isn’t being discussed enough today. However, parents often complained they didn’t understand how the process worked, and frankly, they were right. The complex regulations, admissions guidelines and mythologies that exist about who gets to go to which school and why can be a black box for families. School systems have an obligation to provide accessible information about choice options, but more importantly, they can use the desire for choice to respond to local needs.

Choice programs can promote racial integration, as many magnets were designed to do. They can leverage a community’s linguistic diversity through dual language programs for interested families. Or a local industry can partner with a school to align workforce development needs with the school instructional program. However choice manifests itself within a local school system, it’s worth a superintendent’s time to engage the community in conversation about what options people want. It enables a focus on the future rather than a reaction to the present state and federal policies.

Differing Perspectives

Finally, this year’s poll results show that different demographic groups do not agree on certain issues. While resounding unanimity exists on issues such as teacher quality, no consensus exists on the use of standardized tests by respondents from different racial groups.

The ramification for a superintendent of a diverse district — as both of mine were — is that the leader has to ensure multiple voices are represented in conversations about the future of the district. Whether it’s a budget working group, parent advisory council, community forum or a strategic planning group, superintendents today have to work extra hard to bring into the fold people from different perspectives and backgrounds. I’ve certainly found that the traditional structures, such as a PTA leadership committee, tend to reflect narrow perspectives. And, I’ve been able to garner wider support for reform initiatives by going to community leaders and members who aren’t involved in formal power structures.

Regardless of the issues within a particular school district and state, the American public believes in its local schools and its personnel. Because education is a local issue constitutionally, it’s incumbent on a superintendent to seize the opportunity to lead in a way that jives with the community’s values. The public wants the superintendent to lead the way. The superintendent has to embrace the opportunity to create his or her own narrative.