Category Archives: Courageous Leadership

Petersburg Rising – now available to Educators nationwide

Courageous Leadership, Educational Equity, Petersburg Rising Film,

Award-Winning Documentary, Petersburg Rising, the remarkable true story of transforming one of the lowest-performing school districts, is now available to Educators nationwide.

The film highlights a successful approach to overcoming crisis, generational cycles of failure and  systematic challenges to equitable education.

Petersburg Rising, a “must-see” film from Producer and Award-winning Author Alan Blankstein (Failure Is Not an Option), is a testament to the impact of courageous leadership, equitable education, and a community, that against all odds, came to believe there are no “throwaway” kids, only kids being “thrown away.”

Under the leadership of Dr. Marcus Newsome, nationally commended for solutions in closing achievement gaps, the Petersburg school district reversed decades of neglect to achieve accreditation for all of its schools.  The film tells the story through the struggles and triumphs of three students throughout their senior year, humanizing the political discourse about the crisis faced by professionals in education, and revealing how courageous leadership and community engagement in collective impact overcame mistrust, conflict and educator burnout to provide improved and equitable education for all their students.

Produced by Alan Blankstein, in association with Emmy Award winner and Academy Award nominee Sam Pollard (Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crosswords, Blood Brother: Malcom X and Muhammad Ali and MLK/FBI) and Alice Elliott, Executive Consultant and Academy Award winning writer, director, producer (The Collector of Bedford Street, Miracle on 42nd Street) Petersburg Rising is now available for educational licensing through Video Project.  

The film is now being used in professional development with Dr. Marcus Newsome and Alan Blankstein to catalyze cohesive and collective action to address post-Covid learning issues and assure student and educator success in districts and states nationwide.  

Petersburg Rising is our collective moment to “rise up,” celebrate, and expand the wins.

For More information

Donate – Petersburg Rising – Short Film Documentary (onecause.com)

License/Purchase – https://www.videoproject.org/petersburg-rising.html

Further Information – https://www.petersburgrising.com

 

Petersburg Rising Film Complete – What’s Next?

Courageous Leadership, Education Reform, Educational Equity, Educational Leadership, Educational Rights, School Culture, Trust in Schools

We have met our initial goals to date, thanks to the generous support of people like YOU who are credited within the now completed, Petersburg Rising film!

Petersburg Rising…

  • Has won First Place in the Oliver White Hill Social Justice film festival;
  • Is now being sponsored & supported by the Virginia  Governor’s Film Office;
  • Will Premier in the Richmond International Film Festival September 11, 2021 at the venerable Byrd Theater;
  • Is being featured on PBS-Affiliated VPM throughout the state beginning this fall and before hitting the national airwaves.

YET WE STILL NEED YOUR SUPPORT

While we are ecstatic over having gotten the film produced and agreements in place assuring that will allow thousands of people will view it,  we still have an even greater opportunity ahead: impacting the lives of millions of children, and uplifting families and communities nationwide and beyond.

See updates, get more information about screenings, or donate at the film website: Petersburg Rising – Short Film Documentary (onecause.com)

License/Purchase – https://www.videoproject.org/petersburg-rising.html

Petersburg Rising

Courageous Leadership, Education Reform, Educational Equity, Educational Leadership, Equity, School Culture, Student Achievement

License/Purchase
Film Site (see the trailer)
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This a common American Story of economic boom-to-bust, with an unusual twist: an extraordinary group of leaders entered the picture to turn the tide by investing in children and their education. Petersburg was to be their model for the state, and perhaps the nation. Yet challenges remain enormous.

For more than a decade, Petersburg schools struggled, failed, and even lacked basic accreditation. Students dropped out in large numbers and faced tough times at home in one of the poorest communities in the state. Their future was bleak. Generations of children were lost.

When the superintendent of the neighboring district announced his retirement from a large, wealthy, successful district to act on his second doctorate in divinity, he was asked if he would consider instead running the poorest and lowest performing district in the state. This is that story, told through the struggles… and triumphs of 5 students we followed for a year.

 

Failure Is Not an Option™ in 2018!

Closing Achievement Gaps, Courageous Leadership, Education Policy, Educational Leadership, Student Achievement,

When I asked 13-year-old Angie why she had recently joined the Latin Kings gang on Chicago’s South Side, she looked at me like I wasn’t too bright, but entertained the question anyway. ”Why wouldn’t I join?! My uncle is on the gang, my friends are in it and so is my boyfriend,” she said nodding toward another teenager watching our exchange from about 15 feet away. Shortly after I left with Rudy Espinosa, a Boys and Girls club Youth worker hired to quell gang violence and reclaim gang members, the rival Deuces gang drove by and took the life of Angie’s boyfriend.

This set off a series of reprisals back and forth between the gangs. My friend Rudy negotiated a truce allowing him to create a silver lining to this tragedy when he later saw Angie sobbing at the funeral. “Angie, I’m really sorry about your boyfriend; he was a friend of mine too. But this is what you’ve signed up for by being in the gang – and I can help you get out.” Soon after, Angie took Rudy’s advice and helping hand of support to leave the gang.

Crisis as Opportunity in 2018

After growing up in non-traditional settings (group homes, foster care, and with grandma); getting to college on an EOP Scholarship; founding and running Solution Tree and the HOPE Foundation; and authoring 18 books (the most recent being Excellence through Equity with Pedro Noguera), I can attest to the importance of seeing crisis as an opportunity. This is exemplified in how Rudy provided Angie both a mirror to see the reality of her situation, and a supportive, caring alternative for her to pursue.

If last year is any indicator, 2018 is sure to provide us all great deal of opportunity to work through crisis! This New Year’s message is about sorting through and making meaning of the cacophony of change underway, seeing what’s likely to come next, and developing the clarity and courage to move forward, or as Winston Churchill stated: “If you’re going through Hell, keep going!”

Demographics Don’t Lie…

The fact is that in 2015 America hit a watershed in its school population which has an impact every school leader, teacher, and school community in the Nation. For the first time in history, the majority of America’s students were poor and eligible for free and reduced lunch. (The majority of our students also were not classified as Caucasian.) Meanwhile, the wealthiest 80 people in the world held more financial assets then the bottom ½ of the entire world; that’s 3.5 billion people combined. Likewise in America, the top 1% of the population holds more wealth than the bottom 95% combined. The implications for educating our children and the way to achieve Excellence through Equity will be the topic of future postings.

…but Politicians Often Do Lie

The many challenges faced by those who are in most need of help will become even greater due to the combination of greed and callousness that has guided many of our elected officials to challenge the need for Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, Citizenship for Dreamers, and much more. While USA rankings in international tests like the PISA continue to slip, our elected officials offer not support, as Rudy had to Angie, but a heavier load of tests, accountability, public humiliation and fallacies around the wonders of School Choice and Private Education vs. Public Education. Yet the one bastion of hope for our collective future is not a patchwork of unregulated and unreliably administered and untested private schools, but a strong commitment to every child receiving a high-quality public education.

What we have learned is that those who know the least about U.S. public education are often those who have the most authority over the policies that guide it. This is now codified by the ironic choice of our Secretary of Education who has never held a single job related to the enterprise of education over which she presides. Ms. Devos has instead declared the traditional education system “a dead end.” This is part of a false narrative around public schools that is setting the stage for the dismantling of them and the diversion of public school funding to private operators.
The narrative is that public schools are failing, and therefore need to be taken over by private and/or regulatory agencies. This story runs counter to the facts – e.g. Our schools have graduated a higher percent of students each year in the past decade than at any time in history; the number of low-income-family students taking the AP exams has gone up more than 500% from 2003-2016 as well. If your income grew at this rate, you’d take your boss to dinner! What we see instead is pundits challenging the validity of graduation rates, and an ESSA regulation that will increase the cost of taking the AP exams starting next year. Poor students will again bear the brunt of public policy.

Changing the Narrative

After helping to launch the PLC movement and running Solution Tree for 12 years, I asked a group of thought leaders from throughout the country for advise on next steps. Ed Zigler, Head Start Founder, suggested we have two challenges in education:

  1. We need to improve our performance;
  2. We aren’t as bad as the rhetoric indicates and need to improve our messaging.

I dedicated to #1 for the past 30 years and realize that it has been a heavier lift than necessary due to the second challenge: we don’t own our narrative about our profession. Therefore, we are swimming upstream. As support for our work often isn’t appreciated, teachers leave the profession (see Ed Week: Teachers Are Quitting Because They’re Dissatisfied. That’s a Crisis, Scholars Say), states like PA and IL are virtually defunding public schools, and others like NJ take over their urban districts and yet fail to improve these schools with impunity.

While educators often agree on the dynamics underway the larger public gets a different message. Educators don’t have a “Waiting for Superman” film, for example. Failing schools are usually an educational manifestation of inequities in our society: they do not exist in wealthy communities. Likewise, we find very few successful schools in economically deprived areas, and when we do we should learn from them. Instead, the exceptional poor but successful school is spuriously used as “exhibit A” in painting all other failing schools as being due to inept or uncaring professionals. We often treat the struggling and impoverished school by defunding it or threatened takeover, as though this will now motivate the mythical lazy and unwilling people who work within those schools. What these schools need instead is the same kind of helping hand Rudy extended to Angie, and that the VA DOE has extended to Petersburg Schools.

Courage to Act

As leaders and defenders of our nation’s children, we must move toward the danger, else it will move toward us and prevail. I’ve written a fair amount about Courage, recently with Pedro Noguera and in the Blogpost following Nelson Mandela’s passing. Over the coming weeks, we will share specific examples of professionals at all levels acting courageously to take collective responsibility for the success of all children!

Contact us for more information.

AASA on Courageous and Uplifting Leadership – Part One

Courageous Leadership, Education Policy, Educational Leadership, School Culture, ,

(the following is an excerpt from a forthcoming issue of The School Administrator.  See AASA.org)

It was Monday morning and the middle school had flooded over the weekend. Told it would take two weeks to reopen, the superintendent quickly moved this crisis to the top of his growing list that already included keeping lights on, making payroll, building teachers’ capacity to deliver engaging and rigorous instruction, and meeting state requirements for school improvement in a school district that ranked last in the state.

Yet Marcus Newsome, the new superintendent of the Petersburg, Va., City Public Schools, was smiling this morning during the city partnership meeting that convened top leaders from the state, city and school district. Toward the end of the meeting, Newsome shared, “I’m happy to report that the predicted two-week closing of our middle school didn’t happen. It opened on time this Monday morning! I’d shared with everyone at the school  that we needed ‘all hands on deck,’ and they made it happen.” Newsome publicly acknowledged the school’s janitor and other staff members who had taken the lead in ensuring the school opened on time. He also sent each a personal thank-you.

In the past, Petersburg staff would have responded differently to a crisis. This time there was a significant change. It began with a courageous leader — a leader who runs toward, not away from challenges.

A Time for Courage

Throughout history, leaders as diverse as Aristotle, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr. have pointed to courage — a word derived from the French root word “le Coeur” or “heart” — as the most important of all virtues. This brand of leadership is not based on self-promotion or ego, but on sacrificing for the greater good, which in public education includes promoting inclusiveness, and equity for all children.

Effective leaders use the five principles of courageous leadership to “face the facts and their fears” and address challenges head-on. When these principles guide the work, the efforts build trust and  are more likely sustainable district wide.

No. 1: Get to Your Core.

Friedrich Nietzche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” With school board politics, resistance to meeting diverse students’ needs, and punitive financial and accountability measures serving as distractors from educating our children, we must be rooted in a personal connection to why we are advocating for children each day. The more personal the connection, the more steadfast will be our effort.

Every successful superintendent has a way to stay connected to this core. Aaron Spence, superintendent of the 67,000-student Virginia Beach City School system, reminds himself daily of his personal connection to helping all children and make sure they get the best education possible. He watches prospective principals walk through the building to see if they talk with students and teachers. Did they notice what was happening in the school? Did they connect directly with the students? He makes expectations clear, like the importance of knowing the names of the children who are struggling.

Amy Sichel, superintendent of the 8,000-student Abington School District in Philadelphia’s northern suburbs, celebrates schools’ successes with the students “to stay focused on the small wins vs. the big downs” that poor policy delivers. Sichel is personally energized by her ability to have influence beyond Abington by mentoring incoming professionals to leave a legacy and “keep public education alive.”

The daily routine of Dallas Dance, superintendent of Baltimore County Schools, includes praying, working out and staying connected to his own children and to his colleagues and the district’s 112,000 students. Letting go of the negative interactions and starting each day with a blank slate helps sustain positive energy. As Dance explains, “Most parent complaints are about the role I’m playing — not about me personally.”

When leaders have a core connection to the work, they are optimistic about meeting “insurmountable” challenges. Maintaining this attitude is essential to courageous leadership. As Newsome states, “Each one of us has the ability to set the temperature for the room. It’s important to come in daily with the brightest of views in the toughest of times: We are leaders; others feed off us, and if we aren’t optimistic, they don’t stand a chance.”

For the outline of all five courageous leadership principles and the complete article, see AASA.org

Copy Right © 2017 America Association School Administrators

AASA on Courageous and Uplifting Leadership – Part Two

Courageous Leadership, Education Policy, Educational Leadership, ,

(the following is an excerpt from a forthcoming issue of The School Administrator.  See AASA.org)

Part 2: Face the facts and your fears.

Data reflecting poor performance, especially among subgroups, often become the catalyst to action. In Abington, Pa., the data showing gaps between the majority of the student body and minority and special education students compelled district leaders to ask whether being a good district was enough. In North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg district, with its 147,000 students, Superintendent Ann Clark used data indicating wide gaps in reading proficiency to galvanize the schools and the community to change course.

Courageous leaders don’t use data as a weapon but rather as a tool for improvement. They don’t leverage fear to achieve greater results, but focus on how to collectively face the challenge and become mutually supportive and accountable for meeting the needs of students. The goal is improving the action, not punishing the actor.

Awash in data, courageous leaders focus on making data manageable, meaningful, and a catalyst for improvement. Sichel uses what she terms “getting results teams.” They are building-based, mixed groups that analyze student results, select focus areas of concern, develop a specific action plan and prepare progress reports for her toward continuous student achievement.

AASA on Courageous and Uplifting Leadership – Part Three

Courageous Leadership, Education Policy, Educational Equity, Educational Leadership,

(the following is an excerpt from a forthcoming issue of The School Administrator.  See AASA.org)

No. 3: Make organizational meaning.

The best school districts choose an overarching strategy for improvement rooted in their stakeholders’ core beliefs and vision, a clear-eyed analysis of the internal facts and external research, and a coherent way forward.

The strategy for the high-performing Abington district was to open Advanced Placement classes to all students while providing low-performing groups with the necessary supports to succeed. The plan for closing gaps between schools in Charlotte-Mecklenberg was strategic staffing in which high-performing principals and a select leadership team moved to the lowest-performing schools via a plan designed by those who were doing the actual work. It has since become a badge of honor to be chosen to lead a low-performing school in that district.

No. 4: Ensure constancy and consistency of focus.

The greatest challenges to success for every student in America are the issues surrounding policies that promote one child over another and punish educators for being ill-equipped to address the multiple and increasingly serious problems students bring to school.

Even in the toughest circumstances, someone in each district is succeeding with the same students that others are failing. Cyndee Blount, chief academic officer in the Petersburg schools, uses several strategies to build a process that enhances trust, communication and cohesion around instruction.

  • Principal partners. Recently retired principals from a high-performing neighboring district were recruited as partners and mentors for each Petersburg principal. The retirees, selected based on a history of success in schools with similar populations, demographics and/or instructional needs, work to build the instructional capacity of the leaders and teachers. They support the principal with everything, including developing the school improvement plan, providing professional development and joining the principal in teacher observations, followed by debriefing, reflection and collaborative decision making.
  • Instructional leadership. A shift in the perception of the building principal from manager to instructional leader was necessary to convey the urgency of improving daily instruction. Blount and instructional teams in Charlotte-Mecklenberg built professional development toolkits that included presentations, talking points, engaging activities and instructional look-fors to use in walkthroughs. Principals, along with building-level instructional leaders, received the training first, then delivered the presentations to teachers and over subsequent weeks provided increasingly intensive feedback using a common protocol during walkthroughs.
  • Central office as support for schools. Staff in the district office collaborate on and monitor each school improvement plan. Blount and a central-office team meet monthly with site leaders to enhance the “X Factor” – to expedite physical resources and expedite human resources. Real-time support boosts trust, morale and results.

Courageous leaders promote a culture that addresses the diversity of needs their students bring with them to school. They use student voices to inform their plans and the students themselves to help implement and evaluate them and to galvanize the community and influence key policymakers. Courageous leaders often act as buffers, taking on the external politics so their staff can concentrate on teaching and learning.

AASA on Courageous and Uplifting Leadership – Part Four

Courageous Leadership, Education Policy, Education Reform, Educational Equity, Educational Leadership

The greatest challenges to success for every student in America are the policies that promote one child over another and punish educators for being ill-equipped to address the multiple and increasingly serious issues students bring with them to school.

Even in the toughest circumstances, someone in each district is succeeding with the same students that others are failing. Cyndee Blount, chief academic officer in the Petersburg schools, uses several strategies to build a process that enhances trust, communication and cohesion around instruction.

Principal partners. Recently retired principals from a high-performing neighboring district were recruited as partners and mentors for each Petersburg principal. The retirees — selected based on a history of success in schools with similar populations, demographics and/or instructional needs — work to build the instructional capacity of leaders and teachers. They support the principal with everything, including developing the school improvement plan, providing professional development and joining the principal in teacher observations, debriefing, reflection and collaborative decision making.

Instructional leadership. A shift in the perception of the building principal from manager to instructional leader was necessary to convey the urgency of improving daily instruction. In Petersburg, Blount and instructional teams built professional development toolkits that included presentations, talking points, engaging activities and instructional look-fors to use in walkthroughs. Principals, along with building-level instructional leaders, received the training first, then delivered the presentations to teachers and over subsequent weeks provided increasingly intensive feedback using a common protocol during walkthroughs.

Central office as support for schools. Staff in the district office collaborate on and monitor each school improvement plan. Blount and a central-office team meet monthly with site leaders to expedite physical and human resources. Real-time support boosts trust, morale and results.

Courageous leaders promote a culture that addresses the diversity of needs their students bring with them to school. They use student voice to inform their plans and the students themselves to help implement and evaluate them. Students also can galvanize the community and influence key policymakers. To alleviate distractions, courageous leaders often act as buffers against external politics so their staff can concentrate on teaching and learning.

AASA on Courageous and Uplifting Leadership – Part Five

Courageous Leadership, Education Policy, Education Reform, Educational Equity, Educational Leadership

No. 5: Build sustainable relations.
The lifeblood of any organization is trusting relationships. Without trust among the adults in a school, there is almost no chance that students will excel in their academics. Building relationships with school boards, community members and parents makes it possible for district leaders to advance their core mission. Likewise, working authentically from their core and aligning with the other leadership principles, these leaders enhance trusting and sustainable relations.

When driven by mission rather than ego, leaders can listen more intently to the ideas and concerns of others. Newsome began his successful tenures at Newport News, Va., Chesterfield County, Va., and now Petersburg by asking questions and listening to all stakeholders, including adults who had no children in the schools. Responses to questions like “What do you believe is needed to ensure a quality education?” fueled the first student-led convocation in which the theme was “I Believe.” It brought together the best thinking of the community, as well as the state education department and the governor’s office, as they worked collaboratively to make Petersburg a model for other urban districts.

When leaders welcome various voices and state their values, yet allow others to shape a collective vision and appreciate individual roles in the success of every child, they build sustainable relationships toward a greater good.

Foreword to Excellence Through Equity by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Closing Achievement Gaps, Courageous Leadership, Education Policy, Education Reform, Educational Equity, Educational Leadership

Foreword to Excellence Through Equity

by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

 

Having helped to act as a catalyst and to shepherd one of the world’s few peaceful transitions from a colonial occupation to a democratically elected president, I can say that a movement is born out of the convergence of dire conditions, a powerful idea, and people committed to carrying out that idea. This landmark book, edited by Alan M. Blankstein and Pedro Noguera, may be a similar catalyst to such a movement. Complete with a bold and compelling vision, cases of success throughout the world, and a guide to action for the reader, Excellence Through Equity offers a powerful way forward and new hope for millions of children.

The timing for this book is on target, as America may be reaching a breaking point. Some of the signs—growing economic disparities, segregated housing, police brutality, and inequitable education for children—are well known to me and all South Africans who suffered 4 decades of apartheid. Unlike America, the inequities and brutality endured by our people were systematic and officially state-sanctioned. Yet America’s challenges may still feel similar to the children, families, and communities that endure them. Looking from afar at cities throughout America like Ferguson, Missouri, it would seem so.

When a growing number of a country’s citizenry feel overwhelmed, disenfranchised, angry, or hopeless, the possible roads forward are finite and known. Overall economic decline due to neglect of infrastructure and support for the common good is one; violent struggle for power is another. We in South Africa, however, chose a road less travelled. Probably unique in the history of colonialism, White settlers voluntarily gave up their monopoly of political power. The final transfer of power was remarkably peaceful; it is often described as a “miracle” because many thought that South Africa would erupt into violent civil war.

The challenges in choosing the road to higher moral ground and prosperity for all are many. They include confronting old zero sum game thinking in which someone must lose. Blankstein and Noguera tackle this head on and provide a more compelling reality in evidence in schools throughout the world. It more closely aligns with our own most highly held tradition of Ubuntu: “I am because you are.” This view of a united community was a saving grace in South Africa.

Ubuntu was drawn on by our first popularly elected president, Nelson Mandela, and served as an underpinning of our work in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in which we ourselves were wounded healers of our people. We attempted to repair the gap between the races by getting the ugly truth of the apartheid regime and of the liberation movements out into the open, granting amnesty even to the worst offenders, and then seeking to find ways of reconciling the conflicting parties. We realized that everyone in the room—from the most powerful leader, to the most victimized young person—had much to learn, and we modeled an environment of equity and equality. We made sure when we had these public hearings that even the furniture layout demonstrated this. We didn’t sit on a platform higher than, but we deliberately sat on a level with the victims.

Fortifying this reality of being stronger united than separated similarly, the authors of this book demonstrate in case after case how every student advances when learning in an equitable system. In such an environment, everyone learns and each person counts.

Allowing for this brighter reality in which all of God’s rainbow children succeed within an equitable environment alarms those who fear for the loss of resources for their own child. Blankstein and Noguera rise to the challenge and, along with their coauthors, offer up schools, districts, and even nations that have discovered a more powerful secret: when done well, school communities focused on equity actually better educate wealthy majority students as well as those who are less privileged!

Following one’s moral compass to an enlightened but less travelled road to success takes courage. Even if the mind is captured by a glorious vision that the heart is morally compelled to pursue, the body will need specific direction and courage to make the journey successfully in the face of many obstacles. Equity Through Excellence takes this into consideration, spotlighting how pioneers in this venture have successfully moved forward, and framing all of this in 5 Principles of Courageous Leadership.

In their section on “Achieving Excellence Through Equity for Every Student,” Blankstein and Noguera share an insight that was also critical to our successful transition of power: We didn’t struggle in order just to change the complexion of those who sit in the Union buildings; it was to change the quality of our community and society. We wanted to see a society that was a compassionate society, a caring society, a society where you might not necessarily be madly rich, but you knew that you counted. Excellence Through Equity provides direction for those bent on creating such a society for generations to come. Letting go of a system of winners and losers in favor of what is proposed in this book is a courageous leap forward that we all must take together. Let this bold, practical book be a guide; and may you travel into this new exciting vista, in which every child can succeed, with Godspeed.

God bless you.

Copyright © 2015 by Alan M. Blankstein and Pedro Noguera.