Education Innovation-- as inevitable as it is frightening

Summary paragraph: In which Menin tries to calm the roiling sea by advocating we all learn to tread water and have faith.

On some level, education is subject to the same fluctuation of focus and style as any element of American culture. New Math, phonics, basic literacy, multi-curricular approach; multiple intelligences, the list is endless.

Although this can be confusing and annoying ("what's the flavor this week?"), take solace in at least two things. All of these ideas and new approaches are backed by scads of research that show with whom they work and why. And the second thing is that if they don't work, there's still scads of research and some very concerned companies that will try very hard to figure out where they've screwed up.

In Newburport, however we have a special line of defense. Kevin Lyons. Angela Bik. And a cadre of teachers, newly inspired and becoming genuine, collaborative partners in academic progress and student achievement.

Lyons has already demonstrated that he is a consummate academic. I've never met anyone in thirty years with a sharper, keener ability to walk into a classroom, observe for thirty minutes, and walk away with a clear understanding of what is going right, what needs to change, and the best way to approach it.

If you have grown to appreciate Dr. Lyons as a transparent, straightforward advocate for the students; he has become much than that for the School Committee and School faculty. A quick case in point.

Last year, when the 3rd grade math MCAS scores were disappointing, he had the opportunity during a full day of inservices with teachers to discuss the issue. To summarize, he told the teachers that he had spent enough time observing them teach to believe this was not an issue of teacher competency- he was not scapegoating them. He told them he thought it was what we were teaching, or how we were teaching it. And rather than prescribe solutions, and he had some ideas, he asked the teachers themselves to form a study group and analyze every response by a Newburyport student to every 3rd grade math MCAS questions, draw some conclusions, and recommend some interventions.

So teachers from the Bres took on the job. After a great deal of analysis, they came to a very suprising conclusion, a conclusion that Lyons might have come to but any other Administrator likely would have missed. A conclusion that became evident to the teachers who took the time to deconstruct the answers.

It wasn't the operational math the kids were stuggling with.

It was literacy. We were teaching plussing and minusing; the test wanted them to do addition and subtraction. Literacy, which Kevin Lyons had identified as a critical need, I suspect, during the interview process. The teachers recommended a series of assessments given periodically in the MCAS format, and some changes to the language of math. We are seeing the benefit of those changes.

By empowering teachers to find solutions to questions like what and how, as opposed to why and why not, Dr. Lyons showed faith in the faculty and their competence.

Personally, after five years of happy talk, and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, and nothing to see here folks, just keep moving, it was refreshing.

My final point is this, which I will repeat endlessly until election day. Yes, we are in crisis. We don't have any money to correct substantial problems with our curriculum and approach to education; we have been in academic hibernation for many years.

But if we can work out the money problems, and I believe that a package of options can ease the pressure now and in the long term, then we have a once-in lifetime chance to completely reshape our entire approach to the educational process, structurally, socially, and collaboratively.

Nothing is off the table. Longer schools days, allowing for more time on learning. Perhaps exploring a different school year schedule; the opportunity to run some credit-bearing programs (from PE to sailing, community service, ecology to engineering) in the summer, perhaps in collaboration with other local schools and colleges. There is no end to the creative collaborations with people in the community that could be attempted.

Nothing is off the table, folks.
All you need is leadership. We've got that.
Collaboration. We have teachers feeling valued and respected by their administrators, we have, quietly, built understanding and bridges with the City Council since the Override.
And, all we need now is faith. After six years on the School Committee, I haven't lost mine; we'll solve the cash problem, we'll run even more efficiently, and we will be creative. 2-4 years from now, we will have the system Lyons envisions, and the students deserve.

I believe that more than anything.
Funny. I am more jazzed about being part of this new era that I was for either two previous runs. The system is close enough to turning things around that I can taste it.