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Schools

Dr. Bill Daggett: We Need Rigor and Relevance in Washington's Public Schools

Nationally recognized educator speaks to educators about the "Commitment to Better & Best: Washington's Public Schools."

Dr. Bill Daggett, CEO of the International Center for Leadership in Education, was the keynote speaker for a day-long event — Commitment to Better & Best: Washington’s Public Schools — on Monday, May 16 at the . The event was sponsored by ’s Maxwell Fund for Youth & Families.

Daggett is an outspoken advocate for education reform and challenged the educators and public attending the two and three-hour sessions to look deeply at how they view the way Washington state schools are performing.

While Daggett acknowledged that Washington schools are good, he also pointed out that good is not great.

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“Our schools are like museums,” Daggett said repeatedly. “And, we are the curators.”

The outside world, Daggett said, asks him, as a frequent consultant to educators: “What is happening in education?” Corporate America, and government officials, he said, know that the “ship has left the dock” and that the system is failing. “Everyone knows it, but public educators.”

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Washington schools, Daggett said, look like they did in 1990.

“Good schools are the toughest to change,” he said because it is easier to remain stagnant, when you are doing okay. They are paralyzed by change, he said.

“We need to go from good to great,” Daggett said. At the first two sessions of the day, he challenged the crowd of school administrators to ask themselves if the goal is to change the system or maintain the system.

“Everyone but teachers want to change,” was a recurrent theme in his thought-provoking speech. Educators talk about change, he said, “Just as long as no adult is affected.”

Daggett suggested that the U.S. will no longer be a superpower in the near future if we don’t change our educational system. He cited five nations that have experienced double-digit growth: Vietnam, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia and Panama.

“Other nations are passing us by,” he said.

School improvement is happening too slowly in a rapidly changing world, Daggett said. Incremental change is no longer a model that works; we need dramatic changes in the diverse culture that we live in.

Daggett used some striking examples from current technology to illustrate his point of keeping up with current times.

Google, is the current search engine of choice for most adults, but he suggested that it is soon to be yet another dinosaur, and said the kids already know about the next greatest thing. Wolfram Alpha. (Google it, sorry, and you’ll find out what it is).

Wolfram Alpha, will change our world again, he said. It is a super-charged search engine that all of the kids in a recent survey knew and already are using to do research papers. Soon, it might even be used to complete term papers.

"Shouldn’t educators already know about the research tools students are using,” he asked.

Daggett’s assertions seemed to surprise the crowd at times.

We need to take more 'off the plate' rather than add more to it, he proposed.  Washington educators “have never seen a grade level requirement that they didn’t like,” which forces teachers to continually add to the curriculum.

Another challenge he gave the room was to let students use the technology (the smartphone or blackberry) they already carry with them. School board member, Pam Teal, who attended the presentation said that the Renton School District technology department has already had the conversation regarding the use of students' hand held devices.  They have already addressed the very statement “they bring them to class, why not use the technology”. 

Daggett asked educators some pretty pointed questions.

“Why are most of our students learning French in the classroom, rather than Chinese, which is the primary language in the world?”

It is pretty common sense, an audience member said. But yet, it is another example of following the old model.

“Our schools are museums, and we are the curators,” Daggett said again.

Several tenets of Daggett’s speech have been around for some time, including changing the school calendar to reflect much of what the rest of the world has been doing for years. Not the old fashion agrarian model when kids were working in the field. God forbid that we do without the school bell, or that teachers don’t have the summer off, he said. (There were no audible gasps, but one could imagine them).

As an educational consultant, he worked on a research project with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to identify the 25 most rapidly improving schools in elementary, middle, and high schools across the country, and how other districts can learn from their best practices.

The research-compiled data on 47,000 schools, and narrowed those schools down to the top 10% percent, which are now being studied by congress. The schools that are improving the most share some characteristics:

*47 of the 50 schools have eliminated department chairs, which tend to be gatekeepers of the past. Rather, at no cost to the school district, they have instituted interdisciplinary departments. Research has shown that students learn best when the material is spread across the curriculum.

*The most rigorous schools have eliminated electives for the senior year, when students tend to goof off.

*The most improving schools have made it a practice to link state standards to the common core of curriculum between third and fifth grade.

*The best teachers are teaching to applied real-world problems, which is where students learn best. The old model was “learn then do,” but today’s students “do, then learn," he said.

*A successful practice of these schools, Daggett said, is “looping” teachers, where students have a teacher for more than one year. 100 percent of the schools in this study are practicing this model.

*The most improving schools have a complex data collection system that are able to document what is happening in their districts.

Daggett challenged the educators on multiple levels, and to start by making adjustments to structure and culture. “Administrators,” he said, “need to be the navigators to a system that works over the next three years.”

Politics are not what is standing in the way of change, Daggett said. As a case in point, he told the group that he recently met with 14 governors about education reform — seven from the left, and seven from the right. He was amazed after a long weekend spent with them that they were remarkably on the same page when it came to education.

For Daggett, the most important thing for teachers to think about in implementing change in the school system, locally, state-wide and nationally is to make change evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.

As Daggett wound up his three hour presentation to the group, he stressed rigor and relevance for all students. With relevance, he said, it will  make rigor possible.

State Representative Marcie Maxwell was instrumental in coordinating the event, in cooperation with event co-sponsors, Renton Community Foundation, Maxwell Fund for Youth and Families, Association of Washington School Principals, League of Education Voters, , Washington Association for Career and Technical Education, Washington Association of School Administrators, Washington Business Alliance, Washington State PTA, andWashington State School Directors Association.

"I was pleased to bring Dr. Bill Daggett to Renton. Many of the attendees from around our region have since responded saying how much this event impacted them. Dagget's messages make us think deeper, be uncomfortable, and energize to work smarter for children and public schools in this 21st century."

 

 

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