Rural School Leadership Lessons: Becoming a Great Leader

Bo Shembechler on seeking a mentor:

One of the biggest mistakes I see young coaches make—and young businessmen and doctors and lawyers, too, for that matter—is thinking their first job should make them rich or famous. When you're in your twenties, those things shouldn't matter. They didn't to me. Maybe they never should. They didn't to me. But especially when your're young, big money doesn't matter. Big names don't either.

Good organizations matter. Good bosses matter.

If you want to be a great leader, you need to prepare yourself to be a great leader, and the best way to do that is to study great leaders. (Bo’s Lasting Lessons,p. 7-8)

McCain & Obama on Broadband Access in Rural Communities

What role should the federal government play in bring broadband access to rural communities? Using National Public Radio interviews with advisors to the McCain and Obama campaigns, the Daily Yonder highlights the differences between the candidates.

NPR: What role should the federal government play in guaranteeing broadband access, particularly in rural communities?

Michael Powell, technology advisor to the McCain campaign:

I think, actually - and he would agree - the government has an important role to play in broadband access in rural communities. In fact, the senator is promoting a program called People Connect, in which he would hope to provide tax benefits and financial benefits to companies who would provide those services to low-income users and rural users.

I think the problem in rural parts of America are that the economics are not nearly as compelling as they are in metropolises like New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, and it may require some government assistance, either through financial subsidy policy or other kinds of creative tools like community or municipal broadband services that help bring those people into the cosmos of technology and connects them to the wonderful benefits that the Net provides.

William Kennard, technology advisor to the Obama campaign:

Well, there again you have a stark difference between the two candidates. Senator McCain has not been supportive of the universal service fund in the country. That is a mechanism that we've used for decades in this country to get phone service into rural areas. Senator Obama embraces it. Because the reality is if we rely simply on the free market, there will be many people in this country that will have to do without. And Senator Obama believes that this is not just a question of access to technology. This is fundamentally about economic development. It's about making sure that people in rural areas can participate in the Information Age.

Rural AmeriTowne

Rural AmeriTown is a resource for schools in northeastern Colorado, northwestern Kansas, and southwestern Nebraska. It offers a hands-on introduction to basic principles of our economic system by allowing students to run their own rural town.

At school, students engage in a variety of interactive lessons that focus on banking, civics, free enterprise, advertising, laws, philanthropy, job interviews and more. Students prepare for their opportunity to run a life-size town by interviewing for jobs, conducting employee business meetings, and attending job-training sessions.

During a day-long field trip, the students move into the town of 10 businesses and transform from students of economics to citizens of Rural AmeriTowne.

Rural AmeriTowne is modeled after Young AmeriTowne, and has been adapted to a rural economy. It is a project of the Young Americans Center for Financial Education

Rural School Leadership Lessons: Passion

In his book Bo’s Lasting Lessons, which was published after he died in 2006, Bo Schembechler discussed the importance of passion:

Let’s start with first things first: passion. Because without that, nothing else I’m going to tell you in this book is going to be worth a damn. It just won’t do you any good,

Because the fact is, you’re never going to be able to lead others effectively unless you put your whole heart into what you’re doing. If it’s just a job to you, it’s going to be just a job to them. And trust me: You’re not going to fool them. (p. 3)

For rural school leaders that means having passion for children and education. It also means having passion for the community in which they work. If you’re more interested in making money than you are about being part of a community, you probably won’t be successful in a rural school.

NREA Convention Destination: San Antonio

The 100th Annual Convention of the National Rural Education Association will be held at the Omni Hotel at the Colonnade in San Antonio, Monday, October 27 through Wednesday, October 29.

The first NREA Convention I attended was in San Antonio in 1996. Two things I remember most are that they served chicken at every meal (and the same dessert) and that none of the other people from Regional Educational Laboratories went to the meals. On the plus side, it's where I first met great people like Barbara Havlicek, Bob Newhouse, Paula Hodges, and Hobart Harmon.

REAP Reauthorization

Last September, Senator Kent Conrad introduced a bill to reauthorize the Rural Education Achievement Program. A key element of that legislation involves a change in how rural is defined. What effect, if any, will this change have on districts?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, some districts change classifications under the new classification systems. In Colorado, the following districts go from rural to nonrural:

Archuleta County 50 Jt

Aspen 1

Buena Vista R-31

Garfield 16

Lone Star 101

Pueblo County Rural

Districts moving from non-rural to rural are:

Eagle County Re-50

Falcon 49

Lewis Palmer 38

Sargent Re-33J

The change from what are known as the Metro-centric Locale Codes to the Urban-centric Locale Codes will have almost no effect on SRSA participation among Colorado district. Lone Star 101 is the only district that would have been eligible for the Small Rural Schools Achievement program of REAP that could lose eligibility because of it's change in locale. States can request waivers to included districts as rural if a state agency classifies them as rural. Can we all agree Lone Star is rural? I thought so.

Sargent is the one district that becomes eligible for the SRSA program that wasn't eligible before. All the other districts have more than 600 students making them ineligible for the SRSA program. They could be eligible for the Rural Low-Income Schools program if they meet poverty thresholds.

The next question is what effect, if any, will there be on eligibility for the Rural Low Income Schools program? Another question is whether all of the districts participating in RLIS program are really rural. That'll be fun to figure out.

Ordering Information for the NREA History

Yesterday I mentioned the NREA history book edited by Paula Hodges, but I neglected to mention how to order it.

To order, send $34.00 plus $7 for shipping and handling (and a note telling them what it's for) to:

National Rural Education Association
112 Fourth Street — Box 2
University of Oklahoma
Norman, OK 73019

You can save $7 if you pick the book up at the NREA Convention in November.

NREA Celebrating 100 Years: 1907-2007

My copy of the the official history of the National Rural Education Association arrived today and I have to say that Paula Hodges did a tremendous job of putting it together. Rather than a dull recitation of the history, Paula pulled together commentary, photographs and old publications to tell the story of the association

I've only skimmed through it but my first impression is the photographs themselves are worth the cost. Also of particular note are mentions of Bill Clinton and Howard Dean addressing the annual convention. I didn't see any mention of President George W. Bush speaking at the convention, but I may have missed it.

If you are a long time NREA member, you might want to buy a copy and have people sign it like a high school yearbook (Hobart Harmon's picture is on page 102). If you're a new member you'll want a copy so that you'll better understand the association.

Well done to everyone who contributed to National Rural Education Association: Celebrating 100 Years 1907-2007 !

Yes Virginia, There are Excellent Rural Schools

We take pleasure in answering the email below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of Mr. Rural ED:

Dear Mr. Rural ED—

I am 8 years old. Some education experts say there are no excellent rural schools. Daddy says, “If you see it in Mr. Rural ED, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, are there excellent rural schools?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, those education experts are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge and No Child Left Behind.

Yes, Virginia, there are excellent rural schools. They exist as certainly as love and generosity and the Rural Educaiton Achievement Program exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no rural schools! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no six-man football then, no superintendent who knows every student's name, no school breaks during hunting season to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would not make adequate yearly progress.

Not believe in excellent rural schools! You might as well not believe in standards-based education. You might get Margaret Spellings to hire desk-jockeys to watch all the schools to find excellent rural schools, but even if they did not see one, what would that prove? Desk-jockeys don't see excellent rural schools, but that is no sign that there aren't great rural schools. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies scoring Advanced on the math section of the Colorado Student Assessment Program? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, and Vice President Cheney, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No excellent rural schools! Thank God! they exist and always will. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, rural schools will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

How to Effectively Involve Parents in Schools

Research has repeatedly confirmed that parent involvement is a key component of school improvement. But developing and implementing a successful parent involment strategy can be tricky.

A new book by Hobart Harmon and Ben Dickens helps teachers and administrators overcome that problem by providing practical advice on how to involve parents in a positive and meaningful way.

In Creating Parent and Family Involvement: 101 Ideas for Teachers Who Care Hobart and Ben explain:

• how parent and family involvement creates student success.
  
• how to use a five-step process and simple self-assessment tool to create meaningful parent and family involvement.
  
• how to implement 101 parent and family involvement ideas.
  
• over 50 tips teachers can give parents in helping their child be successful in school.
  

Hobart and Ben also offer workshops aimed at helping schools more effectively involve parents in their children's education. Visit the PCRS website for more information about the book and workshops.

An Open Letter to John Edwards

Dear Senator Edwards,

Your Rural Recovery Act proposal is an important first step toward addressing the issues facing rural Americans. The only issue it fails to address is that federal agencies tend to operate in their own silos rather than collaborating with other agencies working on related issues.

For instance, there is ample evidence that the U.S. Department of Education lacks an understanding of rural schools and communities. As a result, rural schools have been forced to adopt educational reforms that were designed for urban schools, while the needs of rural communities have gone largely unnoticed.

A solution to the problem is to use an interagency approach that brings together the Departments of Education, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services, and others to develop policy initiatives that improve outcomes for students and communities. Bringing these agencies together to address the needs of rural Americans will be more successful than the piecemeal laundry lists proposed by others.

Michael

John Edwards' Rural Recovery Act

In the 2004 presidential election, John Edwards was the only candidate in either of the two major parties to talk coherently about how to address the challenges facing rural America. Edwards has taken the lead again with his Rural Recovery Act proposal. You can find the full plan on his website, but here are some highlights of what the plan will do:

1. Restore economic fairness to rural America by helping small businesses thrive and grow.
   
   
2. Create a new energy economy in rural America by establishing the New Energy Economy Fund to jumpstart renewable energies.
   
   
3. Create fairness for family farmers by supporting strong antitrust enforcement, capping farm subsidies for corporate farms and supporting the packer ban and a national moratorium on new and expanded hog lagoons.
   
   
4. Strengthen rural schools by improving pay for teachers in rural and other hard-to-staff schools to help attract quality new and experienced teachers, and by creating digital learning opportunities.
   
   
5. Improve health care in rural America by rewriting the unfair Medicare and Medicaid funding formulas that punish rural states and communities, and supporting investments in telemedicine.
   
   
6. Rid rural America of methamphetamines by investing in the enforcement of drug laws in rural areas, help states make meth ingredients more difficult to get and expand programs that successfully treat addicts.

Regardless of your party affiliation, you should take a close look at Edwards' ideas. If you're not inclined to support him after reading them, you'll at least have some ideas to suggest to the candidate you support.

Kooky Idea #1: Rural School Data on the Rural School Data Website

This post kicks off an occasional series on kooky ideas to help rural schools.

Kooky Idea #1: The National Center for Education Statistics should put data on its Navigating Resources for Rural Schools website that disaggregates data by locale. NCES generally does this, but there are some exceptions. Two examples are found on the Teacher Section of the site:

Average salaries for full-time teachers in public and private elementary and secondary schools, by selected characteristics: 1999-2000, and

Estimated average annual salary of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools, by state or jurisdiction: Selected years, 1969-70 to 2002-03

If NCES is going to have a site devoted to rural education statistics, the data ought to be about rural schools. Disaggregating salary data by locale would be particularly helpful since it is commonly claimed that teachers leave positions in rural schools to take higher paying jobs in nonrural schools. A first step in testing that claim is knowing the degree of pay differential between rural and nonrural schools.

Lesson 1 for Rural Superintendents: Think Different

It wasn't long ago that Apple's prospects didn't look so good. You knew they were in trouble when they started giving their computers numbers instead of names. I still have my old 660AV.

So what can rural superintendents learn from Apple's experience? The first lesson is to "think different." To clarify, "different" is not modifying the verb "think." Rather it is the object of the verb think. In other words, the phrase isn't asking people to think in a different manner (think differently) but is urging them what to think (think apple pie or think big).

The challenge for rural superinedents isn't in changing the process they use for thinking about their schools. The challenge is to break out of traditional views of public schools to think about how to respond to economic and demographic changes. Some rural districts have "thought different" by using technology to expand enrollment by offering online courses.

Most rural district aren't ready to think different. But if you are and want some help, give me a call.

Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act

A report from National Public Radio examines the impact the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act is having on California's rural schools. Could they come up with a more ridiculous title?

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act provided funding to rural schools to replace lost revenus from the logging industry. To make up for these lost funds, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sold off smaller parcels of land that were not contiguous to larger parts acreages. President Bush proposed selling 300,000 acres of national forests as a way of funding rural schools, but that proposal was defeated. It's now back, as part of the president's recently released budget, and the White House is withholding that funding for rural school districts unless the forest sale goes through.

I have mixed feelings about the proposal. On one hand, the NPR report shows how the loss of this revenue is hurting rural schools and communities. Why not let the Forest Service would sell off land that isn't connected to larger pieces of land land and give the proceeds to rural schools?

On the other hand, why can't the Bush administration budget money for rural schools that is not linked to selling off public lands? Another consideration is where those public lands are located. I'm familiar with one piece of land the Forest Service tried to sell. A big multi-million dollar house built on that land would not benefit the community, let alone make it more secure.

Hey New Administrators, Listen Up!

An important skill for new adminstrators to have is the ability to listen more than talk. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden noted the importance of listening in a recent Denver Post article. "If you want to be heard you have to listen.... It reminds me of a little verse I heard when I was in grade school in the 1920s. It said, 'A wise old owl sat in an oak. The more he heard, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Now wasn't he a wise old bird?"'

I've known many administrators who never learned that lesson. Indeed, it's too often quite the opposite. I recall one administrator who spent his first day with teachers lecturing them on his philosophy of education. He didn't last too long.

For rural administrators the importance of listening is critical because the more an administrator listens to the concerns of those in the school and community, the more likely those people will be to listen to her when the time comes for important action. Rural people differ from nonrural people in that the position a person holds is less important than who that person actually is—it doesn't matter that you're the superintendent, but I trust you because I know you're heard my perspective.

The lesson for adminstrators new to a district is that if your goal is school improvement, spend more time listening and less time talking. If you goal is to show people how smart you are, keep talking. They'll figure it out.

How Do You Rate Your Community?

The vast majority of rural Americans rate their communities as being a good place to live according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. A nationally representative sample of 2,000 people were asked to rate their community. Among rural respondents, 34% rated their community as being excellent places to live, 30% rated it as very good, and 26% as good. Only 10% rated their community as being a fair/poor place to live.

In contrast, only 20% of Small City or Town residents rated their community as being excellent places to live, while 15% rated their community as fair/poor.

The results of the survey are published in Americans and Social Trust: Who, Where and Why.

How is Rural Different? Social Trust

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, rural people have more social trust than those who live in cities and towns. Social trust is a belief in the honesty, integrity, and reliability of others.

In a nationally representative survey, Pew asked 2,000 people to respond to three questions to measure their social trust. Rural people had the highest social trust on the index (43) followed by those from Suburbs Near a Large City (39), Small Cities or Towns (35), and Large Cities (23). Social trust was rated on a three-item index with respondents split into three groups: high, moderate and low levels of social trust.

Of particular note is that Rural people are more trusting than those from Small Cities and Towns. Some education reports combine Rural and Town schools into a single category. The results of the Pew survey suggest there might be differences between these groups and that analysts should consider whether or not aggregating data for them is appropriate.

Americans and Social Trust: Who, Where and Why is published as part of the Pew social trust reports.

Senator Lincoln Selected Chair of Rural Outreach

On November 14, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that Blanche L. Lincoln (D-AR) will continue to serve as Chair of Rural Outreach for the Senate Democratic Caucus. In announcing the Senate Leadership for the 110th Congress, Reid noted Senate Democrat's commitment to rural Americans: "As she did in the 109th Congress, Senator Lincoln will again serve as Chair of Rural Outreach. This position was created in the last Congress as a sign of the Democrats’ strong commitment to aggressively engage and communicate with rural Americans. In this post, Senator Lincoln will continue to guide rural outreach for the Caucus and find new ways to reach rural, suburban and exurban American communities."

“Rural America provides us with the safest, most abundant, and most affordable food supply in the world as well as renewable sources of energy with the potential to significantly reduce our country’s dangerous dependency on foreign oil,” Lincoln said. “Rural America is critical to this nation and such an important part of the fabric of our great country. I look forward to working with my colleagues to address the challenges and obstacles rural Americans face so they are able to enjoy every blessing and opportunity our nation offers.”

Research on Teacher Recruitment, Hiring & Support

The Connecticut Center for School Change has released a report I did with Robert Reichardt on teacher recruitment, hiring and support. Although the report isn't specific to rural schools, it provides insight into strategies superintendents and principals can use to find, hire and keep effective teachers. An Executive Summary and a Technical Report of In Search of Quality: Recruiting, Hiring and Supporting Teachers are available on the CCSC website.