Board RetreatBoard RetreatJune 1, 2009

LookLook-ing Back …-ing Back …“For years most critics of US education have suffered the curse of Cassandra – always to tell the truth, seldom to be listened to or believed. But now the curse has been lifted. What they were saying is beginning to be believed. The schools are in terrible shape.

The only thing US schools have plenty of is children….

The schools have been overcrowded for years, but children still study in shacks and shifts and hallways and jerry-built classrooms.

Most teachers are grossly underpaid (some are not worth what they get). A great many, who know their jobs well and practice them with devotion, have to work without help, understanding or proper tools.

In their eagerness to be all things to all children, schools have gone wild with elective courses. They build up the bodies with in-school lunches and let the minds shift for themselves.

Where there are young minds of great promise, there are rarely the means to advance them. The nation’s stupid children get far better care than the bright. The geniuses of the next decades are even now being allowed to slip back into mediocrity.

There is no general agreement on what the schools should teach. A quarter century has been wasted with the squabbling over whether to make a child well adjusted or teach him something.

Most appalling, the standards of education are shockingly low.”

InnovationWork

OperationalWork

StrategicWork

Looking Ahead …Looking Ahead …

Guiding QuestionsGuiding Questions• What do we believe education for our young people should look like in the future?

What is of greatest urgency and importance as we plan to prepare children for jobs that might not even exist yet? How do we increase learner engagement and motivation to achieve?

• How do we, as a community, envision and identify the desired 21st century learning outcomes we hold dear for all graduates? How are these similar and different to learning outcomes we established in the 20th century accountability model? How do we use current research knowledge to better understand the relationship of Pk 12 development and learning to the desired outcomes we value ‐for all graduates?

• How do we simplify our strategic plan and key measures of success so our work is easily accessible, transparent, concise, and clear to our staff, parents, young people, and community members? (See Virginia Beach’s 2 page ‐ Compass to 2015)

• How do we apply Baldrige criteria for performance excellence so that we increase our staff’s capacity to positively embrace continuous improvement in our practices?

Board/Superintendent

Evaluation ofPriorities

ResourceUtilization

StudyProgress

AdvocacyGroups

QualityCouncilInput

SurveyData

AdvisoryGroup

Considerations

ListeningTours

Review ofWork Session

Summaries

Input

Priority Priority Input Input to Dateto Date

Emerging Focus AreasEmerging Focus Areas

• Achievement Gap• Compensation• Performance

Evaluation• Fostering

Innovation/Creativity• Achievement Beyond

Core• International

Standards/21st Century Skills

• Transparency• Recruitment• Communication• Division-level Support

for Organization• Accountability

(Balanced Scorecard)• Engagement

• Engaged learners (adults & young people)

• Technology-rich experiential learning

• Critical shifts for all graduates; 21st Century lifelong learning skills

Vision

Goals

Mission

Current PrioritiesCurrent Priorities

• Complete?• Keep as is?• Revise?• Omit?

Prepare all students to succeed as Prepare all students to succeed as members of a global community and in a members of a global community and in a global economy.global economy.

Priority 1.1The Framework for Quality Learning, the Division’s curriculum, assessment, and instruction model, is implemented in all classrooms.

Prepare all students to succeed as Prepare all students to succeed as members of a global community and in a members of a global community and in a global economy.global economy.

Priority 1.2All students embrace rigorous learning through high-level, student-centered work representative of the Division’s Lifelong Learner Standards.

Eliminate the Achievement Gap.Eliminate the Achievement Gap.

Priority 2Support all students to meet high expectations for performance and achievement through the consistent implementation of professional learning communities in all schools and departments.

Recruit, retain, and develop a diverse Recruit, retain, and develop a diverse cadre of the highest quality teaching cadre of the highest quality teaching personnel, staff, and administrators.personnel, staff, and administrators.

Priority 3Ensure there is a high-performing, innovative, and creative teacher in every classroom.

Priority 4A unit of the School Division will pilot benchmarking its performance against Baldrige National Quality Criteria.

Achieve recognition as a world-class Achieve recognition as a world-class educational system.educational system.

Establish efficient systems for Establish efficient systems for development, allocation, and alignment of development, allocation, and alignment of resources to support the Division’s vision, resources to support the Division’s vision, mission, and goals.mission, and goals.

Priority 5.1Use feedback/analysis from VCU-CEPI resource utilization study to identify and develop short-term and long-term applications of the study to financial planning, including but not limited to: budgeting, staffing, organizational structures, capital projects, and space/office facilities utilization.

Establish efficient systems for Establish efficient systems for development, allocation, and alignment of development, allocation, and alignment of resources to support the Division’s vision, resources to support the Division’s vision, mission, and goals.mission, and goals.

Priority 5.2Identify the resources needed to support the Division’s vision, mission, and goals.

ConversationConversation

Identifying Must Have Areas for Priority Inclusion

Lessons from the Lessons from the WWWWWW

• The Link Changes Everything

• Do What You Do Best• Join a Network• Be a Platform• Think Distributed

Strategic Input in a Wiki WorldStrategic Input in a Wiki World

A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked (often databased) Web pages, using a simplified markup language.[1][2] Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.[2] Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and knowledge management systems. Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work."[3]

"Wiki" (English pronunciation: /wi ki /) is a Hawaiian word for "fast".[4] "Wiki" can be expanded as "What I Know Is," but this is a backronym.[5]

Next StepsNext Steps