We are now in the reciprocal Conference season. There is an expectation that the NAHT President will represent the Association at key school leadership organization Conferences. In turn, the current Presidents of these organizations attend our Annual Conference. The National Association of Secondary School Principals in the US met in San Francisco. Where each President ends up depends upon decisions made years ago so it could be Detroit or Houston. These are not jollies as anyone who sees the the work schedule and sitting in airports in the middle of the night can testify. Even so, I was delighted that San Francisco came on my watch and decided to pay for Veronicah and James to come with me, so we could share time after the end of each working day. There were a number of key issues to explore with international colleagues. These are often elements of accountability, austerity, autonomy for our schools and their effect upon children's attainment and life chances, and conditions of service for school leaders.
These Conferences give an excellent opportunity to meet with both host Country Principals (most of the world uses that term), and to network with international colleagues all undertaking a similar role. (I knew, for example, at least four of the previous NASSP Presidents). This means you are working on two levels: firstly, to gain an understanding of how the host Country is tackling the key issues, and secondly, to relate this across several other systems with the experience of those attending. This leads to good friendships on a personal basis, but enables you to be better informed, and gain real insight into international comparisons - Governments will often cherry-pick from these to suit policy choices - and test your Association's positions.
One of the stars of the NASSP Conference was Diane Ravitch. Diane is an education academic, as Professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
She had been Assistant Secretary of State in the Bush Senior Administration. Although education is largely at State function, the Federal Government does, increasingly, have a financial role to play (now about 10-15% which it uses to lever policy). Diane Ravitch, was significantly committed to a regime of high level external assessment. She has since written a book entitled, 'The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010) ISBN 978-0-465-01491-0 repudiating this approach. Diane saw that this encouraged children and schools to have a dull, repetitive diet based upon the need for compliance and completion of work with little reference to quality or real engagement. She is clear that this does not raise standards. It also reflects the widely respected Finnish experience, where high attainment includes no external assessment of any nature except blind sampling until the age of 18. We come back once again to Governments distorting the curriculum - and teaching and learning - by inappropriate accountability measures.
Linda Darling-Hammond, is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the School Redesign Network, and advises one of President Obama's key groups, followed this by presenting research that identified teacher effectiveness as the key to high attainment. "Bureaucratic solutions to problems of practice will always fail because effective teaching is not routine, students are not passive, and questions of practice are not simple, predictable, or standardized. Consequently, instructional decisions cannot be formulated on high then packaged and handed down to teachers." - from her award-winning book, The Right to Learn. She identified the approaches which enabled those entering the profession to have good support to gain this effectiveness and then to have this maintained by strategies such as coaching in the classroom by expert practitioners. Some research suggested that the usual diet of one-off in-service training sessions were less effective as lacking in depth - a real challenge to most schools!
Eric Sheninger (http://ericsheninger.com/esheninger) is the Principal at New Milford High School located in Bergen County, NJ. He is passionate about establishing and fostering learning environments that are student-centered, collaborative, flexible, and prepare all learners to succeed in the 21st Century. Eric presented on the future of ICT in schools and children's learning. He was an advocate of the hand-held approach as where children are at, together with the positive use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with the latter particularly useful for classroom teachers to share ideas in an educational forum.
California lived up to it's billing. Sunshine, the Golden Gate Bridge, an almost bankrupt State Government with significant street begging, brilliant restaurants, but the best was undoubtedly the cable cars, and a visit to Alcatraz.
There was really no contest. Seating on the cable car was either outside facing outward on benches or in the more sanitized interior behind windows facing inward. So going the first very steep incline I'm holding on to James for dear life, whilst Veronicah manages the folded buggy. For once, I'm delighted that there is a relatively tight squeeze on the benches as this actually assists with stability. This was not always the case over the eight rides we managed and, at least on one occasion, I found myself determinedly trying to stop a sideways movement that could have led to catastrophe. James was beside himself, and as usual making conversation - part verbal, part non-verbal signals - to fellow passengers.
The boat ride to the Island of Alcatraz in the Bay was relatively short. The Island was used by the military as a prison until 1933 - including Confederate soldiers and sailors during the Civil War - when it transferred to the Justice Ministry. It then held some of the most notorious gangsters of the next 30 years including Al Capone, 'Machine gun' Kelly, and Robert Stroud, the 'Birdman of Alcatraz' memorably portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the film of that name - in reality most of the work and study of birds took place in his previous incarceration in Leavenworth, but Hollywood was never strong on historical accuracy (and Stroud was never allowed to see the film). An excellent audio tour followed. The most surprising aspect was the small size of most of the cells at just 9' x 5'. This included a bed, toilet, and small chair and table. The holding cells for those who broke the rules were actually larger, but with an even tougher regime, and after that thee were a couple of windowless cells termed the 'hole'. Bobby Kennedy closed down Alcatraz in 1963.
The time difference -seven hours ahead - and jet-lag led to some strange physiological experiences with James thinking that midnight local time was perfect for waking up for breakfast literally full of beans. It took a couple of days to acclimatize. In the meantime, two bleary-eyed parents took turns in coping with this until persuasion (or at least bribery) prevailed.
The next day after returning to UK, I'm at Finance and Personnel Committees in London, then speaking at the Education Conference the following day, Friday, in Reading, and meeting with a group of Heads in the afternoon. Sunday is a flight to Amsterdam and a train ride to a monastery where the International Confederation of Principals is meeting, and then a flight to Belfast for our National Executive. Each meeting requires preparation, presentations, and follow-up work. In the meantime, the Government publishes it's Green Paper on the future of Special Educational Needs and Disability for consultation until June. This is a major piece of work for the NAHT in developing a considered response to Sarah Teather, Minister of State for Children and Families, and the Department. On Sunday, it's off to Dusseldorf with Russell Hobby to meet our Service Children's Education Branch and attend and speak at their AGM. A number of Branch Meetings to attend on my return.
I always enjoy seeing the signs of Spring and regeneration, particularly when the daffodils with their vibrant colour are in view. Now all I have to do is decide what is it I'm giving up for lent this year.
