Education Week - February 25, 2015 - Special Report - S11

EDUCATION WEEK LEADERS TO LEARN FROM
February 25, 2015 n
S11
edweek.org/leaders
"
That push and pull is extremely important.
You only get one chance to do this right." -TERRY B. GRIER
said Keith R. Krueger, the executive director
of the Washington-based Consortium for
School Networking, a professional association
for education technology leaders.
"It's the model that's really needed to powerfully
use technology."
During his two decades-plus as a superintendent
of nine different districts, Mr. Grier
has developed a reputation as fast-moving
and even arrogant.
Now 64, the North Carolina native hasn't
lost his edge.
"We're not L.A.," he said, referencing the
iPads-for-all initiative that has led to an fbi
investigation, a seemingly endless series of
negative headlines, and high-profile resignations
in the country's second-largest district.
That's not to say that Mr. Grier's road in
Houston has been easy.
When he assumed control of the hisd in
2009, its technology infrastructure was in
shambles.
One reason: After a scandal in which district
staff members were accused of accepting
gifts and cash from vendors, the Federal
Communications Commission in 2006 froze
Houston's access to funds from the federal
E-rate program, costing the district millions.
Mr. Grier quickly oversaw an $850,000 settlement
with the fcc, opening the door for
$125 million in federal technology funds to
flow into the district in the years since.
By 2012, Mr. Grier felt Houston was ready
to embrace 1-to-1 computing. True to form,
he proposed starting big.
"I wanted to do 30 schools," he said.
That number, however, caused his staff
to freeze, convinced their boss's ambitions
spelled disaster.
Mr. Schad, 51, became their champion.
"When Dr. Grier says these things that terrify
everybody, [Mr. Schad] doesn't get upset,"
said L. Beatriz Arnillas, a senior manager for
instructional technology in the district. "He
negotiates the conditions for success."
An infrastructure audit suggested that
seven schools might be a reasonable number
to start.
Mr. Grier was adamant that the program
roll out with no fewer than nine schools-one
for each of the single-member regions represented
by the district's elected board.
Eventually, PowerUp's first cohort included
11 schools. Everyone, including the superintendent,
was happy.
"That push and pull is extremely important,"
Mr. Grier said. "You only get one
chance to do this right."
Broad Support
Now, those 11 campuses are in the second
year of their digital transition, with 21 additional
high schools taking part in the PowerUp
initiative this school year.
Even some of Mr. Grier's staunchest adversaries
express support for the program.
"I don't think we've gotten a single complaint
in the past year and a half dealing
with the PowerUp program," said P. Gayle
Fallon, the president of the 6,000-member
Houston Federation of Teachers, which is
currently involved in a lawsuit challenging
the district's use of controversial statistical
methods to gauge teacher performance.
Erin L. Russe, a science teacher at Chavez
High, explained the lack of backlash from
teachers: "If you need to take baby steps, you
can take baby steps. If you're comfortable,
you have the freedom to run with it on your
own."
That approach is largely the brainchild of
Mr. Schad, a former college basketball player
who was a pioneer of the Bring Your Own
Device strategy during his previous stint in
the 67,000-student Katy Independent School
District, outside Houston.
Like many ed-tech officials, Mr. Schad
is adamant that 1-to-1 computing is "not
about the devices," but about teaching and
learning.
Making that a reality, he said, requires a
chief technology official who "can take 'tech
speak' and put it into 'education speak.' "
In Houston, though, Mr. Grier has gone
further, at times ruffling feathers.
Seeking to avoid the perception that PowerUp
is the "Terry and Lenny Show," the
superintendent formed the district's first
"cross-functional" project-leadership team,
with representatives from departments
including curriculum, communications,
instructional technology, and secondary
schools.
The hisd is also paying more than
$500,000 to the 6,000-student Mooresville,
N.C., district (a national model of 1-to-1
computing) for training and professional
development, and Mr. Grier retained thirdparty
evaluators from the University of
San Diego.
Mr. Schad initially resisted both strategies,
fearing that additional perspectives might
cause the program to bog down.
Ultimately, though, the technology chief
said the superintendent's reliance on outsiders
has helped keep Houston focused on both
the trees and the forest.
"Terry pushes me to think about scale,"
he said. "We've got 284 schools. We need to
[make sure] this doesn't take us 10 years to
roll out."
Hard Work Ahead
LESSONS FROM A LEADER
>> Work Together
A close relationship between
the superintendent and the
technology chief, along with
a cross-departmental projectmanagement
team, helps ensure
a strong start to big ed-tech
initiatives.
>> Think Big Picture
It's not just about devices. Success
hinges on fitting together puzzle
pieces that include infrastructure,
software, digital content, and
professional development.
>> Urgency Matters;
Success Matters
More
Houston's teachers are getting
three years and lots of training
to make the switch to digital
instruction, part of a broader
recognition that digital
transformation involves
a systemwide culture change.
For students such as Janasia Powell, 18,
the fruits of the back-and-forth between Mr.
Grier and Mr. Schad are evident.
She and other 12th graders at Chavez
High described PowerUp not as an exciting
giveaway of free computers, but as an it'sabout-time
step by the Houston district to
make school as convenient as the rest of the
world.
"The way they've made everything more
accessible for us is genius," Ms. Powell said.
"My whole senior year is on that laptop."
Of course, the hard work in Houston is far
from over.
How will principals and teachers in existing
PowerUp schools react next year, when
the expectations from the central office become
more rigid?
What will happen when less prepared
schools attempt to deploy their laptops?
And what of Houston's loftier goals? Mr.
Grier and Mr. Schad have begun publicly
evaluating how their technology vendors
safeguard student data, and the district recently
became one of the first large urban
school systems in the country to demand
that all its content providers meet specific
technical "interoperability" standards.
Other districts could follow suit, potentially
leading to significant shake-ups in longestablished
business models in the K-12
sector.
Mr. Grier, ever the fighter, gets a glimmer
in his eye when discussing the coming
challenges.
But the hard-charging superintendent also
acknowledges having mellowed-just a bit.
He's quick to acknowledge that Houston
doesn't have all the answers when it comes
to going digital in a large school system-and
to say that embracing that reality has been a
key to the district's success so far.
"We're nervous, too," Mr. Grier said.
"That's why we decided to roll this out slow,
rather than try to eat the whole elephant
at once." n
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Education Week - February 25, 2015 - Special Report

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