Education Week - February 25, 2015 - Special Report - S56

S56
EDUCATION WEEK LEADERS TO LEARN FROM
February 25, 2015 n
edweek.org/leaders
LESSONS FROM A LEADER
>> Don't Set Limits
>> Set Goals; Use Data
Give every student the opportunity
to become something wonderful.
Everybody has that potential.
Examine transcripts of students who either achieved
or did not, and then walk back through the system
to examine what decisions were made and at what
grade level. Ask what you could have done differently.
>> Be Humble
Humility and learning are so compatible.
You have to learn from your experience.
Surround yourself with people who are
better and smarter than you are.
district and the broader community that this
fundamental change was the right one.
He said the hardest group to convince was the
math teachers themselves.
(Two years ago, the state shifted to tests
aligned to the Common Core State Standards.
Mr. Johnson said that he supports the standards
themselves, but opposes the state's exams
that are aligned to the standards.)
Art of Persuasion
Marianne Mancusi was one such initial skeptic.
A teacher at Rockville Centre's South Side
Middle School when the shift in math instruction
began, Ms. Mancusi said she and other math
instructors thought it would be "difficult to make
that switch." She disliked the idea of no longer
teaching Algebra 1 as an advanced class.
What changed her mind, she said, was Mr.
Johnson's willingness to provide all the support
that teachers sought in order to make the necessary
changes in curriculum and elsewhere.
Small support classes of about eight students
each were created. Homeroom classes were
turned into planning sessions for math teachers.
And more math instructors were hired.
"Bill Johnson has always been supportive
of teachers and the needs of teachers," said
Ms. Mancusi, who worked for the district as a
teacher for three decades and is now an instructional
consultant there. "He accepts the input
from his staff."
In return, Mr. Johnson excels at identifying
where staff members have the most talent
and maximizing their abilities in the
classroom, said Lorna Lewis, who worked
in Rockville Centre under Mr. Johnson for
several years and is now the superintendent
of New York state's Old Bethpage district,
which has 5,000 students.
For example, Ms. Lewis credits Mr. Johnson
with allowing her to challenge the status
quo when, as the head of the science department
at Rockville Centre's South Side High
School, she led an effort to explore how to
improve outcomes for low-income and minority
students. Her work helped contribute to
the shift to raise academic expectations for
students across all grade levels.
"Now, I try to do the same thing in my own
people," said Ms. Lewis, who noted that the overall
detracking process was "not easily acceptable
to the parents" in Rockville Centre, but that Mr.
Johnson calmly stuck to his plan and explained
it to community members during contentious
public meetings.
"He doesn't get in the way. He knows how to
get talent," Ms. Lewis said. "He knows how to
support talent."
At the same time, Mr. Johnson is not afraid to
acknowledge his missteps.
Early in his tenure, he tried to create separate
classes for special education students that used
a variation of the regular classroom curriculum.
But in that particular instance when Mr.
Johnson leaned heavily on data to inform his
decisions, the performance of students in those
classes was "abominable," he recalled, and the
separate classes were scrapped.
"Once you separate them, and put them in
different places, they begin to think of themselves
as something different," he said of the
students.
"You have to learn from your past experience.
You have to be able to say, 'I made a mistake' and
go back and relearn what you thought you knew
well some time in the past," Mr. Johnson said.
"You try to balance it by surrounding yourself
with people who are better and smarter than
you are." n
An ALA Notable Book
Named a "Best Book" by Kirkus Reviews
and Library Journal
Selected for Common Reading at Case Western
Reserve University and Rice University
assionately argued and impressively researched, Quiet shows how dramatically society undervalues
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"Quiet will help teachers who hope to make classrooms more welcoming to introverted kids gain a
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-Educational Leadership
P
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QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
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Education Week ad - Quiet.indd 1
1/27/15 3:11 PM

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Education Week - February 25, 2015 - Special Report

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - February 25, 2015 - Special Report