SRN LEADS/Stanford University: School Redesign Network — Leadership, Equity & Accountability in Districts & Schools

LEADS past events

LEADS Superintendents/Liaisons Leadership Session
January 17-18, 2008, Miami-Dade County School District

Below are some clips extracted from a presentation by Rudy Crew, Superintendent of Schools for Miami-Dade.

 

Training for New Leaders: Engineering over Pedagogy
(1:15 minutes)

Dr. Crew explains that we already know how to teach diverse children. The current issues of educational reform are not pedagogical, they concern the need for effective leadership to organize resources so that we can put what we know into place. View clip (Requires Windows Media Player).

 

Scaling Up: From One Good School to Many
(1:59 minutes)

The work in Miami can be summed up as an effort to move an unstable school district to a stable school district; stable meaning a system in which resources are consistent and reliable and where knowledge is available and shared.
View clip.
View Slide: "Theory of Change"

 

The “Pac Man” Phenomena of Low-Performing Schools
(1:16 minutes)

Dr. Crew shows a slide of Miami’s “School Improvement Zone” (click here to see slide) and explains how Miami created a new structure through this strategy. Key to the approach is to improve school performance. As Dr. Crew notes, the lowest performing schools in the district create a hemorrhage effect, demanding every discretionary dollar, and requiring enormous energy and effort in a system with only limited energy and resources.
View clip.

View Slide: "School Improvement Zone"

 

"LEADS focuses on a critical arena in school reform, and it is founded on operating principles that promote high quality practice and effective outcomes. First, all arrows point to instruction. The implicit, sometimes explicit theory guiding the work is that districts are there to support effective teaching, and every practice and policy needs to be assessed in that light. Second, it emphasizes the importance of evidence - decisions informed by careful analyses of information - which is so critical and all too rare at both district and school levels. Finally, LEADS stresses the importance of documenting knowledge that can be shared among participants and beyond. We spend too much time re-inventing the wheel in education. Learning about best practices is just as important at the district level as it is at the classroom level, and LEADS participants contribute to as well as benefit from that knowledge base."

— Deborah Stipek, Dean, Stanford University School of Education