Current issues in educational leadership

 

Current issues in educational leadership according to what is being discussed in this space this year:

1.     Equity and Inclusion: Promoting equity and inclusion remains a significant challenge in educational leadership. Disparities in access to resources, opportunities, and quality education persist across various demographics, including race, socioeconomic status, gender, and ability. Educational leaders must address these inequities and work toward creating more inclusive learning environments.

2.     Digital Transformation: The rapid advancement of technology has transformed the landscape of education, requiring educational leaders to navigate digital tools, online learning platforms, and data-driven decision-making processes. This includes ensuring access to technology for all students, training educators in digital pedagogy, and addressing concerns about privacy and digital citizenship.

3.     Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Many regions are facing shortages of qualified teachers, particularly in subjects like mathematics, science, and special education. Educational leaders must develop strategies to recruit and retain high-quality educators, which may involve offering competitive salaries, professional development opportunities, and supportive working environments.

4.     Educational Policy and Governance: Changes in educational policies at local, state, and national levels can significantly impact schools and districts. Educational leaders must stay informed about policy changes, advocate for policies that support their educational goals, and effectively implement new mandates while balancing the needs of their communities.

5.     Social and Emotional Learning (SEL): Recognizing the importance of students' social and emotional well-being, educational leaders are increasingly prioritizing SEL initiatives. This involves integrating SEL into curriculum and school culture, providing training for educators, and fostering supportive relationships among students, staff, and families.

6.     Financial Management and Budget Constraints: Educational leaders face the ongoing challenge of managing limited financial resources effectively. Budget constraints may require difficult decisions regarding staffing, programs, and resource allocation, necessitating strategic planning and collaboration with stakeholders to prioritize investments that will have the greatest impact on student success.

7.     School Safety and Crisis Management: Ensuring the safety and security of students and staff is a top priority for educational leaders. This includes implementing protocols for emergency preparedness, addressing issues such as bullying and violence, and promoting a positive school climate that fosters a sense of belonging and well-being.

8.     Professional Development and Leadership Training: Providing ongoing professional development and leadership training for educators and administrators is essential for improving teaching practices, fostering innovation, and promoting career advancement. Educational leaders must invest in opportunities for professional growth and mentorship to support the development of future leaders in the field.

These issues underscore the complex and multifaceted nature of educational leadership in addressing the diverse needs of students, educators, and communities. Effective leadership requires a proactive and collaborative approach to navigating challenges and promoting positive outcomes for all stakeholders in the education system.

 

Thoughts?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

Universities closing

Corinthians, ITT, and now Coleman. All oldish alternative institutions (same accreditor ironically), and the thing they also have in common is they are all closed. But guess who suffers? The student.

The money the students spent they will never get back, and the time they spent was wasted. Promises made, but not kept. This is a failing of educators and administrators for not paying attention to what they teach in their own schools. There are case studies being taught on what has happened to these schools, by these very schools teachers!!!

I have said it before and I will say it again: there needs to be a certification or training for those taking leadership potions in higher educational institutions. Seniority is no longer a valid reason to promote someone in today's educational environment.

What is your institution doing to make sure your administrators are job ready?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III
The ETeam

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/corinthian-colleges-shuts-down-ending-classes-16-000-overnight-n348741

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/07/itt-tech-shuts-down-all-campuses

https://fox5sandiego.com/2018/07/26/coleman-university-to-close-at-end-of-current-term/

Sharing an article 7/22/2018

3 Approaches for Confronting Microaggressions

Tyrone Fleurizard gives advice for reducing subtle yet discriminatory actions and comments in the classroom.

By 

Tyrone Fleurizard

 

July 20, 2018

20 COMMENTS

 

Phil Goodman -- a pseudonym -- has been teaching the psychology of prejudice for almost a decade. He has every lecture memorized and every punch line down. Throughout the semester, students explore the many ways prejudice manifests, interrogate prejudice research and, at the conclusion of the semester, develop ways to reduce prejudice in their own lives.

Goodman’s favorite lecture is on stereotypes. His reading for this particular lecture includes an experimental study from Stanford University social psychologist and 2014 MacArthur “Genius” fellow Jennifer Eberhardt and her colleagues. They sought to determine how stereotypic associations influence visual processing and attention. To do that, participants were primed with either black faces, white faces or no faces and then shown images on a computer screen of crime and noncrime objects that started fuzzy and became progressively clearer.

The researchers were testing reaction time, so participants were instructed to press a key as soon as they could make out the object. What they found was astonishing: participants took less time to identify a crime-relevant object when primed with black faces than with white faces. When primed with white faces, participants took longer to recognize dangerous objects -- so much so that if in a real situation, they could have been in fatal danger. During the class discussion, one student eager to contribute began reciting the study’s methodology. When they described the primed faces, however, they referred to the white faces as “white” but the black faces as “colored.” After they finished, there was a long pause. Microaggressions like these happen all time.

Microaggressions are subtle, discriminatory actions and comments toward people of color that may be racist, sexist or ableist. The late Chester Pierce, emeritus professor at Harvard Medical School, first coined the term in the 1970s as “subtle, stunning, often automatic and nonverbal exchanges which are ‘put downs’” by offenders. These seemingly trivial slights have been shown to be related to negative health and academic outcomes for black students.

Read the rest here: https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/07/20/how-deal-microaggressions-class-opinion

Should You Get a Certificate Instead of a College Degree?

"Certificate programs have become increasingly popular in the American education system, but is a certificate a smarter choice for you than a traditional college degree? Let's explore some questions you should ask yourself to make the right choice for you!

What's the Difference?

Generally speaking, certificates offer 'bite-sized' pieces of education that usually provide practical workplace skills in a short period of time. Meanwhile, college degrees provide a larger educational base and take a bit longer to complete. You are probably most familiar with associate's and bachelor's degrees, which generally take two and four years to earn, respectively. Certificates vary in length, too, but nearly all take less than two years and most last less than one year, according to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce (GCEW). Certificates are also more focused on occupational-specific training instead of the broader general education goals of traditional college degrees"

Read the rest here: https://study.com/blog/should-you-get-a-certificate-instead-of-a-college-degree.html

The rumor and gossip mill has no place in education

Education is one of the most regulated industries in the United States, but I have always said that educators are big gossips, no matter what the level.

People get judged on popularity, seniority, and by whispers. I recently attended what I thought was a professional conversation about teaching, and one of the opening statements was “well I heard …about you”. You heard?!

We are supposed to be objective with our students, use rubrics, have learning goals, etc. How can we truly claim this if we cannot be objective with each other? Do you realize so many performance evaluations in education are based upon how the supervisor is feeling about you at that time, not about your performance for the year?

Unfortunately, we often treat our students this way as well. We judge them based upon student records, but we do not look closely at the records, just the juicy gossip. The teachers lounge in K12 is often full of negative student gossip.

Educators, we must do better if we are going to ever transform education. We are allowing non-educators to run us, because we cannot seem to run ourselves.

So, next time you feel like repeating that rumor, talking that trash, or judging someone on hearsay, let us practice what we teach the students:

·         Is this kind?

·         Is it true?

·         Is it necessary?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

Real Educational Leadership and Change is Needed

I would love to see this quote proved wrong but I will not hold my breath because nine years later this hasn't changed much...: ""The mistake of most traditional campus-based institutions was to see the potential if online learning in terms of access and serving more students instead of serving current students better" (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008)"

Omission in the day and age of instant communication is dangerous

Let us look at this sentence: “I don’t like because of color”. If inserted into the wrong conversation in the right way, all of sudden you have an argument about racism. The whole sentence was really: “I don’t like this couch because the of the color”, a significant difference.

When people alter, or omit words from sentences, it can have a profound effect on a conversation, when leaders do this, it can have a devastating effect in general. Leaders who consistently keep their employees in the dark are fostering a culture that thrives on rumors because we all know that information gap will be filled by something. It is even more sad when the information that was withheld was not even vital!

If you want “buy-in" from your employees than you need to give them something to buy; if you want to have civil conversations then you need to check your sources before you quote. The standards of using references that are peer reviewed and reliable is not just for academia.

A lesson from a communication course. #communication #leadership #education

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

At some point, you have to acknowledge your company is really not that into you: when to walk away

There is a humorous video I show in the first part of one of my HR classes called “when Barry Met Sammy- A Funny View of HR and KM”,

check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu9QWojx8qE

While it is funny, it underscores a serious problem companies have, and industries have (including the higher education industry): leadership often does not show that they value their employees, in fact the reward for good work is often more work.

What is the difficulty with acknowledging the work your employees do on a regular basis and rewarding them for it?

I have said a million times before and I will say it again: YOUR EMPLOYEES ARE YOUR MOST VALUABLE ASSETS! This is a simple lesson to learn, and in theory it should be simple to practice; there is data that proves this. But the data is not being looked at, or at least not until it is too late.

We teach this stuff in our universities, but why oh why, can we not learn it ourselves?! Education and specifically higher education, will need to go through some major changes over the next few years, whether it likes it or not, and practicing what we are preaching/teaching needs to be lesson number one.

The creation and implementation of certifications for higher educational leaders should not just be a pipe dream, it needs to be a reality.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam http://www.theeteamconsulting.com/our-work.html

Retaliation in higher education

Retaliation is a real thing, it is an unfortunate thing, and it happens more often then we like in higher education.

How does it happen? I am glad you asked. As an adjunct faculty, it is easy for a supervisor to do this, and sometimes they might not even realize they are doing it. Perhaps the supervisor med a scheduling error, and it caused a professor to lose a class. While we know there are no guarantees for adjuncts; it is still a loss. What happens is when the adjunct complains the supervisor leaves them off the list for the next term classes; and keeps them off.

People often leave an institution because of a boss or because the culture supports a toxic environment; and when a person mentions this in an exit interview, often times, they are blamed instead of the issue being investigated.

I have often written about how educators sometimes are the most indiscreet and inconsistent employers out there, and it is an unfortunate truth.

Why is it that as higher educators we often do not hold ourselves to a higher standard of management? Why do we let a culture fester to the point of jeopardizing an institution?

Make no mistake, higher education is in a crisis mode for so many reasons, and a lack of consistency is one of them.

Are we going acknowledge this or wait for the institutions to close one by one? The proof is out there, especially when we look at accrediting bodies, school closures, and position turnover.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

What have you learned from 2016? A leadership and communication question

Leaders all make mistakes, but hopefully we learn from our mistakes, especially when it comes to our businesses.

What mistakes did you make in 2016? Have you corrected them or is it business as usual? Will we be having this same conversation five years from now?

·         Did you let those employees know they were valued?

·         Did you take the time to do one-on-ones with your employees so they can have a real performance review?

·         Did you give credit where credit was due?

·         Etc

If it can be documented (your word is not enough) that you did all these things, congratulations! If this is not part of your normal practice, why isn’t it? Do you realize the message you are communicating to your staff by not doing these simple things?

2017 could be just another year of many, or you can make the conscious effort to make some positive changes for the betterment of others. The choice is yours.

My observations from the cheap seats

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

We do not hold ourselves accountable in higher education; time to admit it

If you have worked in education long enough, you will quickly learn that educators are full of flaws.

·         The industry is highly indiscreet, despite FERPA (FAMILY EDUCATION RIGHTS PRIVACY ACT)

·         People often work in silos without collaboration

·         We do not admit when we are wrong soon enough

·         ETC

Do not get me wrong, I love my industry and our hearts are in the right place, but real change is really scary for most, and often we do not embrace the change until it is forced upon us.

Issues with accreditation did not just happen overnight, this had to have taken years to build up. Accounting and solvency issues did not just suddenly appear, mistakes are going to happen when people get promoted into positions that does not necessarily suit them. Online technology has been growing for decades, so why then are we not trying to embrace things that can help more students?

So, what is the solution? Well there is no one solution and there is no simple answer because we are in a labor-intensive industry, where egos clash, and everyone is an expert.

At the very least, we need to PRACTICE WHAT WE TEACH. We teach some really good stuff in higher educaion, we change lives, we help people better themselves; but we do not always apply this learning to ourselves.

Businesses are expecting more from us and so are our students. We need to make sure we are not just preparing students to pass a test, but to be job ready and pass life’s test.

So, the answer to the question is actually another question: as an educator in higher education what are you prepared to do make real change and achieve real success for our community?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam http://www.theeteamconsulting.com/home.html

What is faculty governance and do you have it?

Not an easy question to answer and many institutions are trying to answer this.

Emory University:

“Casually ask faculty members at Emory how they define faculty governance, and two themes emerge. First, most seem to focus on faculty governance at the departmental or the school/college level, in which their appointment is housed. Second, they view faculty governance as a mechanism to oversee the curriculum and guide decisions about the promotion, and if applicable, tenure of a colleague. From our perspective, the need for engaged faculty governance at the university level deserves at least as much consideration, though. Such attention is especially essential during this era of the rapidly shifting landscape in higher education” 

http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/issues/2014/Spring/stories/sterkwagner/index.html

NEA:

Faculty Governance in Higher Education: “Faculty members in higher education should have primary responsibility to:

1.      Determine the curriculum, subject matter, methods of instruction, and other academic standards and processes.

2.      Establish the requirements for earning degrees and certificates, and authorize the administration and governing board to grant same.

3.      Exercise, where the faculty deems it appropriate, primary responsibility for determining the status of colleagues, especially appointment, reappointment, and tenure.

4.      Establish procedures for awarding promotions, sabbaticals, research support, and other rewards or perquisites.”  http://www.nea.org/home/34743.htm

It I s also referred to as “share governance” http://agb.org/trusteeship/2014/3/how-make-shared-governance-work-some-best-practices

While not everyone is going to agree on what it is or on how it is supposed to get done, everyone should be agreeing that it needs to be done.

If faculty and administration cannot come together and create a program worthy of teaching, then it is the students that suffer. If faculty, who are the experts, are feeling like their expertise is being minimized in favor of agendas, then it is students who suffer. If the administration does not have an avenue to discuss concerns with faculty, then students suffer. There are numerous examples of schools failing because of this reason (private non-profit, for profit, and public schools alike).

 

Need some ideas? The ETeam is happy to help!

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

Is your job application system user friendly? Lessons from an MBA program

The days of pounding pavement, going to an office and filling out an application are done, for better or worse electronic applications are the norm.

There is a certain convenience to them obviously, especially not having to decipher peoples’ handwriting, and being able to electronically store applications. However, it is my belief that a little of the humanity has gone out of the job search, which in term causes great frustration for applicants. 

Here are some of the issues I have identified:

·         Applications are being pre-screened by computers, and while there are many so-called experts out there who are willing to give you advice on how to “write a winning resume” (for a nominal fee of course), there are no guarantees that good and qualified candidates resumes are ever going to be seen by the decision makes. The “blackhole” effect, can cause qualified people to stop looking for jobs.

·         The digital divide. Yes, computers are everywhere, but that does not mean everyone has one, or has one with internet access. There are the “haves and have nots” in the digital world.

·         The time-honored tradition of following up on applications submitted has been taken away, and this is a shame because if you have taken the time to submit a professional resume, you should expect some simple professional courtesies. The counter argument is going to be “there are too many resumes” or “not enough time”, and my response is: take the time to get back to applicants!

·         My last point can be the ultimate frustrater, and that is system errors. Have you ever taken 30 to 45 minutes to fill out an application for an opportunity that is perfect for you? You are all excited, you do everything right, you hit that submit button, and then boom: SYSTEM ERROR! Maybe it works the second time around, but you still must take all that time again, or worse, you spend all day trying to get it submitted at all and it never works! Plus, the ad says “no phone calls” or there is no email to get the issue addressed.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are communication problems, and bad communication is one of the biggest complaints all employees have about their employer: imagine how a well-qualified potential employee might feel about your company?

Many companies are not even aware that they have issues at this end of recruitment; and this system error issue can happen during the onboarding process as well causing people to quit before they start.

Does your company monitor these issues?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

Are your Adjunct Professors Just an After Thought? A serious HigherEd question

Can you answer a strong yes to these questions?

·         Do you have a robust and supportive onboarding process for your part-time faculty?

·         Does your part-time faculty get the administrative, technological, and general support it needs on time?

·         Do you regularly let your part-time faculty know you appreciate them?

·         Do the part-time faculty have a voice in changes that affect them?

·         When was the last time you had meaningful conversations with the part-time faculty that work for you? Do you know who works for you?

I am sure a lot of people answered yes because that is what you believe; that is what you know. However, would your part-time faculty agree with you? Can you answer that question?

If you cannot answer a strong unequivocal yes to all those simple questions, you might have some work to do in order to keep and attract your most valuable assets: your faculty.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

ACICS in crisis: So what is the plan to help students?

So, one of big items in Higher Education is that an accreditor is in crisis: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-22/education-department-strips-authority-of-acics-the-largest-for-profit-college-accreditor?src=usn_li (not fan of this title but it is detailed)

There are approximately 600,000 students who attend schools within this body, and not all are for-profit schools by the way, and even if that was the case For-Profit is not and should not be a curse word because that is unprofessional. Anyway, back to the question at hand: what is the plan to help all those students?

Students have taken out loans, made sacrifices, and expect to get a degree: how are you going to help them accomplish this with causing more hardship in their lives? Community Colleges will not be able to help those on the tail end of a four-year degree, and how about all the loans that are going to come due because the students no longer have an in-school deferment?

Too often, when large events like this happen, the students do not seem to be the first priority. It is about the student right?

What is the plan?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

Issues exist in many sectors, not just For-Profits Institutions

“Former ITT Tech employees file lawsuit against dissolved institution”

http://www.educationdive.com/news/former-itt-tech-employees-file-lawsuit-against-dissolved-institution/426005/

There is an interesting part of this article which all universities need to pay attention too, because the same conditions are capable of being re-created in non-profit private universities:

“Though for-profits are specifically under attack by the federal government, there are other lessons for nonprofit institutions as well, particularly for terminating non-union or adjunct positions in the face of budget cuts, lowered enrollment, or other factors which may impact revenue or employment”

Nobody is perfect and we all can be doing better

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

Is the federal government trying to take down the for-profit college industry?

By Danielle Douglas-Gabriel September 8 at 6:20 PM 

The closure of ITT Technical Institutes, a national chain of career schools with a 50-year legacy, is fueling a debate over the federal government’s aggressive policing of for-profit higher education and whether it could destroy the industry

Read for yourself, interesting article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/is-the-federal-government-trying-to-take-down-the-for-profit-college-industry/2016/09/08/effb7ffe-75dd-11e6-b786-19d0cb1ed06c_story.html

A1 Service Starts from the Moment They Walk Through Your Door

I have learned and been given lots of good advice over the years about employees in the education industry, and there are many great quotes out there such as:

·         "Put your staff first, customers second, and shareholders third"

·         “treat employees not just the way you want to be treated, but the way they want to be treated”,

·         “People choose a school because of great faculty”

These are all things I have heard being used in the education industry and they make sense to almost everyone. Why then does the education industry often fall far short of these great goals?

A great many educational institutions now rely upon part-time or adjunct faculty. This pool of faculty tends to be very versatile, quick on their feet, and tend to work in the industry they are teaching. They are a wonderful resource so why do we not value them the way we should?

It all starts with the hiring process:

• ·         Do you have a process?
• ·         Do you follow the process?
• ·         Does the process take into account that you are trying to woo and retain great faculty?

The biggest complaint I get from new faculty is that “they do not have all the information they need at the beginning”, I also here about “trials by fire”. Is this really what you want for a new faculty member’s first experience? We teach communication in schools: is this good communication?

You do not need to have a fancy electronic system, you can use all paper if you want to; you do not need much of anything except to let them know that you care, you are there to help them get onboard, and that you will follow through.

Give them a reason to stick around because of the A1 treatment you give them, instead of telling them to go away by the substandard disregarding behavior that happens too often. Your employees are your most valuable customers!

If you want to learn more, The ETeam is happy to help.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

We worship the wrong things: an educational observation

This post has nothing to do with religion, but religion will be touched upon; it does have everything to do with the perceived priorities of many people.

Definition of Religion according to Merriam-Webster:

·    the belief in a god or in a group of gods

·    an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods

·    an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group

Definition of a god according to Merriam-Webster:

·    the perfect and all-powerful spirit or being that is worshipped especially by Christians, Jews, and Muslims as the one who created and rules the universe

·    a spirit or being that has great power, strength, knowledge, etc., and that can affect nature and the lives of people: one of various spirits or beings worshipped in some religions

·    a person and especially a man who is greatly loved or admired

How often have these attributes been attributed to athletes? Check for yourself, it does not take much to see how athletes are viewed in United States. When I used to teach middle school, fantasy baseball was introduced in math class in order to get students interested in numbers. A clever idea right? But sad in some ways if you think about it.

Definition of Perfection according to Merriam-Webster:

·    the state or condition of being perfect

·    the act of making something perfect or better: the act of perfecting something

·    something that cannot be improved: something that is perfect

We expect perfection from the things we worship: athletes, politicians, Hollywood crowd. However, we love to see them fail because all this provides entertainment.

Definition of Entertainment according to Merriam-Webster:

·    amusement or pleasure that comes from watching a performer, playing a game, etc.

·    the act of amusing or entertaining people

Since when has politics become entertainment? Since when has the future direction of our country become a side show? It is also sad because mainstream media perpetuates this state of “entertainment”.

We focus on the wrong things; we get outraged by the wrongs things! There is a whole list of things we should be concerned about but we are concerned about the things we worship instead.

Teacher salary, student debt, social justice, gender equality, prison reform, a steady economy, etc. It is things like this that the average person such as myself are concerned about, but we do not talk about these things in a meaningful manner. Our discussions of these things are reduced to social media bites in which the ugly side of humanity comes out because people feel safe in their anonymity.

Going to church once a week does not mean you believe in a god, and as educators, getting a degree does not mean we are doing everything we can to educate. We must lead this discussion, we must force our students to think and think for themselves; in short we must educate!

My thought for the day but my hope for life.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam