Have you noticed…….; all the education Gurus appear cranky lately! What’s up?

If you have attended a conference this year or read recent articles or books by Wiggins, Schmoker, Marzano, Reeves, Elmore, Fullan et al you may be picking up a tone.

The Gurus are frustrated by what they see as our unwillingness or inability to deal with the “white elephant” in the public education leadership room, namely the idiosyncratic nature of classroom instruction that still runs rampant in U.S. schools.

Some have referred to this idiosyncratic instructional model as the “do my own thing”; "you can’t make me”; or the “self employed private contractor approach to classroom instruction”. The Gurus are frustrated because they think educational leaders are either unaware of this long standing problem or they are simply unwilling to deal with it.I understand their frustration but I think we need to have a constructive way of addressing the situation as opposed to more name calling and blaming “the other guy” for what he or she is not doing!

Toward that end LAPDA has created a strategy to actually help school leaders address the problem of poor or non existent classroom observation and professional supervision. We host training for a broad cadre of educational leaders to help them improve their instructional leadership practice. We offer mentoring training, supervision and evaluation training, cognate coaching, and targeted training for school principals as part of the LAPDA leadership initiative. Check out the successful venue we created this year called the Principals Toolkit Series. This series provided instructional leaders with the knowledge and skills they need to help nurture and create results orientated classrooms. That’s exactly what Schmoker is calling for in his recent book Results Now.

So here’s a heads up, we will offer this series again next year and I hope more school leaders will step up and take it. Let’s do our part to “get past the Cranky” and move to consistent professional practice that ensures all students will have access to quality instruction across the board. Isn’t that what fidelity of curriculum implementation is really all about?