The Al Pacino of Education

     It was last summer when I really became acquainted, actually much closer than I would like, with our state's accountability system. I DO believe in accountability, but after much research, I had concluded that Florida state's school grading system was broken. The state had changed the target and moved the target so many times that it was like playing football with the goal post constantly moving farther and farther away and the referees always changing the number of points that it took to get a touchdown. Talk about frustrating!

     So, in my usual fashion I set out to learn as much as I could and to talk to as many folks as I could about the problems this presented for my faculty and myself in our goals to increase student achievement. I traveled to Tallahassee and met with the education commissioner, and I made an appointment to speak with our local senator (see those posts here: Learning from a State Leader and My Chat with the Senator). AND....I began to follow what was happening at the state level. That is when I became aware of one of my new heroes, and I want to introduce YOU to him.

     During my journey to learn about state grading, my own Super. started hooking me up with links to articles, and his staff shared a video with me from the state task force that was convened to provide some recommendations to then Commissioner of Education, Toni Bennett. The video which was a full hour long in just the first section was very intriguing. I watched it several times, and I became genuinely inspired by one Superintendent in particular. Alberto Carvalho took charge of the room and made the most sense of anyone on the task force because he was there, in the trenches, with his schools trying to survive the bludgeoning being issued by our state. He spoke confidently, eloquently, and passionately. I was hooked, and I believed that he would definitely go far in whatever he chose to do in the future. He is in charge of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth-largest school district in the United States. I was so impressed with his logical and pragmatic points during the Task Force Meeting, that I felt he could make sense of the grading mess much better than I could.....so I scaled down the hour video to 6 minutes and showed it to my faculty during the summer pre-service training. I tried to embed that video here, but Blogger has its quirks, and it would not cooperate. So I have added a link to that video on MY YouTube Channel, and I captured a screen shot of what the video looks like on MY channel. 

             Click here for the video: DOE School Grading Task Force - High Points

     Now, after watching this video, I was also struck by how closely Alberto resembles on of my personal favorite actors of all time, Al Pacino....not only in physical appearance but also in his demeanor and style. The IMDB says Pacino is known for, "...his forceful and dynamic presentation." Well, that is how I see Alberto! As a matter of fact, my favorite movie with Al Pacino is Heat (1995) where he plays the role of LAPD Lt. Vincent Hanna who leads a team of cops in the Robbery/Homicide police division. His nemesis in the movie is none other than Robert DeNiro, and it is a great story line for both actors. Pacino's character is the white hat, and he wins out over evil in the movie. It is his confident and brash style in the movie that is so strong that help him to be so successful at his craft. Here is a picture of Al from the movie...see any resemblances?

 Image used from Movie Retrospect BLOG

    Ironically, during the course of hiring teachers during this past school year, I interviewed an applicant who had read my BLOG, and she noted my comment about him in the post about my visit to meet the Education Commissioner. She had met Mr. Carvalho during a FASA meeting, and she had his business card. She presented it to me as a gift, and ....of course, wouldn't you know it?....the back of his card contained ALL of his social media. He rocks!

     Almost a year after learning about him and zeroing in on his strengths and his potential, I learned that he was named Florida’s 2014 Superintendent of the Year as well as the 2014 National Superintendent of the Year. Further, he was named by Scholastic Administrator as one of "The Fantastic Five" educators making a difference in America. I guess I picked a winner! LOL.

     The biography on his website says: "AC successfully transformed his district’s business operations and financial systems with the implementation of a streamlined Strategic Framework focused on a singular goal of student achievement. Miami-Dade County Public Schools is now widely considered the nation’s highest-performing urban school system, and was named as the 2014 College Board Advanced Placement Equity and Excellence District of the Year as well as the 2012 winner of the Broad Prize for Urban Education.  On November 6, 2012, following four years of extraordinary District performance, Miami-Dade County voters confirmed their faith in their public schools and their Superintendent by passing a $1.2 Billion Bond Referendum for school construction."

     He is definitely an educational leader I will continue to watch with wonder. I am following him on Twitter, and who knows, I might end up writing another post about him in the future -- I really don't think he has shown us all that he can do. He has amazing potential.

School Culture #SAVMP 27

     One of the reasons I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the #SAVMP project is because I get some pretty amazing ideas from the project and all of its contributors. The most recent assignment was posted by @gcouros, and George describes a story of how he made just a few changes to the front foyer at his school when he was a principal.

     Well, I am officially bootlegging one of his ideas! Since I became Principal last year, we have made several changes to our front lobby by: 1) Adding a lovely image of a cheetah (our mascot) as painted by our talented art teacher; 2) Adding a Digital Frame that scrolls with images of our Student of the Month winners; 3) Adding a copy of our Mission and Vision Statements (see below):

     And...we added a group picture of the faculty and staff. BUT...after reading George's post about how he made the lobby an area of student focus, I think we will move the portrait of the adults to the lounge, and we will put the art work of our students in the lobby. This post by George was called: The Little Things and School Culture, and he shared how just making that one change made such a difference:

"That little change and focus on them (students), set a tone for so many other aspects of what happened in school with students.  Sometimes we do not notice the little things in our school that are just “fixtures” on the wall but promote a very different culture of what we are trying to create. "

     The aforementioned, talented art teacher and I just recently selected the student winner of the school's 5th grade art contest where the student's artwork will adorn the school folder for the coming school year. We will certainly need to think about putting that STUDENT artifact in the front office after we move the picture of the adults to the teachers' lounge. 

     Great ideas get me excited about the work I do....I can't wait to implement this change!

My Chat with the Senator

     Last summer I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with our local senator, Senator Don Gaetz. He was a former school Superintendent, so I felt I could share my frustrations with him about our current state accountability system. Don't get me wrong. I am an accountability girl. I have seen the advent of accountability cause an elevation in our ability to improve student achievement like never before. But I did share with the Senator how our state’s “safety net” embedded in the accountability system reduced the urgency necessary to turn around schools demonstrating a downward trajectory in regards to student achievement. I shared the story of how I took over a “B” school that was really, by points, a C school with only 9 points keeping it from a D. But the community, the district, and even the school staff were not acting with a sense of urgency due to the “B” which camouflaged our downward trajectory.

     During our chat, he was very insightful, and I took away some awesome quotes from our visit. He said, I needed some “hard chargers” to help with the reform…referring to the teaching staff.

     When he responded to my visit by sending me a personal letter, he said, “I was intrigued by your analysis that the current school grading system – “buffered” grades – turned out to be a disadvantage to you in developing a sense of urgency among your faculty and parents and district staff.” When I read his letter, I knew that he had genuinely listened to what I had to say.

     And now….FLASH FORWARD….a year later. This spring, the Senator has worked with others in the government to remove the safety net and to create a transparent grading system. I was thrilled when I received his email newsletter that described the changes.

     I firmly believe that the Senator listened to my heartfelt concerns. He probably heard similar concerns from across the state, and he listened. This summer I will reply to his letter with thanks. All in all, this was a worthwhile experience, but the Senator’s responsiveness and time taken to send me a letter seemed to make it even more gratifying.