Insights from the Organized Chaos of the Educationally Schizophrenic Mind of an Administrator

There is a major difference between management and leadership. Finding that balance is continual, and returning to a position of neutrality of these two important factors is essential to success (and sanity). Think of this as a Venn Diagram, review your current tasks, and attempt to get into the intersection. Too much "leadership" and you become the idea man and will start getting the "uh oh" looks from employees when you come down the hall towards them as they know they are going to get a 15-20 minute conversation which eventually leads to more work for them. Too much "management" and you become out of touch with the vision of the position and start to get bogged down in the minutia of each day focusing on items that in the big picture are not as important compared to the time you need to spend building relationships that will move your company forward.

Currently, there is lack of balance and disconnect in educational leadership in the state of Iowa. The proposal by Governor Branstad and his staff reeks of more oversight and reasons to employ personnel at the DE level (adding to the system at the highest level) instead of what should be a true focus - student improvement (adding to the system at the student level). We have the system in place already for oversight, but I do not believe that this system is being used effectively. If the Iowa DE is truly leading our educational system, then the AEA system should be managing that vision and working as a representative of the DE to ensure the enactment of policy is done with validity (performing the trainings in collaboration with administration within the districts they cover). Dr. Glass and his staff should be meeting with the AEA leadership teams and directing them in the initiatives. The AEA leadership teams should be developing training teams to go out into each of the districts and plan/implement professional development time with local administration focused on the DE directed goals. This process is top down management - no doubt - but I see this system as a way to ensure consistency and common language for all Iowa schools (think of it as NSLB (No School Left Behind). We have too many schools working on too many different initiatives at very different paces. I have personally witnessed this disconnect due to different factors:

At West Central Valley as MS Principal, I came into a building that had worked through 9 different administrators in 11 years. To say it was a mess was being nice. Luckily, we had a faculty and staff that wanted to improve and within 2 years we were able to bring the building up to speed with initiatives that moved the climate and culture towards more of an educational focus.

At Boone as HS Asst. Principal, the focus has been almost singularly upon A.I.W. for professional development for the past five years. I do believe that A.I.W. is a great tool for analyzing and improving lessons, but having a single minded focus for this long has led to missing the boat on a lot of educational reform items that would have improved classroom instruction. This year, with a new lead principal and restored vision, we are truly feeling the burden as a building leadership team of attempting to move a culture forward without the background knowledge established that other districts have been able to look to by staying at the forefront of educational reform initiatives.

If the current system (DE to AEA to District) is supposed to work as stated above, then I implore administrators at all levels to review their current status and implement the system with validity, because the system is not working this way it is intended. We need to come together and collaborate feverishly to remove the disconnect and reach towards the intersection of leadership and management so that we have true balance in our Iowa Educational System.