(Vol. 2, No. 1 - Winter 1998)

School Life with Distinguished Educator

About half of the middle schools in Louisville must use the services of a "distinguished educator" -- a teacher or principal who has left the schoolhouse for a year or more to advise schools who have fallen into Kentucky's "decline" or "crisis" categories. Two DE's answer questions about how their role as state-sponsored "coaches" mesh with the district's reform agenda.

By Anne C. Lewis

"If it weren't for the DE...."

In almost one-half of the middle schools in JCPS -- probably the largest single group of schools in Kentucky with a shared fate -- one might hear this phrase spoken one of two ways. With frustration. Or with relief.

It all depends on attitude, and in some cases, on the whims of the state bureaucracy. Having a Distinguished Educator in their midst humbles even the most confident teacher or administrator because it means, for the time being, that someone from the outside of the school is calling a lot of the shots.

Kentucky is one of four states, and the first, to employ Distinguished Educators on a full-time basis to work with schools in "decline" or in "crisis." In Kentucky, DE's spend two years helping schools rethink and implement their school improvement plans and budget for them. It is the state's strategy for giving expert technical assistance to faltering schools.

Like most reform initiatives, the Distinguished Educator plan isn't perfect. The unanticipated large number of schools needing a "DE" forced the state to spread those it had trained too thinly. Some DEs serve four schools, twice as many as originally planned. Turnover among the DEs has caused jitters and conflicting messages at some schools. While, theoretically, the DEs are consistent about their work, there is a natural difference of style among them.

The DE at a school in "crisis" (JCPS has only one middle school in that category, Brown) has considerable power over what happens instructionally and with the dollars. For schools in decline, the role of the DE is murkier but still significant. Finally, the DE program upsets the traditional hierarchy in many schools. More than half of the DEs are drawn from classroom teacher ranks. For the purpose they serve -- to get classroom instruction up to the speed of standards-based reform-- the choice is logical, yet the introduction of authority from someone who has not been an administrator can't help but rankle some principals-- especially those who take some pride in being instructional leaders themselves.

All this said, how do the DEs who are trying to raise KIRIS scores in middle schools in JCPS fit in with the district's push toward standards? According to Diane Datillo, director of the eight DEs working in JCPS, and Beverly Wells, whose DE assignments include Carrithers Middle School, quite well.

But what about all that burdensome paperwork?

Datillo: We have to collect information on student work from every teacher because that's where the change occurs. It's in the actual responses of students.... We are totally focused on student performance, and we try to help teachers get beyond issues like student behavior or uniforms and deal with standards.

Wells: We don't rely only on KIRIS scores to tell us what's going on. We have to collect data on student work because that's a way of finding out why our intervention failed, if it comes to that. Sure, there are a lot of compliance issues for us and for the principals, but it comes down to collecting evidence.

Why do all schools, even those that are only slightly under par, need such a heavy hand?

Wells: Many of the schools where we are assigned felt they were successful before the Kentucky reforms came along, that they were meeting student needs. But the KIRIS scores should be a wake-up for them. Unless teachers get out of their box and work together on standards, KIRIS eventually will catch up with them.

Datillo: Before the DEs came into JCPS, every school had a School Transformation Plan, but their quality ranged from novice to excellent, even with the state template. And even some of those with excellent plans were not implementing them. Now, everyone knows what should be in those plans, how they should implement them, and how to use the data we bring them to carry out their plans.

Doesn't the DE agenda cause confusion among teachers and principals, who also must respond to the district's efforts at reform?

Datillo: We're here to focus on curriculum and instruction, and that should result in higher student achievement. We want principals to be able to go into classrooms and ask teachers `What standards are these tasks addressing?' We ask teachers, `Where are students getting mastery of standards?' And teachers find out that at the sixth-grade level, they may be teaching for mastery of a certain skill, while seventh-grade teachers are doing the same thing, only teaching it as an introductory skill. We help them get at the sequence of learning and align it to standards.

Wells: We're here to help teachers assume leadership of standards-based reforms. A few years ago I would have come in and said, `This is the way things need to be done.' But I value what teachers do and their expertise, and the success of the reforms depends on teachers. I don't have time to hover over them. But what we have asked teachers to try out is all research-based.

Datillo and Wells, both classroom teachers from much smaller school districts, wish the teachers in JCPS appreciated more what they have.

"The schools in Louisville," says Wells, "are resource-rich with strong district support, the Gheens Academy, the technology available to schools." But more teachers, advises Datillo, "need to be willing to give 150 percent" if they want the DEs to be able to say "well done" and move on.

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