Mid-Career Learning - ways in which superintendents pursue professional development

School Administrator, Nov, 2001 by Jay Mathews

Superintendents pursue their own professional development in a myriad ways

Jon Bales had no regrets being named superintendent of the DeForest, Wis., school system three years ago. It was what the 45-year-old educator had been working toward for some time.

But the job came shortly after he had earned his doctorate in educational administration and policy at Illinois State University. He was not prepared for his sudden isolation from the stimulating daily contact with new thinking and research that had, when he was a graduate student, seemed as natural as breathing the air.

Many superintendents feel that way. Furthermore, their sense of missing out on what is going on outside their districts only increases the longer they are in their demanding administrative jobs. The minutiae of managing a large staff, adhering to a budget, responding to school board and state agency requests and, at the same time, focusing on the larger goals of teaching and achievement seem to fill every minute. Many superintendents feel cut off from the outside world.

"I had never felt more aware, current and critically reflective of what was going on in educational administration than when I was in my doctoral studies," Bales says. "I really felt a void upon completion and being immersed in the day-to-day issues of my first superintendency."

So what can be done about this? Interviews with superintendents across the country reveal as many different solutions as there are school districts. Mid-career superintendents say they want to stay up-to-date with what is happening in education, as well as find fresh ideas outside the field that can energize schools. But the best way to accomplish this depends on their individual talents and interests.

The Written Word

The most common approaches fall into certain categories. Some like to read. Others stress the value of conversations with superintendents who share similar problems but are not involved in their districts, so they can provide a detached but informed view. Also, superintendents learn by observing each other on the job.

"First is read, read, read, then reflect, reflect, reflect, and then I watch my stellar colleagues in action," says Colleen B. Wilcox, superintendent of the Santa Clara County, Calif., schools.

They also see a great need for the much less comfortable kind of feedback they get from staff, anonymous or otherwise, and from board and community members who see their flaws. It can be painful, they say, but that only makes it more important.

News is important to superintendents. Many subscribe to national newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and then call up on the Web, or through news services, the education reporting of newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. Education trade publications, such as Education Week and Phi Delta Kappan, are helpful, but some also pursue personal reading in the arts and sciences, a habit that goes back to their student days.

Many say that returning to the classroom as teachers of local university education management courses is an invigorating way to stay current. It forces them to study the latest research and exposes them to the passions and resentments of the younger educators in their classes. Some superintendents stretch themselves further by volunteering in the community, such as on a library board or in the Rotary Club.

And in an era in which there is a conference and seminar for every imaginable topic, annual gatherings that cater to superintendents are abundant and often serve as sources of new ideas.

When superintendents head off for these meetings, what do they hope to learn? For David Magill, superintendent in Lower Merion, Pa., "the use of technology as a learning tool is the greatest leap forward for teaching and learning since the advent of the printed word" and demands superintendents' understanding.

Jim Brown, superintendent in Glendale, Calif., says he is "trying to learn more about effective strategies for building school cultures that are more focused on continuous improvement." Jack Linehan, superintendent in Shorewood, Wis., says he needs to keep in touch with evolving state legislation.

Charles Ecker in Carroll County, Md., yearns for seminars that require him to examine his persona, not just his policy views. "About 10 percent of what happens to me is caused by others, and 90 percent is how I react to it," he says. "We need to be positive and not blame others, such as funding authorities and parents."

Professional Gatherings

The formal approach to gaining such insights--conferences for superintendents--come in many forms. Several universities have established three- to five-day summer sessions. Michigan State University this year stressed planning for the future, with an emphasis on accountability. Teachers College at Columbia University organized its July conference on the theme of standards-based reform. The Harvard Seminar for Superintendents, as usual, devoted its time to issues in the arts and sciences, the social sciences and current events not directly related to education. Such programs usually charge about $2,000 per person for the week, including room and board.