Proponents for Change
This is not to say that the bitter disagreements
in
San
Diego, or in
any community
where
school system leaders are trying to put in place
sweeping changes,
were irrelevant. ‘While it’s a
cliché, it’s also true that there is no natural con
stituency for change.
Community
support
and
understanding
are critical
to the success of
any
plan that
affects
children, costs a lot of money
and requires
that adults
acquire
new
skills
or
gain
new knowledge. To build that support,
superintendents
must
be able
to
communicate
their goals and strategies to build support inter
nally and externally. If they don’t, they
can’t
expect to succeed or even be
around
very long.
But journalists also have to recognize there
always will be opposition to any proposals that
upset the established order. The opposition is
part of the story; it’s not the whole story
Plus, in the
case
of San Diego,
Bersin believed
there really
was
something worth
fighting
about.
One point of view, held by his opponents,
was
that the school district
had
been doing just fine
before
he
arrived.
By
contrast,
his view
was that
achievement gaps were
growing,
the dropout
problem was shameful and students in affluent
parts
of the city were getting far better educa
tions than others. The media
could
have
been
helpful had they scrutinized both sides of the
argument.
Instead,
by focusing on the conflict,
reporters
made it seem
like Bersin and his
opponents were just
fighting
to fight. That drew
attention away from the substance ofwhat Ber
sin and Alvarado
were
trying
to
do.
All
of this is still relevant today.
The
nation’s focus on preparing students for col
lege and career success by implementing the
Common Core State Standards and assessing
student achievement and progress represents
one of the highest-stakes,
most complex and
most ambitious set of changes to education
policy ever attempted.
Also, starting this
school
year,
many states
are
piloting or launching controversial teacher
evaluation and support systems based in
part
on how well students handle the more rigorous
expectations.
Opponents of the Common Core
have become ever more vocal over the past year
and,
while some of the arguments they make are
factually wrong and border on lunacy others are
understandable and should be addressed.
Moreover, the challenges involved in imple
menting all of these changes successfully are
enormous, and the news media should moni
tor them closely as they unfold.
Superintendents have an important role
to play in helping their various constituencies
understand what’s going on. They need to be
communicating through multiple channels
directly to teachers and principals to make
sure they understand the Common Core and
its relationship to new evaluation systems.
They also need to communicate honestly and
openly with parents and business leaders to be
deserving of their support.
Customized Tools
Fortunately, today, superintendents have many
more ways of communicating than Bersin did.
They are not just limited to press releases and
interviews with reporters and writing op-eds.
They can show people, for example,
what a
good Common Core lesson looks like, using
video that can be posted on YouTube.
They
can blog and tweet and customize their mes
sages to meet the informational needs of dif
ferent audiences.
But whatever tools they use, today’s super
intendents
need to make
sure communications
are central to the
process
of change.
Commu
nications are not ancillary and cannot be left
to
functionaries.
That is something Bersin was not able to
do.
One reason was that the district’s com
munications office, like many school districts
and state education agencies, always had been
reactive rather than pro-active. Its leaders
were accustomed to churning out press notices
and answering queries from reporters only
when necessary and thus were unequipped
to put together the communications strategy
that a multifaceted reform effort required. It
was so bad that, in the beginning,
Bersin was
line-editing all of his own press releases. The
district’s inability to communicate a coherent
reform message plagued him throughout his
superintendency. In seven years, five differ
ent people would be in charge of the district’s
communications.
“The opposition beat our brains out most
of the time in the communications battle,”
Bersin said. “Theirs was a well-orchestrated
campaign. They were constantly there, ham
mering home their message. They worked the
press.
We were getting damaged from the start
in the first year,
which was so critical,
when so
many changes were being introduced:’
Pen
Lynn
Turnbull,
whom Bersin hired as
his communications chief in
2002
and would
later go on to serve in that capacity in the
“...
by focusing on
the conflict, reporters
made it seem like
Bersin and his
opponents
WERE
JUST FIGHTING TO
FIGHT.
That drew
attention away from
the substance of what
Bersin and Alvarado
were trying to do.”
SEPTEMBER 2013 SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR
39
