Consultant Q&A
Maryann Brennan Responds:
Before teachers can be creative and accountable,
accountable behavior must be exhibited by the state
agencies in setting realistic requirements so that school
districts, and in turn, teachers, can reasonably achieve
success. Accountable behavior must be shown by leadership
in school districts in defining the strategies that will
meet not only the state requirements, but also the
expectations of other stakeholders such as parents,
community, feeder schools and higher educational
institutions. Leaders also need to be accountable by
providing resources so that teachers can deliver against
those strategies.
So, even before we get to the teachers who
are accountable for developing the curriculum, creating a
learning environment, delivering against all those goals
and—here is the caveat—doing it all with
creativity, we must put responsibility for the success of
their endeavors in the hands of the leaders.
Am I letting the teachers off the hook in
this discussion? No, I truly believe that good teachers
will always find ways to be creative despite the
innumerable constraints that get in the way. They will
overcome limited budgets, increasing class sizes and the
emerging learning needs of children. This issue is not
about teachers. The issue is what leaders must do to
create an environment that promotes not only creativity,
but ethical values, equity for all students, safety,
organizational agility and opportunities for teachers to
grow and learn. For only by creating this learning
environment can we expect teachers to not only transcend
the obstacles that get in the way of creativity, but
surpass the expectations of all stakeholders in teaching
our children the creative thought skills they need to
succeed in their lives.
What do leaders specifically need to do to
create this environment? To answer this question,
let’s look at the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award Education Criteria for Excellence. The Criteria
represent a set of practices and behaviors that are
deployed in role model educational organizations. The
Criteria describe a results-driven system made up of
other key management practices including leadership,
planning, information analysis, student, faculty and
staff focus and process management.
The Criteria specifically set four
approaches role model leaders use to create world-class
educational systems. These include leaders personally and
visibly setting and communicating direction and goals,
creating an environment to deliver against goals,
reviewing performance to assess progress against goals
and improving their own leadership effectiveness to
achieve goals.
School systems such as Pinellas County in
Fla. and Wake County School System in N.C., as well as
many others, have found the answer to the question of how
to encourage teachers to be creative within the
guidelines of accountability and to create a role model
organization. Their answer is to use the Criteria as a
guideline for assessing how well they are doing against
world-class organizations. The results are outstanding
both in academic performance and in deploying an
innovative learning organization.
It sounds simple. And like all good things,
it is simple. Of course, it requires accountability to
succeed. In Pinellas and Wake Counties, leadership is
taking accountability for leading this effort...and so
are the principals, teachers and staff.
MARYANN BRENNAN is president of
Brennan Worldwide, Inc. Consulting for Business
Excellence. She is a judge for the New York State Quality
Award and a Senior Examiner for the Baldrige National
Quality Award. She has been published in a variety of
professional journals and co-authored several case
studies used in training Baldrige and state examiners.
Her e-mail address is
brennanww@aol.com.
Lew Rhodes
Responds
Question for
Consultants
August 2001 News for a
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