The Case of Dr. Rudy Crew: Principles of leadership in practice to transform urban schools. Jared R. Lancer, Ed.D.

Photo credit: All4Ed, Allison Shelley, EDUimages https://images.all4ed.org

Problem

As referenced previously (See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/principles-leadership-transform-urban-school-systems-r-lancer-ed-d-/?trackingId=xPxO7CesGsTJePPzBm%2BYrg%3D%3D), traditional conceptualizations of leadership are framed within a broader societal culture that places value on individualism and competition. This framing conceptualizes leadership as residing within a singular person who brings particular ideas and innovations to superimpose within, and irrespective of, an existing culture and context as a way to significantly change and transform public school systems considered to be underperforming.?This perspective is especially problematic and prioritized within major urban public school systems throughout the United States. This sense of urgency is also based upon the idea that urban school systems are significantly underperforming and thus are in need of major transformation and overhauls with fresh new innovative ideas. This is especially interesting given the fact that we know there is no student population in the United States where more than 50% of the students are reading proficiently upon graduation from high school.?As a result, this conceptualization of leadership significantly contributes to the high degree of instability, inconsistency and lack of continuity often reflected in major urban school systems.?The tenure of professionals holding formal leadership roles is often very brief.?The call and search to hire new and special innovative leaders often comes with the hope and expectation for making radical change, yet we also know the outcomes in public school systems in the United States have largely remained the same.?With these frequent changes in leadership, often comes major changes to programs, curriculums and the like as well as new directions and priorities, especially prominent in major urban school districts. Leadership is often associated with the ownership of programs and direction as opposed to the institution itself.?One question then becomes, what is it that the agency is actually known for from the perspective of its graduates? Moreover, what type of people is the institution actually responsible for producing who are interacting within the local community and world?

Principles of leadership

Certainly a number of factors must be considered to ensure a particular kind of leadership is in place in urban school systems in order to promote and maintain specificity of focus and clarity of purpose to ensure program continuity and to sustain improvement in student learning outcomes.?This type of leadership, when enacted, reflects more of a science-based approach which increases the consistency and predictability of improving student learning outcomes over time.?Based on observation and analysis, this approach is represented by at least three guiding principles previously introduced and described and reviewed again here as follows:

Principle #1. Comprehensive assessment: Conducting a comprehensive assessment results in formulating direction that builds and extends upon the present context.?

This means developing a direction and focus not based on previous experience of “what worked before,” but rather informed by a thorough and substantive understanding and analysis of the social and cultural, political as well as historical contexts in which the present district and its schools are located.?Through observation, documentation and analysis, leadership appreciates and comes to understand and consider the communities and complexities that exist within the district and its schools.?This analysis considers these dimensions from multiple perspectives in order to understand what is working and not work for students based upon evidence as a means for setting direction and moving forward within the present context.

Principle #2. Facilitated investment: Structuring real stakeholder participation in decision making results in greater levels of responsibility and investment in the approaches used and accountability for meeting the intended outcomes.?

This principle means that when leadership creates the conditions for authentic engagement in defining challenges and constructing solutions, stakeholder groups are more likely to be invested in taking responsibility for the effectiveness of improvement strategies and accountability for meeting the intended outcomes.?Important leadership considerations include the enactment of facilitation and accountability structures and leveraging of resources to ensure that such problem solving opportunities are genuine and sustained.?Additionally, leadership must consider the extent to which there is both alignment and continuity among strategies proposed for moving forward to address challenges.?

Principle #3. Focused analysis: Maintaining a consistent focus on a clearly defined problem while subjecting strategies to ongoing evaluation and adjustment results in meeting the intended outcomes with greater predictability.?

This principle is represented in practice when leadership is focused on a clearly defined challenge or problem combined with enacting structures that enable ongoing analysis and adjustment of strategies based upon evidence of effectiveness to goal attainment.?The degree to which this type of clarity and specificity of purpose remains the central focus with supporting structures for ongoing analysis and adjustment, the more likely districts and schools will continuously meet outcomes for students.?

The Case of Rudy Crew

The following is a description of the focus and work of Dr. Rudy Crew which is illustrative of the above-referenced principles guiding effective leadership practice as follows:

Focus

Certainly there are many problems to be concerned with in running a public school system and these concerns are made even more prominent and with greater complexity considering the social and political context within urban school systems.?But, in order to affect change and transformation, urban school system leaders who are successful in raising student academic performance have a clear and specific problem they are focused on solving.?These leaders stay focused on what it is they are trying to accomplish despite the many concerns that are raised from multiple stakeholders and constituent groups.

Dr. Rudy Crew has always maintained a very clear and specific focus on student literacy.?There may be a range of concerns coming from the board or other places, however Dr. Crew has always been very clear about the need to fundamentally redesign the structure, practice and focus of schools to significantly raise the reading academic performance of students and to take deliberate and strategic actions – or risks based on a comprehensive assessment– to make it happen.?This focus has been illustrated through his work as a superintendent of the New York City Schools from 1995-1999, particularly through the case of the Chancellor’s district which sought to improve reading performance in chronically underperforming schools, an effort which continued through 2003 until the strategy was modified and expanded under new leadership.?

Approach and impact

Dr. Crew (1998) articulated the following principles guiding leadership and approaches to increase organizational performance:

• ?define clear standards;
• articulate educational strategies designed to enable all students to meet the standards;
• align all resources, policies, and practices to carry out strategies;
• track results; and
• use the data to drive continuous improvement and to hold the entire system accountable for school performance.

For Dr. Crew, the focus and target is all about reading and student literacy as an essential skill for students to navigate their lives.?But to effectuate change, leadership has four corners of responsibility and focus from which to develop strategies to reach the intended impact for students and families.?For district leaders, these involve teacher professional development, leadership training, instruction to develop student literacy skills for authentic application, and meaningful platforms and opportunities for parental involvement in the schools.?Leadership must remain persistent on the goal and challenge of improving literacy by focusing on these four corners of control and developing diverse strategies in order to effectuate change.?A first and ongoing action is conducting an assessment and then making informed judgements, developing diverse strategies, and then taking risks based upon those assessments.?This also means understanding, leveraging and managing as well as aligning the budget according to the strategies for improving student literacy outcomes and monitoring implementation of strategies.??

Serving as the chancellor of the New York City Public Schools, Dr. Crew came to understand the dimensions of the literacy challenge over time by visiting schools and classrooms.?Dr. Crew asked questions and listened to principals and teachers and made observations about the approach to reading and what principals and teachers understood regarding the challenges in order to meet the expected reading outcomes for students.?

Dr. Crew explained that he went to the schools and spent time with teachers who explained that they needed more time to do meaningful assessments where each child could explain and show what they know and don’t know in order to guide teaching practice.?Dr. Crew’s assessment ultimately led to multiple strategies in navigating a highly complex operation in the largest school system in the nation in turn creating the Chancellor’s district.?Among the decisions included closing failing schools, replacing principals, eliminating tenure for principals, developing curriculum standards for all schools, enactment of school-based budgeting and the development of afterschool and Saturday literacy initiatives.?

With a clear focus on reading and literacy, the Chancellor’s district redefined the existing governance structure to provide a new system of enhanced supports, resources and staffing as well as accountability for the lowest performing schools in New York City identified by the state.?This strategy directed significantly increased amounts of financial resources based on an analysis and command of the budget; provisions for incentives to change staffing in these schools and increased pay for more experienced teachers to work in the Chancellor’s district; there were also changes to the language arts curriculum and assessments used and changes to site-based schedules for increased classroom instruction time devoted to reading language arts; there was also an increased provision of onsite embedded leadership and literacy professional development supports and coaching for principals and teachers as well as extending the length of the school day and year, including the redesign and focus of summer school.?Dr. Crew for instance created reading camps in lieu of traditional summer school.?These literacy camps engaged students and families in intensive literacy instruction combined with outdoor lessons on plant life and a range of topics to provide opportunities for learners to make meaning of language with authentic applications.

In the Chancellor’s District, Dr. Crew explained that baseline assessments were conducted of students, where learners could actually explain what they know and did not know. The use of varied assessments, such as oral and written authentic and performance assessments of purposeful learning to assess different forms of student comprehension, enabled teachers to pinpoint areas of need to better support students.?An important part of the strategy at the school level was providing customized professional development and professional resources that principals and teachers needed.?Dr. Crew’s approach was about empowering principals and teachers within a structure to have the autonomy to make judgements and take responsibility for the school budget and teaching practices employed to address the talents and needs of diverse learners in order to meet the expected reading outcomes for all students.?

Similarly, Dr. Crew (2007) described the need to empower principals with the ability to make decisions for creating multiple opportunities and options for engaging families as a direct means for improving the academic reading performance of the students.?With school-based budgets, Dr. Crew empowered building principals to make decisions and judgements based upon ongoing assessment regarding what services and products the schools could offer that have value and meaning for students and parents.?Dr. Crew views the engagement of parents as inextricably linked to the need to create excellent customer satisfaction and ultimately products in student academic achievement (Mapp and Brookover, 2010).?

As such, Dr. Crew and his central office teams engaged in ongoing assessment along multiple indicators to determine what services families actually valued and needed at the schools.?These indicators changed and evolved to continuously obtain greater insight into the needs and values of parents, raising new questions and new indicators and adjusting the information collected and the strategies and services offered.?Dr. Crew expected school leaders to engage in ongoing assessment to find out what will connect with families and to create such a demand for family engagement through multiple mediums.?Accordingly, Dr. Crew held principals accountable for increasing parent engagement as another means for moving the needle for improving reading performance for all students (Bouffard, 2008).?

This aspect of the strategy for moving the needle in student literacy is based upon connecting the schools with the needs and concerns of families and the community.?Connecting with the values and needs of families through the schools increases meaningful platforms for parent engagement and participation. Dr. Crew (2007) explains that this approach in turn builds a critical mass of Demand Parents. Traditional public schooling approaches aim to silence or ban, discredit or contest the concerns raised by parents regarding the quality of programs in the schools and their children’s academic progress and safety. Conversely, Dr. Crew's approach aimed to develop a critical mass of Demand Parents in order to ensure that the schools will be held accountable to high standards and quality service.?This means accountability to quality student learning and safety for all students and also being respectful and responsive to meeting the needs of students and addressing parent concerns regarding their children’s academic progress, safety and social development (Bouffard, 2008).?This strategy is about creating avenues for empowering families in order to ensure that the schools and school leaders are doing due diligence in effectively educating the children and are flexible and also responsive to addressing the needs and concerns expressed by families.?This particular strategy was further documented through the Parent Academy which was created in conjunction with a version of the Chancellor’s district in the Improvement Zone while serving as Superintendent of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

For Dr. Crew, among the most essential skills to effectuate change and improvement in urban districts is first to be able to recognize the bigger picture and that the public education system infrastructure is not designed to address present challenges.?As Dr. Crew described it, “you wouldn’t fix your car in the kitchen.” With this understanding in mind, an important dynamic to change as a leader is a traditional culture of punishment and embarrassment within public education that feeds cynicism and fear among leaders at all levels of the system.?Leadership at all levels must assess and be empowered to exercise judgment which can be promoted when traditional responses are replaced with a reward system for taking risks and learning from failure.?After making careful assessments, leaders must be freed from the fear of failure to effectively communicate and articulate a focus, understand the budget and be able to distribute and align resources and possess implementation monitoring and management skills.?

The impact of the Chancellor’s district in New York has been documented with some of the lowest performing schools making the greatest gains in the state.?A number of different forms of this strategy have been used in other places around the country, including Dr. Crew’s work in Miami-Dade County where the district was recognized as a finalist for the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Broad prize based on the Improvement Zone and Parent Academy and significant increases in 3rd grade reading proficiency (Lepping, 2006).??Other notable accomplishments have been documented in a report published by New York University’s Institute for Education and Social Policy, which included significant sustained improvement in 4th grade student reading proficiency in the New York City Public Schools (Phenix, D., Siegel, D., Zaltsman, A. & Fruchter, N., 2004). Progressive increases in the number of graduates in New York City Public Schools was also evidenced during Dr. Crew’s tenure as well as increased high school pass rates on the English Language Arts Regent exam for general education students and students with special needs (Kadamus, 2004).

References

Bouffard, S. (Spring 2008). A conversation with Rudy Crew. Building the Future of Family Involvement. The Evaluation exchange. A periodical on emerging strategies in evaluation. Harvard Family Research Project, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Volume XIV, Number 1 & 2

Crew, Rudy (March 1998). Creating a Performance-based system. FRBNY Economic Policy Review. Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Crew, Rudy (2007). Only Connect: The way to save our schools. Sarah Crichton Books Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York.

Kadamus, James A. (December 9, 2004). Assessment: Data on Student Performance on Regents Exams. EMSC-VESID Committee. The State Department of Education Department.https://www.regents.nysed.gov/common/regents/files/documents/meetings/2004Meetings/December2004/1204emscvesidd3.htm

Lepping, Erica. (April 2006). Miami-Dade County Public Schools Named 2006 Finalist for $1 million Broad Prize; One of Top Urban Districts Honored for Improving Student Achievement. The Broad Foundation.

Mapp, Karen and E. Brookover. (Sept. 2010). The Parent Academy: Family Engagement in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Public Education Leadership Project at Harvard University. A joint initiative of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Business School. PEL-062. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/pelp/files/pel062p2.pdf

Phenix, Deinya; Siegel, Dorothy; Zaltsman, Ariel; Fruchter, Norm (June 2004). Virtual District, Real Improvement: A retrospective evaluation of the Chancellor’s District, 1996-2003. New York University, Institute for Education and Social Policy

Jared R. Lancer ? Copyright 2021