ATLANTA – State officials and nationally recognized experts called Thursday for more work to improve the preparation and training of school leaders — especially in the area of helping middle grades and high school students learn to read at much higher levels.
About 170 officials from across the SREB region and other parts of the United States gathered here May 7 for the first day of the annual SREB Leadership Forum, a conference that helps states to collaborate and develop plans to improve school leadership. The forum continues through lunch today.
Many principals and other school leaders have little training in helping teachers and students focus on reading at higher levels so that more students can succeed in high school and graduate well-prepared for college and career training, said Alfred Tatum, an associate professor and the director of a reading clinic at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in a presentation at the forum.
"Many young folks who can’t read, they surrender their life chances before they get to (make) their life choices," Tatum said, arguing that principals need more intensive training in adolescent literacy and reading in each academic subject. "We’re not talking about these issues in principal-preparation programs."
Tatum’s message backed the findings of a major new SREB report, A Critical Mission: Improving Adolescent Reading in SREB States, which was released on May 1 and was the subject of SREB President Dave Spence’s remarks at the leadership forum.
Students’ low skills in reading with comprehension are "a chief cause why our college completion rates are lower than our high school graduation rates" in many states, Spence said. The report, he added, urges state leaders to make the improvement of students’ reading and writing skills become the immediate No. 1 priority for all public schools in the 16 SREB states.
The SREB reading report, which stemmed from a special committee of state leaders headed by Virginia Governor and SREB Chair Tim Kaine, is available at www.sreb.org.
"It’s time for principal-preparation programs to take this on" as an important priority in school leaders’ training, said Yvonne Thayer, SREB’s senior director for special projects and the nationally known Making Middle Grades Work school improvement program.
Legislators from several states attended the forum and collected ideas for policy changes to carry back to their states.
Responding to the panel discussion on school leaders’ role in improving students’ reading in the middle grades and high school, state Representative Fran Millar of Georgia said state leaders need to earn the support of parents and business leaders when they intend to change statewide policy. This may be "the only way you’ll ever deal with it on a statewide basis," he said, calling the reading problem among adolescents in the region "disgraceful."
Another session focused on how universities that prepare principals and other school leaders are working more directly in several states with school districts to identify stronger candidates for training programs and collaborate to provide better training.
"Our rural and small town schools have the hardest time finding and attracting high-quality principals, which makes the university-district partnership all that more crucial," said Kathy O’Neill, the director of the SREB Learning Centered School Leadership Program, which works with states, colleges and school districts across the region and whose program organized the forum.
A partnership between the University of South Alabama and the Mobile Public Schools provides high-quality, semester-long internships for aspiring principals in that area. The school district pays for the internships, which allow aspiring principals to have the training they need to help schools in the city meet academic and school improvement goals, Mobile Superintendent Roy Nichols said in a presentation.
Research Scientist Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Social Organization of Schools, in Maryland, urged in a presentation that states and schools should ensure their resources are better targeted toward the schools and students that need the most help. Schools may receive the same general funding, he said, but if more senior teachers dominate some school staffs, the amount of funding can be close to double of that in other schools. "What’s our actual need and what’s our actual resource base?" he asked.
Focusing attention and work on improving school leaders’ preparation is paying off in several states, including Louisiana, said Jeanne Burns, the associate commissioner for teacher education initiatives for the Louisiana Governor’s Office and state Board of Regents. "We’re turning out a different type of leader than we did in the past," she said.
Other sessions focused on work in Kentucky, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and other states to improve their statewide school leadership systems.
SREB’s school leadership work is funded in part by The Wallace Foundation.
The Southern Regional Education Board, or SREB, based in Atlanta, was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. More information is available online at www.sreb.org.
