Leadership Matters February 2014

Poverty in the public education classroom

As powerfully demonstrated by a principal in Brazil, leadership really matters

Michael Shimshak is in his third year of leadership as Superintendent with the Carbondale Elementary School District 95 in Carbondale Illinois. The district is culturally diverse and is 72 percent poverty. His prior superintendent experience was in Wisconsin, serving three years in a high poverty district and, most

By Michael Shimshak Carbondale Elementary District 95

More than anything perhaps, she dreamt about the brand new school on the west side of the valley in Ecoporanga, Brazil. She had been there on the day it opened; terrazzo floors gleaming, brightly painted steel and masonry, so new, almost sterile. Her mind raced in circles about all she might do in that school. Her parents could attend evening class to learn how to read. She could have school all day. For a minute, she wondered how much better it might be if her teachers had all they needed. But Sra. Geanne Darc de Vete Alves had other concerns as she returned her focus to her school, backed up against the bold, bald, granite-bearing mountains that walled and cradled the impoverished community simultaneously. Something mattered more. As principal of the school on the east side of the valley, her first concern was how she could serve her students and families in poverty better. There weren’t the resources. Parents were illiterate and worked late into the evening in the granite mines or on small dairies. They were unable to help their children with reading. There were health concerns. She recalled the cases of Dengue fever, which had plagued the community in prior years. There were gangs, too, promoting a drug economy with her students, more lucrative in the short term than their parents’ labor. Poverty’s badge was apparent. Still, she approached each day with courageous enthusiasm, explaining that her greatest joy is feeling that she is making a difference in the lives of her students. What she didn’t know is that across the valley, the principal of the newly built school occasionally assessed his vista from the west. He secretly envied a different prize, the Premio Gestão Escolar, one of the highest honors and most important tools for the improvement of education in Brazil. The application process for this award includes documenting improved academic achievement through leadership for better instructional practices. Although his school had all the makings, his glorious amphitheater was at times a bit lifeless. The new school gleamed, but his students and families

Michael Shimshak

were still impoverished, indistinguishable from those across the river on the east side of the mountain. Not much had really changed with the new school and he was aware of the progress being made by his colleague. He hoped for more. Principal Sra. Darc’s leadership was having an impact. She’d developed a collaborative culture for organizational change. She’d nurtured teacher leaders and teams focused on improving instructional practices and accepting collective responsibility for all students to reach high academic standards. Teachers met regularly to plan common assessments and establish curricular objectives. She organized evening sessions held at the school for community members to provide literacy and job skills. Her teachers seek to employ practices known to have the greatest effect size. Students employ meta cognitive strategies and engage in hands-on learning. Three of her students won the state’s prize for applied mathematics, as they isolated the source of dreaded, sometimes deadly, Dengue fever in the community. The school is alive. Staff celebrates their recently, 10 years in moderately affluent district. As part of an administrative exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, he joined nine other American school administrators in visiting schools in various Brazilian states and presenting at the 2 nd Annual International Educational Exchange and Development Seminar in São Paulo in the summer of 2013.

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