Leadership Matters November 2013

49th Annual IASA Conference through the camera lens

Top Right on Page 5: Christine Bryant, a 14-year-old freshman from Goreville and the reigning “Miss Illinois Photogenic,” opens the 49 th Annual IASA Conference with the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem. In the background is IASA President Dr. Steve Webb, superintendent of the Goreville Community Unit District 1. In his opening remarks, Webb said “We’re here together to discuss strategies, best practices and learn from each other because we are superintendents. We are THE education leaders, and no matter what acronyms they throw at us, we stay the course to maintain educational excellence because that was our mission yesterday, that is our mission today, and that will most certainly be our mission tomorrow. I appreciate your tenacity.”

Top Left on page 5: IASA Executive Director Dr. Brent Clark presents the IASA Exemplary Service to Education Award to Jim Broadway, an education journalist for the past 43 years, who publishes the State School News Service and has been a staunch advocate for public education. An education reporter since 1970, Broadway talked about the persona of educators, saying “What you do in society is more crucial to the success of our nation than other professions.”

Center photo on Page 5: More than 500 superintendents and school administrators attended the 49th Annual IASA Conference October 9- 11 at the Crowne Plaza in Springfield. The IASA’s 50th Annual Conference is scheduled for October 8-10, 2014.

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Bottom Right on Page 5: Business executive and author Jamie Vollmer – once a harsh critic of public education who now is one of its leading advocates -- was the first keynote speaker and talked about building community and public support for public education. He said his most important words of advice were that school administrators need to have conversations about public education “on the community’s turf and at the community’s convenience.” He shared his “Five Ss” for how to turn around public opinion, including: 1) Stop badmouthing one another in public, 2) Shift attention from the negative to the positive, 3) Share something positive about your schools using your social network and all means at your disposal, 4) Sustain the effort, and 5) Start now! Despite everything being thrown at school administrators, Vollmer said “Public education is a miracle. And this is its most hopeful time.” He explained that “We have never been in this place before, where we are required to do everything we can do to unfold the potential in every student. It used to be that not every student needed a degree to make a good living, but that agro-industrial economy doesn’t exist anymore. We have reached a point where the moral imperative and the practical need to educate every child are now the same thing because our once highly forgiving economy is gone.”

Jamie Vollmer holds up a poster titled, “The Ever Increasing Burden on America’s Public Schools”. The poster lists responsibilities, mandates and laws that have been imposed on public schools since 1900. The poster is more than 3 feet long and lists 98 different items. The posters says “By the beginning of the 20th Century, America’s leaders saw public schools as the logical place to select and sort young people into two groups— thinkers and doers– according to the needs of the Industrial Age. It was at this time that we began to shift non- academic duties to the schools. The trend has accelerated ever since...The contract between our communities and our schools has changed. It is no longer, “Help us teach our children.” It’s, “Raise our kids!”

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