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Strategies for Building District Leadership Capacity
Building leadership capacity for smart systems in the ways posited by this article – to work collaboratively with community groups and key partners – requires a fundamental shift in district culture, posing one of the most difficult challenges to change. Jesse Register, former superintendent of Hamilton County (Tennessee) Schools, and Joanne Thompson of the Annenberg Institute (2007) note:
It is crucial that district leaders put aside old behaviors and attitudes. … Too often, as districts engage in partnerships with community-based organizations, there is a mindset that the district must be in control. While district control is appropriate in some respects, district leaders need to understand that engaging partners as equals has much greater potential for success. (p. 22)
We have found that district leaders in communities with strong cross-sector and community partnerships have developed a set of skills and dispositions that foster collaboration with partners: being open to input and critique, respecting cultural differences among constituencies, sharing their own struggles and collaborating on developing solutions, dedicating time and public space for open and honest dialogue, shifting their view of accountability from the district being the sole accountable entity to sharing accountability among partners, and using data to inform decisions.
Confronting Beliefs and Challenging Assumptions about Class and Culture
Cultural differences are one of the biggest challenges to collaboration. To confront one’s own beliefs about race, class, and culture is a difficult but necessary task, as decisions and actions flow from values and beliefs. The predominant White, middle-class culture in schooling is often an invisible and unacknowledged influence on decisions about what opportunities are made available to low-income and minority children. James Scheurich and Linda Skrla (2003) describe the characteristics of leaders who help create high-achieving, equitable classrooms, schools, and districts: they are willing to confront those who do not believe that all children can succeed if given access to opportunity and the inequitable decisions based on that belief; and they are relentless in insisting on keeping excellence and equity in the forefront.
This type of leadership calls for leaders to challenge their own and others’ assumptions, such as the notion that parents of color and low-income parents lack interest in and/or understanding about their child’s education or lack the skills to prepare them for school. Different cultures and ways of life can provide a foundation to build education experiences that encourage group learning – and collective work and responsibility – over individual work and that create opportunities for parents and community members to actively contribute.
