Running All the Red Lights: A Journey of System-Wide Educational Reform

There are many red lights in education reform, ranging from citizens to national and state legislative requirements to the schools staffs themselves. What can you do as a superintendent, school leader, or classroom leader when you encounter these and other red lights? You can run a red light. Iredell-Statesville Schools Superintendent Dr. Terry Holliday and co-author Brenda Clark give examples of when they ran the red light. Running red lights is appropriate for fire, police, and emergency officials when there is a sense of urgency, a similar sense of urgency is needed to eliminate those negative experiences of children that douse students flame for learning. You can reflect at a red light. Tools and techniques are presented for reflection when you are confronted with a red light. In the School Improvement Plan framework and the basic tool Plan Do Study Act cycle discussed, school leaders and teachers will find tools of reflection. You can turn right at a red light with caution. Through a discussion about mission, vision, values, and alignment, Holliday and Clark will give you insight on how to turn right at the red light and still be able to reach your destination of success for children. You can back up at a red light. Sometimes when you are going too fast and you get caught in the intersection at a red light, you have to back up with caution so as not to hit anyone behind you. The authors describe these times and provide tools of communication planning, collaboration, and deployment that can help you back up without hitting anyone behind you or being hit by traffic coming through the intersection. These authors journey toward education reform included the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in Education in 2008 and has been a destination of success for the school district s children. Other leaders in other school systems will be inspired to undertake their own journey and to sustain it for all children. The journey is a frustrating one, but the destination is always worth the trouble.