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 Executive Perspective — Outlooks and Perspectives
Dr. Paul D. Houston
May 2008 — Wherever You Go
The Zen teaching "Wherever you go, there you are" has assumed new meaning for AASA's chief executive as he contemplates personal and professional transitions.
April 2008 — Crazy or Stupid?
Accountability should flow both ways. School leaders are told accountability is essential by people who refuse to be accountable for underfunding schools and who think simple answers exist for complex problems.
March 2008 — Unpacking Our Luggage
“I don’t hate my country, I love it,” says
AASA’s executive director. “And it is
because I love it that I worry for it.”
February 2008 — Getting It Right
Superintendents are the answer people.
They are the Mr. or Mrs. “Fix-its.” They
are asked to just make it all better.
January 2008 — Bagpipes and a Spot of Grace
The one-time battlefields of Scotland, site of a recent vacation, yielded a few discoveries that apply to American education.
December 2007 — Finding the Right Words
At season’s end, AASA’s director takes time to reflect on possible lessons of the season. He draws this year’s holiday sermon from an episode of “60 Minutes.”
November 2007 — So? ... But Not So What!
Here’s a simple philosophy, easy to
understand and simple to remember.
In fact, it’s just a single word.
October 2007 — Snow Blind
Stuck on a paralyzed highway, AASA’s executive director learned the Zen teaching of being in the moment. Where do you go when you can’t go anywhere?
September 2007 — Lessons From Room 411
A recent week-long adventure through the emergency medical system was both enlightening and frustrating. And it reinforced the AASA director’s
commitment to systems thinking.
August 2007 — Burning Thoughts on a Snowy Day
AASA’s executive director finds hours of thinking pleasure just outside his office window — and a commentary on racism, placeism and testism.
June 2007 — Loosening Our Beltway
“I live and work in a town that is untethered from reality,” opines AASA’s executive director.
May 2007 — Building Villages by Creating Character
America would be better served if we greeted one another they way they do on the streets in Kenya, where the Masai ask, “How are the children?”
April 2007 — Is Possible?
As a frequent overseas traveler, AASA’s executive director says he is struck by how different Americans are from others. The way Americans handle the unknown is something he finds especially admirable.
March 2007 — Revenge of the Blob
Leadership in school districts matters, just as it does in business or on commissions that release widely publicized reports. It is time for the “blob” to exact its revenge on those who question the usefulness of local school leadership.
February 2007 — A Pint of Good Sense
First consider the notion of “quality assurance.” Then compare it to an accountability system where some people are held accountable by other people and blame and punishment are meted out. AASA’s executive found evidence of the former during a trip with educators to Ireland.
January 2007 — Authentic Accountability
It’s ironic that public education is required to demonstrate accountability in the area of student performance by politicians who have little accountability where they do their own work.
December 2006 — Christmas Presence
AASA’s executive director has a modest proposal for the holiday season: Give yourself and those around you the gift of presence when thoughts of many turn to more traditional presents.
November 2006 — Finding Our Voice
How many of us have the confidence and fortitude to lead in our own voice? Do we then act from that voice that we know guides us to truth in action?
October 2006 — The House of the Rising Sun
The 2007 National Conference on Education in New Orleans will give AASA members a chance to tell the nation on how far rebuilding has come.
September 2006 — Nearly Famous
The celebrity that accompanies the superintendency can make for unusual public encounters, but it also leads to greater accountability.
August 2006 — The Gap Clap Trap
No Child Left Behind forces schools to educate children as a group instead of as individuals with unique ways of learning.
June 2006 — The Road to Hana
Reflecting on his trip to Maui, AASA’s executive director separates the importance of the journey from the final destination.
May 2006 — A Critical Position in Critical Condition
The history of the school superintendency has been a fitful journey from manager to leader.
April 2006 — Breaking Away
Drawing upon his latest favorite book, Mindfulness, AASA’s chief says the emphasis today on specified outcomes in schools tends to narrow the choices the learner has of looking at the world.
March 2006 — Risking our Significance
AASA’s executive director hypothesizes that educators move into leadership because “it feeds that portion of ourselves that needs to feel important.” That ambition becomes a blessing and a curse.
February 2006 — Guess Who’s Left Behind?
Much has been made about the issue of racism in the Gulf Coast relief effort, but the greater issue has been that of socio-economic class — just another indication our federal government doesn’t deal well with matters involving the poor.
January 2006 — On the Penguin March Through Life
AASA’s executive director draws parallels, serious and light-hearted, between the dilemmas of penguins in Antarctica and those of school superintendents.
December 2005 — Daily Blessings
Leadership is about our ability to make a connection to another person—something accomplished by staying in touch with our own humanity and with our own awareness of our fragile place on earth, says AASA’s executive director.
November 2005 — Who You Gonna Call?
When the unexpected arises and problems present themselves, whom do communities rely on to pull together all the pieces and make things happen up and down the line? The local school superintendent, of course.
October 2005 — Water and Ice
Close-up observations of AASA’s executive director on Drake’s Passage and Iceberg Alley and what he learned about the world school leaders inhabit.
September 2005 — Faith and Fear
At the core of many controversies over curriculum is the protection of personal values, in the analysis of AASA’s executive director.
August 2005 — Living in a Jerry Springer World
The executive director's analysis of the social and moral contradictions present in contemporary society.
June 2005 — The High Cost of Free Speech
If public schools are a cornerstone of American democracy, students better learn what the First Amendment’s all about.
May 2005 — Einstein’s Brain
Albert Einstein once said that “imagination is more important than knowledge.” As such, AASA’s executive director wonders out loud what Einstein would have thought of current education reform efforts.
April 2005 — Building Fields of Dreams
AASA’s executive director can never think of his film favorite, “Field of Dreams,” without considering the work school leaders do.
March 2005 — Seeing the Forest and the Trees
AASA’s executive director draws parallels between the unique perspective he gained of the Amazon rain forest and the perilous balance one must maintain during the journey to see the great beauty.
February 2005 — It Ain’t Necessarily So
Just as a person of faith can believe in evolution, a public educator should be able to question flaws in federal law without being labeled a protector of the status quo.
January 2005 — A Letter to the President
Education Idea No. 1 following the inauguration: Start your education policy by asking, “How are the children?”
December 2004 — Ode to Joy
After dodging a bullet (literally), AASA’s executive director now realizes how much we live our lives in that narrow geography between peril and possibility.
November 2004 — Advancing System Leadership
School systems are perfectly designed to yield the results they are getting. Unfortunately, the rules have changed and so have the goals, says AASA’s executive director.
October 2004 — Making Great Time on a Lost Highway
The current reform agenda is a mechanistic approach that assumes that by fixing pieces, you can fix the whole. Another view comes closer to reality for AASA’s director — that of the universe — by appreciating the complexity of connections.
September 2004 — The Samurai Superintendent
For more than 1,000 years the Samurai warrior in Japan carried a tradition. While our Western notion of the Samurai conjures up a fierce fighter wielding a massive sword in battle, the real tradition of the Samurai is much more nuanced and appropriate for today’s leaders.
August 2004 — Diverse Learners
One of the remarkable paradoxes of American education is how we like to talk about the value of each child, and yet we strongly hold to a system that yields a one-size-fits-all model of educating all those individuals. For me, this contradiction always has been personal.
June 2004 — The Axis of Evil
Evil has a strange effect on us — the more we think about it, the more it pulls us in and covers us with the ashes of its darkness. The more we see it in others, the more likely it is to manifest in us. Since 9/11, the discussion of evil has become a national pastime. Sadly, the more we evil we see in others, the greater chance it will appear in us.
May 2004 — On Becoming a Hope Pusher
When my children were young, one of them asked me, “Daddy, what does a superintendent do?”
April 2004 — Negotiating the Past and the Future
Once or twice a year AASA, along with University of Texas professor Nolan Estes, organizes an international seminar on schooling. We have superintendents, school board leaders and higher education folks who spend a week or so visiting one or more countries, visiting schools and universities and absorbing the culture of the country. I have shared many of these trips with you. One of the most recent was to Italy.
March 2004 — Tell It Like It Is … and Isn’t
Many of us remember the words of the famous sportscaster Howard Cosell, who used to say, “I just tell it like it is.” And he did, often in a most irritating fashion. However, history proved that most of the time Cosell had it right and much of the rest of the world had it wrong.
February 2004 — A View From the Top
There is a Randy Newman song called “It’s Lonely at the Top.” Listening to that song always reminds me of how it felt in the years I spent in the superintendency. I once said that superintendents make the Maytag repairman look like a party animal. The very nature of the job is one of splendid isolation.
January 2004 — Aligning Body and Mind
Like many of you I get a sore neck occasionally. We could speculate that comes from working in a business that attracts so many “pains in the neck” that the pain moves from the figurative to the literal. This has led me to go to a chiropractor to get myself realigned. You see, when tension hits, my muscles tighten up, pulling my bones out of alignment, causing further stress on my muscles, creating even more misalignment. It’s not a good thing.
December 2003 — The Tyranny of Now
If you get caught up in the immediate demands of your e-mail and cell phone, you'll never have time to look at the long view.
November 2003 — Cleaning Out Our Closets
Amidst all his own clutter, AASA's executive director found a few items worth keeping and some lessons worth sharing.
October 2003 — Butchers or Tailors?
Greek mythology contains a story about an innkeeper named Procrustes, who took in travelers. He had one problem: His inn had only one bed.
September 2003 — Two Milestones, Two Lingering Goals
A commentary on two landmark events in education history.
August 2003 — Simultaneous Thinking
Remember the joke from your childhood, “What is black and white and red all over?” Answer: a newspaper, because the red is really “read.”
June 2003 — The Fantasy and Flow of Vietnam
Let me tell you about my recent visit to Vietnam. It is exotic and beautiful. But perhaps the greatest interest of Vietnam is the power it holds over American imaginations.
May 2003 — A Worthy Import From Singapore
The critics of American public schools love to compare us to other countries and then wonder why America can’t do as well as say (pick one) Russia, Japan, Germany or even little Singapore. They like to point out how much more money America spends on education and then decry our poor international standings. The latest, greatest comparisons have been with Singapore, which annually kicks our tail in international comparisons on math and science.
April 2003 — Life’s Lessons From My Dog Holly
Shortly after my mother passed away last summer I realized my life had truly changed. She left me her dog. Now giving me a dog is cruel and unusual punishment--for the dog. Let’s just say my lifestyle and travel schedule doesn’t easily accommodate an ongoing responsibility. But you know what? It’s been a great learning experience for me. And from it I have developed some lessons for leaders.
March 2003 — Living in a Code Orange World
Since the events of Sept. 11, 2001, we all have recognized that our world has changed. Things aren’t and never will be the way they were before. While we have been saddened by the loss of life, we also have grieved for the loss of innocence we enjoyed before discovering we no longer can be certain of our safety.
February 2003 — A Vote for Vibrancy in AASA Governance
When superintendents get together they tend to have a common topic of conversation--school boards. They talk about bad boards, good boards or dysfunctional boards. Sometimes the conversation resembles an afternoon talk show--“School boards and the superintendents who worry about them.”
January 2003 — The Bigotry of Expectations
As we grapple with implementing the No Child Left Behind Act, we should focus on its intent. While in my more cynical moments I wonder if the intent wasn’t to prove, once and for all, that public schools are so flawed they are not worth supporting and that vouchers are the only alternative, my higher angels call me to assume the best of those who have promoted the bill. Certainly much about the bill merits support.
December 2002 — The Act, Not the Gift, That Matters
This is always a zestful and stressful time of year for most of us. The holiday season, which stretches on for over a month, calls for reflection and celebration. But sometimes that is hard because it is also a time when there is too much to do, too many obligations and too many people to please.
November 2002 — Leading by Numbers
When we were children many of us had a chance to do an activity called “Paint by Number.” This involved a white piece of drawing paper with numbers and shapes on it. Each shape had a number that corresponded to a color. If you painted each shape with the right color, you ended up with a picture that looked sort of professional. It had all the shapes right and the colors correct. Of course, there was no artistry in it—the painting was just a mechanical rendering of something someone else had created.
October 2002 — Running Schools Like Business
Because I give speeches often, I am always looking for a good laugh line to loosen up the audience. Lately I have found one: “Why don’t we make schools more like business?”
September 2002 — Going Where the Water Is
On a trip to Eastern Europe we were visiting yet one more museum when our guide started talking about a series of kings, all of whom were assassinated. She ended her little talk with the thought: “That was a bad time to be a king.” I couldn’t help but think about the times our educational community now faces and the feeling we often get is that this is a bad time to be an educator.
August 2002 — The Mythology of School Reform
American schools are knee deep in the “big muddy” of school reform. When I travel around the country I find everyone preoccupied with school improvement, accountability, assessment and other ways of working to upgrade education. Essentially, as Martha Stewart might put it, this is “a good thing.” As leaders, our focus should be on school improvement and our mission should be making the education of children better.
June 2002 — The Evil I
As a minister’s kid I grew up with a sense of certainty that the world is divided between the forces of good and evil. As I became older and wiser, I drifted away from this view and decided some people I might have thought were evil were really just misguided.
May 2002 — Elevating Dreams to Reality
In a world of a million questions, what are the most important for leaders to ask? The first is really, “What is leadership?”
April 2002 — A Novel Notion: Best Teachers at Poorest Schools
The critics of public education have a million reasons why they think our schools don’t work. However, you can’t look to the critics for clarity because their concerns are overly simplistic and just plain wrong.
March 2002 — From Tragedy Emerge Positive Lessons for Leaders
It has been six months since our world shifted due to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. While it is said that time heals wounds, there are some wounds that cannot and should not heal—at least to the point that the hard lessons learned are not forgotten.
February 2002 — Lessons From the Amazon
As we bumped along the rutted road taking us to the boat that would be home for the next week, we strained our eyes to pierce the dark undergrowth for a first glimpse of the Amazon River. Once the bus stopped, we walked across a rickety dock to approach La Tourmalina, our home for the next few days. We rushed on deck for our first real glance of the great Amazon, a river we had known in our imagination and from our 4th-grade geography lessons.
January 2002 — Literacy Leadership: From Lynch Mob to Parade
Well, here we are in the New Year. The party favors have been thrown away along with the New Year's resolutions. The wrapping paper has been recycled and the tree ornaments banished to storage. It has crossed my mind how much education resembles an overloaded Christmas tree. It is this big beautiful thing that is cut off from its roots, loaded down with so many glittering objects that its original beauty has been lost.
December 2001 — Scrooge-Style Leadership With Heart
Around this time of year we find seasonal movies on television. One of the most popular is the classic "It's a Wonderful Life," which starred Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey and focused on one man's life and the difference his change of heart made to a town.
November 2001 — Missing in Action: The District Office
In the midst of a great era of school reform, something is missing. What is not missing is an emphasis on the bottom and rhetoric from the top.
October 2001 — The Public's Right to Gnaw
I am amazed that educational leaders don't all look like an anorexic Ally McBeal on a really thin day. That is because they are dined on regularly by the public as they are served up in the press. In this one corner of our society, cannibalism not only is accepted, it is encouraged through public feasting.
September 2001 — Refilling the Well
Have you ever noticed that no one comes into your office to bring you things? They come seeking something. They want your time, your energy, your permission, your wisdom or your resources. They come to you out of the need to dip their bucket in your well and to drink from your spring and that is how it should be. That is the role of leader-to serve others. But there is a danger.
August 2001 — When Bad Things Happen to Good Ideas
My father always told me that confession is good for the soul. OK, I confess. I was one of the early advocates of the standards movement. It is ironic that such an admission makes me feel a little sullied. What started out as a wonderful idea now looks like an off-color joke. What happened to turn a noble idea into something that feels dirty?
June 2001 — It Takes a Village To Raise Achievement
I realize the longer I live in Washington, D.C., the less difference I see between the political parties. What appear to be great gulfs to most of America are small creeks inside the Beltway. There are several reasons for this.
May 2001 — Digging My Way to China
When we were children, many of us had the experience of digging in our backyards. I remember my mother saying if I dug far enough I would end up in China.
April 2001 — A Balance of Head and Heart
The superintendency holds an enduring fascination for me. It is a source of pleasure and pain, of peril and promise, of minutiae and mission, of foible and fable.
March 2001 — Dirty Secrets Revealed!
The problem with the education reform movement is that we spend a lot of time and energy on ideas and actions that will not generate much return. We do that to avoid confronting issues that might be painful. This has led to a lot of dirty little secrets in education—things we all know but don't talk about.
February 2001 — Making Kids Stronger by Making Them Flexible
It has always interested me why some people bend while others break. I suppose I am interested because, like many others, my own story is one of resilience. My academic career marked my movement from being a non-reader to slow learner to underachiever to honor student. I always have credited my progress to the support of parents and teachers and to an incredibly strong streak of stubbornness that has served me well.
January 2001 — An Open Letter to the President
Congratulations. I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you will now serve as our next president. The bad news is that you will have to translate the rhetoric of your campaign into action.
December 2000 — A Stake Through the Heart of High-Stakes Tests
Confusion reigns among educators over the issue of high-stakes testing. Part of the problem is a lack of clarity over what is meant when one talks about it.
November 2000 — The Gladiator in All of Us
I love movies. They take us away from where we are to lands and times far, far away. They are a great escape. They also bring us the truth that only can be found in fiction by focusing our attention on the stories and metaphors that reveal the deeper truths that undergird the fantasy.
October 2000 — Standing in Someone Else's Shoes
One of the best "perks" of this job is that I get to spend time with interesting people. Some of them are great in all the ways we might use that word. Some just think they are. But mostly I get to be with people who are caring and giving human beings who make the world a better place.
September 2000 — Bombing Children Into the Stone Age
Last spring, one of the television networks showed the movie Failsafe as a live performance. Failsafe was written at the height of the Cold War and featured a confrontation between Russia and the United States that ended in the United States accidentally launching missiles at Moscow. To prevent a full-scale nuclear war, the American president agreed to drop nuclear bombs on New York City as a sign of good faith to Russia to prove that we were not interested in starting World War III.
August 2000 — A Sense of Direction in the True North
Last year I visited the northernmost school district in North America, the North Slope District in Barrow, Alaska. I was there at the invitation of one of our members, Leland Dishman, a dynamic and unorthodox superintendent who created excitement serving the more than 2,000 students who are stretched across a district about the size of Nebraska. (See the Profile for a closer look at Dishman’s leadership style.)
June 2000 — Not a Great Job But a Wonderful Calling
A silent crisis is building in school leadership. At a time when the demands of our society for improving education and the needs of our children cry out for leadership, the leadership ship is being abandoned.
May 2000 — Treating Parents as Our Customers
We are often told that we should act more like a business. Setting aside the obvious problem that children are not widgets, you still are left with the chore of sorting out who the customers are.
April 2000 — Out of Africa and Into the Classroom
Have you noticed how many of our school reform efforts are built on Darwinian principles? Vouchers, retention and high-stakes exams are all manifestations of a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. We are creating an educational landscape where only the strong will survive.
March 2000 — Being Mindful What You Wish For
Have you ever thought about the fact that zero-tolerance policies, high-stakes assessment and the ending of social promotion are all branches from the same tree? All three premises have their roots in the idea that the best way to develop a child is by destroying him.
February 2000 — Liberating Minds and Spirits
Years ago there was a movie about African lions called "Born Free." It followed them in their natural environment. On a recent trip to Kenya, as we bounced across the vast Masai Mara on the northern end of the Serengeti searching for the next pride of lions, I found myself humming the theme song from that movie: "Born free, as free as the grass grows, as free as the wind blows, born free to follow your heart." And then I found myself thinking of our children and the education we give them.
January 2000 — The Illusion of Choice in the Marketplace
I have watched with interest the voucher debate and have raised my own voice on the subject. Of late, however, I think most discussion is missing the bigger picture.
December 1999 — Notions of Space and Time From Home Learners
Have you ever thought about the fact that "home schooling" is an oxymoron? Home is a place. School is a place. You can't be in two places at the same time. Yet I think that home schoolers are not the only ones trying to be in two places at the same time. So are "school schoolers."
November 1999 — Skeptical About Our Nation’s Accountability Agenda
Accountability has as many interpretations as beauty: It is usually in the eye of the beholder.
September 1999 — To Lead My Trek, I Pick Scotty
I recently arrived home from another trip–late again. The airline lost my luggage–again. Traveling today makes me long for the future promised in "Star Trek." If you want to be somewhere else, you simply get Scotty to beam you there. You arrive instantaneously–unruffled, unlagged and with all your stuff.
May 1999 — A Dirty Dozen Factors Reshape Our World
Among the greatest challenges to school leaders are a baker's dozen of "Dirty D" trends that will shape our society in the future. We need to be aware of these sweeping forces, so that we may shape our own behavior accordingly.
March 1999 — Confronting the Present With Honesty
When I lived in the desert, we sometimes had tremendous electrical storms. One night I was in bed during one of these storms and every time there was a crash of thunder, I pulled the covers over my head. Then I realized that while thunder makes the noise, lightning does the killing. I was responding to the wrong stimulus.
January 1999 — Do We Suffer From Educational Glaucoma?
As someone who travels too much, I am often confronted with the great philosophic questions of life, "Where am I? Why am I here? And where am I going?" If it has been a long trip, I sometimes ask myself, "Who am I?" As fellow travelers on the road to becoming better leaders, we all should be asking ourselves these questions.
November 1998 — Navigating Dangerous White Water Together
I have often felt that the best training for a school leader would involve an Outward Bound experience culminating with white water rafting. Think about it. We spend most of our time navigating turbulent water. Those who surround us are in the same boat, dependent on each other for support and encouragement. If the boat springs a leak, we all get wet. Through it all are the rapids and towering rocks.
September 1998 — Preserving Public Education, Not Public Schools
Public education is in a period of extreme danger. The threat comes not only from the critics and from those who would destroy public education through vouchers or other means. It comes from a dramatically changing world that allows students and parents to access learning without going to a formal institution called school.
May 1998 — School Reform or Reform School?
For some time now we have been neck deep in school reform. But progress has been slow. Perhaps that is because we are trying to do the wrong things.
January 1998 — Pinata Beaters and the Rush Toward a Narrow Self-Interest
America was built on competition, survival of the fittest and the motto: To the victors go the spoils. In modern America, however, the redefined golden rule now says, "He who has the gold makes the rules." In short, we enjoy the enviable lifestyle today through the forces of the marketplace and from an unending ability to act in our own self-interest.
September 1997 — The Dreams of Horace Mann
Last year I wrote about Horace Mann as the opening to our "Contrarians" issue (May 1996) of The School Administrator. I thought I would return to Horace to kick off this inaugural column of "Executive Perspective."
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