Q: if you were to be given an opportunity as a CEO or a superintendent with the full support of the school broad to remake a school any way that you wanted and have their support to make innovation permanent and reengage the students in a constructive way, where would you begin?

I think one of the biggest problems we have is communities and community leaders have not been seriously engaged in consideration of the issues that public schools must confront and the conditions under which public schools would work.

I would take a lesson right out of the handbook of some of the ministers from the mega churches and I'd started small study groups, and I'd use iPods and Podcasts.

I'd get groups of eight or ten parents and senior citizens sitting down together, and I'd frame the issues for them to talk about and I'd use those Podcasts as kind of a kicker - a 10 minute bit of conversation about an issue and then I have them talk about the issue.

And then I would get the community involved in what kind of schools—not how would you improve the schools—but how do you see school? What's the role of a teacher and what do we think the role of a teacher will be? What do you think about this technology stuff?

I spent a lot of time talking with parents, and many parents understand that there's a problem. They don't understand what the problem is. And what we had to do is help people develop what I call and C. Wright Mills calls a “Sociological Imagination” —that we’ve got to be able to imagine what the schools are about.

Once you've got the community in the right conversation, the school board will maintain direction. If you've got a visionary leader who understands that the business [and] direction of the school has to be changed. We had to re-purpose the schools. The purpose of the schools is no longer “instruction.” The purpose of the school now is

“learning.” And we had to become a platform for learning as opposed to a platform for instruction. Well, that's a difficult thing for people to understand.

Source: October 2008 Audio Journal Executive Briefing

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