School district management reform

[Lees Stuntz]

Dear Dan,

As George Richardson wrote you, there is work going on in this area. In
most school districts who are being successful, there is a coordinated
effort between the administrative and system reforms and the use of system
dynamics in the curriculum. It is a case of walking your talk. Teaching
what you are trying to practice is a very effective tool.

You might find an article by Gary Hirsch available on the Creative Learning
Exchange Web site an interesting read. It is a VenSim model of innovation
developed in conjunction with educators, one of whom was Ted Sizer. Gary
has gone on from the model to develop a simulation, which although not on
the web site at the moment, I might be able to get permission for you to
see.

The article is: INNOVAGH ( Innovation in Schools: a model to help Structure
the discussion and Guide the Search for Strategies D-4765). It is available
at:
http://sysdyn.mit.edu/cle/lom.html#sys-ed

You might also be interested in the newsletters available on the CLE site
for background information about school systems who are pursuing systems
education. Another avenue for you might be the K-12 listserv, to which you
can subscribe through the System Dynamics in Education Project web site
(http://sysdyn.mit.edu/) or by e-mailing Nan Lux ( nlux@mit.edu).


I would be happy to talk with you or have an e-mail correspondence, if that
would be helpful. The more of us who are working on this, the better.

Lees Stuntz

Lees N. Stuntz
Creative Learning Exchange Phone- 978-287-0070
1 Keefe Road Fax- 978-287-0080
Acton, MA 01720 e-mail- stuntzln@tiac.net
http://sysdyn.mit.edu/cle/

[dburke@nsf.gov]

I just joined the list a week ago. I work on systemic reform of K-12
science/math education at the National Science Foundation. I am
working with most of the countrys largest school districts and would
like to get them to use system dynamics princples and modeling in
developing their reforms.

I would appreciate it if anyone knows of examples of school districts
doing this (not in their curriculum, but for their program
structuring) or knows of any articles on this.

Also, I was told that someone posted to the list in the last few
months that they had developed a series of notes for using Vensim PLE
for modeling. I would like to get them if I could.

Thanks,

Dan Burke
Senior Staff Associate
Directorate for Education and Human Resources
National Science Foundation
From: dburke@nsf.gov

[dburke@nsf.gov]

Lees,

Thanks for the reply.

I am aware of Garys work. In fact I met Gary in March at a meeting on
Systemic Reform in Education in Santa Fe at which he gave a workshop
on INOVAGH. That actually triggered me into getting Vensim PLE and
starting some models. Since then Ive spoken with him several times.

I have joined the k-12 systems discussion group and look at the CLE site fairly
regularly.

I would be interested in finding out more about districts that walk the talk
themselves. As a used-to-be molecular biologist I need no convincing as to the
power of systems thinking in learning, but, from my experience here at NSF, I
dont have much confidence in it spreading without support at the district level
and also without a seachange in teacher education.

One of the lessons weve learned here is that most teachers do not have the time
or expertise to develop really good curricular material (Ill grant some do).
It seems to me that the infection model for spreading its use that is being
discussed is simply a varient of the train-the-trainer model that has been used
in multiple settings with little success. Almost always one finds a rapid decay
in competence of the training the further one gets from the original trainer.
This is one of the key reasons that I think superintendents need to be on board.
They could give the support necessary to infuse systems thinking into the
curriculum.

On top of this are the issues of whether the curricular materials match the
districts curriculum standards and, most importantly, whether students actually
do better on the currently accepted measurements of achievement. While these
may not be good measures, without this evidence we will never get the
stakeholders on board who could move this effort forward. Do you know of anyone
who is working on a way to assess whether students are becoming systems
thinkers? This would be a start to gathering supporting evidence.

Please let me know what you think about these points.

Dan Burke
From: dburke@nsf.gov