![]() ![]() Similar to existing Magnet Schools, Choice Schools will tap into individual students’ learning styles, interests, and aspirations to help them realize their full academic potential. All Choice Schools will be district-run and district-operated with district staff. Good ideas are not the exclusive monopoly of central office in fact, they are probably more likely to be found outside of central office.īefore I explain “letting go,” a bit of background about the initiative itself: by 2020, our goal is to launch 35 Choice Schools which showcase specialized academic models such as Montessori, STEM, Fine Arts, Dual-Language, Business, Urban Planning, and many more. By design, Dallas ISD’s Public School Choice initiative, which my office manages, forces central office personnel to let go more than they’re used to, which is uncomfortable but needed. If you are familiar with school districts, you’d know that we are sometimes guilty of these behaviors. She writes about ways that organizations from all sectors stifle innovation: stressing predictability above all else favoring exact plans and guarantees of success insisting that all procedures are followed and assuming that those at the top got there because they already know all the good ideas that should be implemented. I often think about the work of Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor specializing in strategy and innovation. For me, that means letting go of control in some important ways, which is something that doesn’t typically appeal to some central office administrators. As the chief of the newly created Office of Transformation and Innovation at Dallas ISD, my job is to help figure out how to incubate and scale new, promising ideas across the district. Despite occasional lip service to it, school districts quite frequently stifle innovation, consciously and unconsciously. A growing chorus of observers call for innovation in public education, but the reality is that school districts are often ill-suited for the endeavor.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |