[This is a log I did for one of my graduate admin courses back in March of 2004. At the time, I was still very much based in NYC and at Beacon. I found it today while I was looking for another document. But it’s interesting to think about what I wrote here in the context of what we’re trying to do here in Philadelphia. The situation between NYC and Philly are not directly related, but the overarching question about the window to affect change seems relevant as are my fears about my own limitations…]

“When you have the chance to make a difference, don’t screw up.”
— The moral of Professor Tom Sobol’s story about his experience with trying to implement a multi-cultural curriculum in New York State.

The window for progressive change seems often too small. Worse, it seems that at the first mistake, this change is too easily swept aside. How do we plan real, lasting progressive change in schools? In New York City, we work in a system where you can take any good idea, imagine the worst possible outcome of that good idea, and put it on the front page of the New York Post, and that’s how the Department of Ed will react to it. How do you make incremental change in a system like that?

It’s all well and good to say “till the field,” “set yourself up for success,” but I fear the reality is worse than that. The union and the administration are locked in a desperate death grip — each with a hand on the others’ throat. The mayor has staked his re-election to higher test scores in our schools. Once progressive schools are being forced to teach a mandated curriculum. I look around me at the district in which I work, and the best I can do to stay optimistic is to remember that this is a long, long race. And while politicians – mayors and presidents alike – measure their success in four-year increments, education moves at a slower pace.

Of course, and I think this was your point, there moments in time when we can make a great impact. It is in those moments that we (I) must remember your advice – that it is not enough to have good policy, we must have good politics too. It is my feeling that the educational landscape is littered with those who had good intentions, noble ideas and passion, but not enough virtu to understand that they had to play the political game. Therefore people like that leave education – or least urban education – bitter, to this to there is no way to change the system.

I need to get better at the politics. I’ve seen that one of my great goals over the next few years is to learn how to be a better politician. To date, I think I have been able to get by by being in charge of tech, which meant I did something no one else understood, rudimentary knowledge of the political game and a lot of energy. Some those things don’t go away if I step up into administration, but I don’t think I’ll have the margin for error I’ve had the past. And I need to make sure – especially as the stakes get higher for Beacon – that I when have the opportunity to make change, I don’t screw up.