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Illinois School Board Journal
November/December 2003

Two thumbs up on topics for boards

John Cassel is IASB field services director for DuPage, North Cook and Starved Rock divisions; Linda Dawson is IASB director of editorial services and Journal editor; John Fagan is superintendent of Oak Park ESD 97.

Please Stop Laughing at Me ... One Woman's Inspirational Story

Jodee Blanco, Adams Media Corporation, Avon, Massachusetts, 2003; ISBN: 1-58062-836-2

Poignant memoir puts a face on a bullied life

"The bullies never remember, but the outcasts never forget."

That telling line from a poignant new memoir best summarizes the hurt and frustration that results from bullying ... hurt and frustration that can follow a child into adulthood.

In Please Stop Laughing at Me ... One Woman's Inspirational Story, Jodee Blanco tells it like it was ... and it was horrible.

Using the backdrop of her 20th high school reunion, she chronicles the unrelenting verbal and physical abuse that followed her from the time she was a 10-year-old fourth-grader. Her story puts a face on the problem of bullying as no other can: the face of experience.

Despite changes in schools and changes in communities, Blanco always seemed to be a target for bullies, mostly for doing what, by adult standards, would be the right thing: standing up for her principles, telling the truth and befriending children with disabilities. It was a life of contradictions between what adults would say and the reality of how she was treated by her peers.

"It seems that if you are mean or cruel to another kid, that was 'okay' because it was just a normal part of growing up," writes Blanco. "If you are on the receiving end and allow it to bother you, you were the one who needs help. What kind of logic was that?"

From cover to cover, Blanco reasons through what happened to her, laying the groundwork for what may become an anti-bullying Bible. Within this 273-page, easy-reading, soft-cover book, she paints a stark picture of fear, hatred, loneliness, frustration and disillusionment - a picture many adults will recognize, either with empathy from having experienced similar traumatic events, or sheepishly from knowing they were the bullies.

Blanco's book has been described by other reviewers as a "must read for parents, educators, and everyone concerned with the health and well-being of our children" (John Bradshaw, author of The New York Times bestseller Homecoming) and as a book that "will do for survivors of school bullying what Dave Pelzer's book A Child Called 'It' did for child abuse" (Jack Canfield, coauthor of the international best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul).

Because of its easy style and riveting storyline, this book is appropriate for middle school and high school students, as well as parents, teachers and administrators. If any child can be given hope of surviving being bullied ... if any child can see the bully within themselves and stop ... if any parent or teacher can see a better way to handle bullying situations before they escalate, then Blanco's years of mistreatment will have an element of triumph.

The Board-Savvy Superintendent

Paul Houston and Doug Eadie, Scarecrow Press, 2002; ISBN: 0-810-84470-2

'Savvy' leadership book leaves questions

by John Fagan and John Cassel

Governance is a hot topic in education circles right now. Just as expectations are changing for corporate boards, governance responsibilities for school boards are being rethought. As the role of a school board member shifts from oversight to active leadership, adjustments will need to be made to the traditional role of the superintendent - perhaps causing conflict.

The authors - Paul Houston, who is executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, and Doug Eadie, a board leadership consultant and president of Doug Eadie & Company - are in touch with the issues involved in this change, but their solution is a bit fuzzy. To put it succinctly, they offer great questions but limited answers.

Is this a book about how school boards should govern? The suggestions presented for board organization and operations may form a workable model, but other models are being touted with equal vigor. And the authors cite no evidence to affirm this suggested reorganization will be any more effective than other new models.

As boards rethink themselves, are superintendents the experts that boards should turn to for direction? Do other organizations ask their chief executive to design their board structure? Aren't corporate boards being chastised for allowing their executives too much influence with their boards and with individual board members?

Or is this a book about the "new superintendent" as CEO? Even as the authors promote superintendents as CEOs, they admit that such a role is hard to define. Suggesting that superintendents consider themselves as non-voting board members only adds to the confusion.

Superintendents who want a different take on their role might try reading Larry Bossidy's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, which does focus on the need for chief executives to pay attention to how well an organization is performing on a day-to-day basis - the original idea behind the superintendency.

If this is a book about building strong, productive relationships, it really misses the mark. Casting board members as individuals whose egos need stroking borders on demeaning. And if the goal is a "high impact" board with a strong strategic focus, the board needs the opportunity to develop its governance prowess, not the illusion of partnership.

Superintendents might better spend their energies promoting and recognizing collaborative board accomplishments instead of citing individualism. A superintendent who needs to improve a relationship with the board could learn as much from Dr. Phil's book, Relationship Rescue.

What this book does is call attention to a provocative topic. Superintendents everywhere are struggling with new definitions of roles and responsibilities for themselves and their boards. Superficial as this proposal is, it should find an audience of readers groping for help. But read it as food for thought - not as a panacea.

First, Break All the Rules - What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, Simon & Schuster, 1999; ISBN: 0-684-85286-1

Management guide has lessons for boards

by Linda Dawson

Sometimes a book written for one audience begins to have an impact on another. That could be the case for First, Break All the Rules.

Originally intended for CEOs and managers, this guide to better hiring and more productive employees has much to say to school boards as they work toward better relationships with their superintendents. And its advice may serve as well for superintendents dealing with principals, and principals with teachers.

If boards believe and follow the Foundational Principals of Effective Governance, then the board hires one employee (the superintendent) and holds that person responsible for running the school district. To do that, boards must understand what being a "good manager" means, both from their standpoint as the employer and to determine if their superintendent is a good manager.

While not purporting to have all the answers, authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman are bolstered by information gathered during 25 years of Gallup polling of employees and good managers. What they provide is a book chockfull of anecdotes to illustrate the practices all great managers have in common ... practices that do not necessarily follow "conventional" wisdom.

Their "Four Keys" suggest what it takes to be a great manager and tie into an additional series of 12 questions that measure the strength in a variety of workplaces.

What makes this book so important for school boards and superintendents comes from some of the language used: creating policy that allows employees to succeed; defining outcomes and expectations to get what you want; defining parameters (limits and administrative procedures) to avoid mistrust; and setting standards.

While not all references may be applicable in a school setting, the book is peppered with school stories. Take, for example, one midway through the book that talks about the issue of trust in terms of grading guidelines. Some districts suggest grading guidelines but allow teachers to use their judgment in assigning grades. This trust in teachers to do the right thing is weighed against legislation in some states that mandates grade percentages to ensure consistency.

In addition, the book also has insights for teachers and students, especially where the authors talk about managers as "catalysts," agents who speed up reactions between two substances to create a desired end product. And where they talk about standards driving learning and being "the code in which human collaboration and discovery is written."

Nothing, however, is standardized about the picture Buckingham and Coffman paint of managers. In 271 pages, which include 24 pages of appendices on the research itself, they take the very complex human behavior of management and sort it into methods that have worked for some very successful people. And they do it in language that is easily understood.

The authors' goal is not to change anyone's innate management style. Rather, they hope readers will take their research, incorporate the findings into their own style and become better managers for it.

Because even with the variances in style and substance that the authors have found, they do have one point of agreement, stated on page 11: "Talented employees need great managers." This book, while not a roadmap to success, lays out some specific benchmarks of best practices and would be well worth time spent within its pages.