This is a culminating line in one of the never-ending series of reports, audits and court orders that through the years have attempted to point out what is wrong with the Kansas City School District.
The line is from a summer 2006 study by the Council of the Great City Schools. The council is a solid organization that thankfully is involved in the most recent effort: a local task force that is a cross section of political, educational, religious and civic leaders.
On Friday the group held its first meeting. Before rolling your eyes at the thought of yet another district group convening, this one might be different. The group is beginning at the right starting point: the disconnect between the area’s residents and the children in the Kansas City district.
For as astute as that original line is, it needs to be tweaked a bit to reflect a more basic baseline problem for the district. It should read; “In short, Kansas City citizens are not working as a team on behalf of the city’s children.”
That’s my interpretation. But the task force members recognize that substantial change will not occur by simply moving widgets around.
“Failure often rests on solutions chasing problems,” Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools, told the group Friday at the Kauffman Foundation. Often, he said, people misidentify what they’re trying to solve.
Ronald Heifetz, a Harvard professor, wrote much about this in his book, Leadership Without Easy Answers.
It’s a well-known business book, one that more than one educator has referenced in conversations lately about the current rush to change things in the Kansas City district in the hopes of a better outcome.
Conversations and even plans are afloat lately to drastically reconfigure the district or its school board. The idea is to do any number of things to “fix” the Kansas City School District.
Some people are scheming about efforts such as the one that recently lopped off seven schools and sent them to the Independence School District. Others want an appointed board, an at-large board, no board, a board appointed by the mayor, a state takeover, a non-traditional superintendent and a restructured administrative staff.
This is not to say that eventually some of the ideas for change may not come to pass and work out for the betterment of the district. But as Mayor Mark Funkhouser told the group at Kauffman: “The problems of this district are symptomatic of a divided community. No one is going to save ourselves from ourselves.”
And each of these ideas are fine examples of what Heifetz calls applying a technical solution to an adaptive problem. Heifetz, in explaining the technical/adaptive theory, suggests that leaders ask, “…is this a problem that an expert can fix, or is this a problem that is going to require people in the community to change their values, their behavior, or their attitudes?
“For this problem to be solved, are people going to need to learn new ways of doing business?”
A technical solution is rearranging how a school board member is elected. But urban school districts have adaptive problems.
Casserly said that somehow the group must get larger segments of the community to buy into solving the district’s problems. “Every voice doesn’t have to be singing off the same page,” he said. “But you need a general agreement of what you want from your school system and how you are going to obtain it.”
A big challenge, indeed, but the end result will be well worth the effort.
Mary Sanchez is a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. Read her Tribune column on the wife’s role after a husband’s public fall from grace on KansasCity.com.
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