"Planting Trees"
Remarks by D. Kent King, Missouri Commissioner of Education
August 5, 2003, Osage Beach
Note: Following is the edited text of the keynote address given by Commissioner King during the annual back-to-school conference for public school officials, sponsored by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. About 1,000 school superintendents and other administrators attended the meeting.
| "Deja Vu All Over Again" | Forestry Arborists |
| Character Must Rule the Day | No Child Left Behind |
| Working to Make this Country Great | |
Good morning. I know change is hard, and this dramatic change in scheduling may create trauma for you. I’m pleased that you stayed for today, and I look forward to sharing a few thoughts; and I hope to stimulate some of your thinking.
I know many of you enjoyed [keynote presenter] Ruby Payne yesterday. She does an excellent job, I think, talking about some of the things that we need to know as we go about working with kids. The background from which kids come makes a big difference in the way they learn. The more we know about that, the better we can assist our teachers and boards in making the right decisions about instructional programs and strategies that will work best for our kids. I hope you benefited from her presentation.
With the kind of year we had in 2002-2003, I had various thoughts about how to approach this discussion. First, I thought about making a wish list for this year and talking about it. Had I done that, the wish list would have gone something like this:
I wish we would have no tornadoes that wreck towns, school building and lives. I wish that I would not have to send out e-mails to my friends regarding difficult financial situations, especially withholdings. I wish I would see no more news reports of school bus accidents and kids getting killed around school buses. I wish that no school would have to be singled out as "academically deficient" or "unaccredited" or "not meeting adequate yearly progress" because that would mean that kids were learning and making progress. There are lots of other wishes, but those are some that come to mind as really important ones. But, I decided not to focus on a wish list. Even so, you’ll hear some of these topics pop up occasionally this morning.
I thought about discussing the topic, "The Future of Public Education," which is very important to all of us. But that seemed like a rather ambitious topic for breakfast--even though in the 40 years that I’ve been working in the public school arena, I haven’t seen as many attacks on the basic fundamentals of public education as we are seeing today. This, too, will come up occasionally as I move forward this morning.
I thought about talking about how we deal with all the anxieties that we have as school administrators. There have always been lots of anxieties, and the financial situation has increased the stress level. I’ve read that a certain amount of stress helps us focus on a problem at hand and that our decision-making ability may improve as a result of that. I would suggest that we’ve had enough financial stress to go beyond that level. But, if we let our anxiety level get too high, we get overwhelmed; and we risk making really bad decisions. Our kids can’t afford that. They can’t afford for us to make bad decisions relative to the money with which we operate schools. We have to focus on what is going right and make decisions surrounding that. We can’t just worry about what’s going wrong or our anxiety level gets too high. But I decided you really don’t need me to tell you about your anxieties.
I seriously thought about talking more about Kelsi, our granddaughter that I talked about in last year’s presentation. I talked about Kelsi a lot during the past year. I also talk about Kayla, her soon-to-be sixth-grade sister, and her cousins, Sarah, who’s two, and Kathryne, who’s three and a half. Sandy and I are very blessed to have these girls; we are also pleased to help nurture and love them.
I’m happy to report that Kelsi made it through kindergarten just fine. In fact, her teacher had to be absent quite a lot toward the end of the school year because of a death in the family. There were numerous substitutes. Shortly before the regular teacher returned, one of the subs reported to Kelsi’s mother, who happens to also be a kindergarten teacher, that Kelsi probably hadn’t had her best week. The substitute said, "It took me nearly all week to get control of the room back from Kelsi." So, I think Kelsi did okay. Kelsi provides lots of material, and she’s going to have a super first grade this fall. But, I decided not to be too much of a doting grandfather.
Although I don’t really want to focus on money, because you’ll talk about that in just a little bit, I decided I couldn’t ignore the financial crisis that we face. More than $89 million was withheld from the appropriation for public schools for FY03. With cuts to the Foundation Formula, technology, A+ Schools and other programs, we now know that the distribution will be over $200 million less than what was appropriated for FY04. With the FY04 appropriation already reflecting more than $100 million less than FY03, we have over $400 million less for public schools than we anticipated going into the 2002-2003 school year.
$400 million fewer dollars for education over two years has to have a negative impact on what you and I can do for kids. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to do more with less. We will. It can’t mean we don’t try to educate all kids. We will. It means that there are things that you can’t do.
I commend many of you for the financial management that enabled you not to have to make dramatic cuts. I hope that you made good decisions about which programs to cut. I also hope that none of you built your budgets on the appropriated amount, because I don’t think that will be there. Sound fiscal management is crucial to providing quality education for kids.
I heard a lot of talk in the halls of the Capitol about all the balances that districts have. Perhaps some of you did have too big a balance. "Too big" is a relative term, of course. If you’re highly dependent on state aid, you probably don’t need as big a balance as if you’re not as dependent on state aid, at least in normal times. But, those of you who had balances are going to survive; and you certainly had more options than those who did not.
We know that there were significant tax levy increases in some communities. I commend the people in those communities, and I commend you for your leadership in going forward. You helped your community invest in its own future. But that doesn’t take care of the issue of equity of opportunity and equity of support for public education.
I know a group of you got together on Sunday to talk about suing the state and me. To quote that famous Missouri philosopher, Yogi Berra, "This sounds like deja vu all over again." Well, I’m not looking forward to being sued; but I’ll tell you this: If litigation is what it takes to get action on generating revenue for the boys and girls of this state, that’s what needs to happen.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about money. But I do know that you can’t educate kids without money. Do we always have our priorities right? Do we make the right decisions about where we spend the money? We could argue endlessly about those questions, but we have to have money. As I said, you’re going to talk about money in the next session; and, in fact, that may be why most of you stayed. In that session, you will be talking primarily about the 2003-04 school year. I want to encourage us to look further out and to think about providing the leadership, providing the data, and telling the story, to move forward to a long-term solution to the financial crisis.
So, you can see that I had a hard time deciding what to focus on; but I ultimately decided to focus on "who you are," "why we’re here," and "what we do." I know it’s early in the day to ask you to think about such philosophical issues. But, go ahead and drink your wake-up coffee and bear with me a few minutes, please.
I’m going to suggest that who you are, who all of us in this room are, is a group of forestry arborists. We plant trees. That’s a pretty simple description of our jobs, but there’s an old Greek saying which is: "A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit." That’s not something you haven’t heard before or something you haven’t thought of. It’s been around a long time. However, it captures the essence of who we are.
When I left the superintendency seven years ago, I received various mementos, some very nice, some attempts at humor. But one that I received which hangs on my office wall at home is the Golden Acorn Award from the student council at Rolla High School. The gist of that award was that I had helped to plant some trees.
What kind of trees are we planting? What kind of trees do we want? What do we need to do differently for different varieties of trees? School board members, elected officials, and school administrators make decisions that determine not only how many trees we plant but what kind of trees we plant and how well we are able to feed those trees. We are responsible for lots of things as we go about taking care of the business of operating Missouri public schools. You have tons of decisions to make every week. And, I know, oftentimes, you don’t think about planting trees. But those trees are awfully important; and how we go about nurturing the trees that are, in fact, our kids, is the mark of how well we do our jobs.
Why are you here? You’re here, I believe, because you want to know, because you want to learn, because you want to find out things from your colleagues, perhaps because you want to leave feeling better because you find out you’re not in as bad shape as some of your friends. But I hope the underlying reason is that you’re committed to being the best forestry arborists you can be.
I mentioned that I think public education is under attack. Frankly, I’m not convinced yet, although perhaps I should be, that many of the people who I might characterize as enemies of public education are being enemies intentionally. Some, I think, are doing so because they just don’t understand.
Part of why you’re here, I hope, is to have better answers, to do a better job to help educate, not just the kids, but those who make decisions about kids in a way that will help us convince people that public education is, in fact, the only institution in this country that works to equalize opportunities for kids and ultimately makes this democracy work. With the growing ethnic diversity of this nation, this fundamental role of public education is as vital as it has ever been in our history.
The famous Thomas Jefferson quote couldn’t be more true. He said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Who are you? Why are you here? What is our mission? We must educate all kids. In order for us to do that, we have to have the support of many people. Part of our job is to make sure that we educate all kids so that we can defend accurately that we do the kind of job that must be done. An old superintendent friend gave me some advice when I started into this business. He said that we’d better educate all the kids because you never know which one of your students will ultimately be your board member. Yes, it’s imperative that we educate all those kids, even those who challenge us the most. And the people who are critics of public education are most frequently stimulated in their criticism because there is clear evidence that we have not always educated all students.
When you signed on for this trip, whether it’s this year, or 20 years ago, or 40 years ago, you probably signed on because you wanted to help, because you believed. Most of us in here probably wouldn’t be where we are if it had not been for public education. Most of us wouldn’t be in here if someone hadn’t planted some trees. Personally, I think back to a group of individuals who decided in the late 1950s that their three little school districts couldn’t provide the kind of education that kids needed any more. They had the courage to consolidate and create a reorganized school district from those three little communities, where Sandy and I both had an opportunity to get a better education than would have been possible otherwise. They, too, planted trees.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character: that is the goal of true education." As we go about this business, and as we go about our task over the next few years of making sure that people understand why public education not only must survive but will survive, we have to remember that, when we walk out the door for that last time, character is what we have left. We have to be terribly honest. We have to be terribly thoughtful. We have to be very forthright. Character must rule the day in the decisions we make, in the statements we make, in how we deliver the message about our mission. "Who you are," "why you’re here," and "what your mission is" all ties to the character of the individual, and shapes the character of your organization. I would argue that a number of people who are critical of public education are genuine in their criticism because public education is not perfect. There are others, however, who do not demonstrate the kind of character that they should because they are attacking public education for ulterior motives. They really want to undermine it. We can’t afford to let them win.
We had a major piece of federal legislation, No Child Left Behind, that’s now been in place for 18 months. Ruby Payne talked about it yesterday. Every state now has its Accountability Plan approved by the United States Department of Education. We presented a plan to try to comply with the federal law and to try to make certain that we will be able to continue the progress toward excellence that’s been going on in this state for a long, long time. We didn’t compromise our character. We stood for what we believed. We will continue to stand for what we believe. Yeah, we’ve received criticism, including some from people in this room, because we didn’t try to create a low performance expectation for kids so that all schools could meet adequate yearly progress. None of us really believe that it’s more important to lower expectations so we can avoid being on some list. Nobody here really believes that.
As you know, the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) will be used as the yardstick which the federal government uses to determine if states have set "proficiency" at appropriate levels. I am really pleased with Missouri's 2002 reading results on the NAEP. They demonstrate that our kids are learning and reading better at both 4th and 8th grades. Interestingly, they also suggest our proficient level on the MAP may not be significantly high. From the 2002 scores, it appears that Missouri’s "Proficient and above" scores on the Grade 4 NAEP are only slightly below the Grade 3 MAP "proficient or above" scores. Grades 7 and 8 show comparable results. As we go about establishing cut points for the new tests which will be developed for grades 3 through 8, we will keep in mind how the students score on the NAEP. We also will look at each grade level so that "proficiency" will be a continuum from grades 3 through 11. This annual testing will ultimately give us a more accurate picture of student improvement and will also give you and your teachers even better evidence on which to base improved teaching strategies.
Are the goals of No Child Left Behind correct? Yes, they are. Are they attainable? Not the way the law is written. Will we work to educate all kids? Yes, we will. Will we work to try to modify a piece of federal legislation that needs work? Yes, we will. When we walk away, will we have done the right thing for the most kids? Yes, we will.
We can’t realize the kind of respect public education deserves unless we do so in a way that exemplifies what we all believe, what we stand for, who we are.
Our frustration with No Child Left Behind can’t detract from the basic mission, which is to educate all students. If we continue making progress toward educating all students, then we won’t have to worry about some of these peripheral issues. We need to continue to do those things which will lead us to improved student performance. We need to provide the structure for classroom teachers, provide the opportunities for improved teaching, and nurture those trees that are our students.
We have to keep in mind that good teachers are what make all the difference in whether we succeed in educating our kids. But I would propose that we may have to redefine good teaching. Good teachers in white upper middle class neighborhoods may not be successful in poor, ethnic minority buildings. In fact, I would argue that they are unlikely to be successful if they don’t change. Teachers cannot teach the same way in the second scenario that they do in the first.
You see, those good teachers don’t become unsuccessful because they change assignments; they become unsuccessful because they don’t change practices and strategies. The kids are different. Their needs are different. Their expectations, the skills, the strategies are all different. And part of our job is to provide, not only the resources, but also the time and expertise to help good teachers grow and adapt to new demands. It’s really hard to keep the focus on improved teaching in tough financial times, but we only get better by changing the behavior of adults!
If we’re really going to succeed in making public education work, we have to continue the changes we’ve begun when we planted those trees, in starting younger, in keeping the focus on our youngest kids. We can’t ignore the data that continues to show that early childhood education--like Parents as Teachers, like quality pre-school programs--means better performance because kids come to school ready to learn.
To take the "tree planting" analogy another step, if we really are going to nurture the seedlings to make them the best trees we can, we need them ready when they come to us, when we begin that process. Therefore, it’s incumbent on us to continue to focus on doing the right things for young kids by providing strong early childhood programs, and by working with other institutions within our communities to make certain that the curricula which their teachers use provide for smooth transitions into our kindergarten programs. To talk about planting trees, to talk about being the kind of person we have to be to provide the kind of education that is needed, and to really create the possibility of educating all kids, we have to continue and expand that focus, even in tough times.
We need a lot of help as public education plants the forests of the next generation. If poor kids, if African American kids, if Hispanic kids do not believe that there is value in getting an education, if they don’t see that they have a future, if they don’t find that they have job opportunities, then why should they suffer through getting an education? We need the help of business leaders in insuring those opportunities for kids. We need to ask them, "Do kids have opportunities to come to work for you if they are from a different culture, a different background, if they are a different color?"
So, how do we continue to display the kind of character of which our children can be proud? How do we promote the qualities and value of public education? We know that all kids aren’t going to do as well as we would like; therefore, we’ll have some areas where MAP performance will not demonstrate enough improvement. And we’ll certainly have schools and districts not meeting adequate yearly progress. In fact, we will certainly have some areas in which the state doesn’t meet AYP. That doesn’t mean "a school" is not doing some things right, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we collectively aren’t doing lots of things right.
So we have to have the courage to say, "We’re doing a good job of educating, but we need to do better with this particular group or groups." All of this becomes dangerous, I guess, as we think about admitting that we aren’t perfect. We must do that. We have to have the courage to ask for help. We have to have the character to say that we need to do more to have more resources, and we have to have the help of lots of people to get it done. Our kids must know that we strongly believe in the institution of public education. They must also know that the success of all of them is important enough to fight for!
Working to Make this Country Great
This is the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and our teachers will be using material concerning Lewis and Clark in an expanded way, I imagine. As we think about their journey, which began in Missouri, going up uncharted water--and looking for a place that didn’t exist as it turned out--we need to realize how courageous that was, how significant it was and how relevant it is to what we do.
I started talking about the fact that we’re arborists, we plant trees. Lewis and Clark didn’t plant trees. They discovered trees. They discovered many species of trees which they didn’t know existed before. Perhaps, in public education, we’re learning about some new species as well. Our kids have different needs. They come from different backgrounds. They speak differently. You know, "It’s not like it used to be."
Lewis and Clark mapped the rivers. They identified various species of plants and trees and animals and people. What they did paved the way for many of the other things that happened to make this country great. It’s really what we’re about, folks.
Working to continue making this country great, working to continue to provide opportunities for kids to grow, to expand their horizons; but, for us to do that, we have to stand tall. We have to demonstrate the kind of character that says public education is, in fact, the most significant institution in this country. It’s done more, and it continues to do more, to provide opportunities for kids than anything else. We can’t let the attacks, whether financial or philosophical, deflect us from our basic mission. We have to say who we are and what we believe. We have to make sure we demonstrate our commitment to educate all kids, and we have to succeed because that’s what the public expects us to do. We have to admit that we aren’t where we want to be and that we have shortcomings. Ultimately, we have to fight the fight.
So as we go into this year, knowing we have major issues with money, we can’t forget that we’re really about planting trees. And the only reason we need money is so we can help them and nurture them and make them grow tall and straight in a way that will provide them with the roots to succeed.
Believing in public education is not enough. We have to demonstrate the character that Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of; the "undaunted courage" that Lewis and Clark displayed, to borrow a phrase. We have to have the character to admit that we have improvement to make. We have to have the character to win—for the kids!