Post by EagleDad on Feb 15, 2007 12:44:37 GMT -6
www.ipsd.org/suptsearch/board_statement.asp
Board of Education’s Statement to the Community On the Hiring of Dr. Stephen Daeschner
Click here to download this statement in Adobe Reader format (PDF).
On February 15, 2007, the Indian Prairie Board of Education announced that it has selected Dr. Stephen W. Daeschner to be the next Superintendent of Schools, beginning July 1, 2007. The purpose of this statement is to explain the process the board used to select the Superintendent and share our thought process and our excitement in naming Dr. Daeschner as our next Superintendent.
The Search ProcessWe began the search process in May 2006 with an in-service program provided by the Illinois Association of School Boards. Field Service Director Dawn Miller spent more than two hours with the Board describing the current processes of Superintendent searches and pointing out a number of important differences in the search process and the candidate marketplace since the Board last conducted a search in 1993-1994 to hire Dr. Gail McKinzie.
Ms. Miller provided articles and statistical information to amplify one critical point, that the number of persons seeking Superintendent positions – both in Illinois and throughout the nation – has declined dramatically. Part of that is due to early retirement programs in states such as Illinois that have made it financially attractive for educators to retire in their fifties. Part of it is also that the number of persons securing the credentials necessary to be a Superintendent is declining nationally as the pressures of the position grow. For those and a variety of other reasons, the average length of a Superintendency in Illinois is now less than three years.
Further complicating the situation of a shrinking market was the fact that most of the Superintendent candidates likely to be of interest to our school district would already have attractive jobs, would not likely be seeking employment, and would therefore require a consultant to persuade them to consider applying for the position.
With the combination of challenges we faced, the Board readily agreed with Ms. Miller’s advice that hiring a search consultant was a necessary part of the process.
The Board prepared a Request for Proposals and arranged for it to be delivered to more than thirty search consultants around the country with proven experience in locating and placing school Superintendents. After reviewing the proposals we received, the Board invited three firms to make a presentation to the Board on their proposal. That process resulted in the Board selecting the Glenview, Illinois based firm of Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates. This was the same firm selected by the Indian Prairie Board when both Dr. Thomas Scullen and Dr. Gail McKinzie were hired, and was the firm hired by Naperville School District 203 to find Dr. Alan Leis. The same firm has been selected by the Wheaton-Warrenville Board for their current search and by the Illinois State Board of Education to locate the next State Superintendent of Schools.
The firm’s sole remaining name Principal, Dr. William Attea, agreed to serve as leader of our search.
The search process began in the late Summer of 2006 with the Board’s initial meeting with Dr. Attea. At that time, Dr. Attea underscored the lessons provided by Dawn Miller in June and recommended that the Board consider conducting a search that was confidential. Reiterating Ms. Miller’s point that the candidate pool continues to dwindle, Dr. Attea reminded the Board that the majority of potential candidates of interest were most likely already gainfully employed in attractive positions. As such, they would have very little interest in jeopardizing those positions. A confidential search would provide such candidates with the assurance that their current districts would not easily learn of their interest in another district and create the largest potential applicant pool for our position. After deliberation, the Board agreed to conduct the search confidentially. The Board thereafter agreed to advertise and conduct a national search and to adhere to a timeline for the search to conclude in mid-February of 2007.
The formal commencement of the search took place in September of 2006, when a team of people from Hazard, Young came to the district to interview district groups (including Foundation board members and the Parents Diversity Advisory Council, among others). The consultants also met with individual parents, community leaders, PTA representatives, principals, teachers, district administrators and employees. Two different sessions were offered for members of the public at large to meet with search consultants as well.
In October of 2006, the search firm compiled the information they collected and presented it to the Board as the framework for the search criteria for the person being sought. Among the most commonly mentioned characteristics from all participants were visionary leadership, strong communication skills, experience in improving student achievement and ability to work toward closing the achievement gap between majority and minority students.
Advertisements were placed in national publications and the search firm began the process of recruiting viable candidates. In early January of 2007, the Board received a report from the search firm and was presented with a list of six persons whom the search firm recommended be interviewed for the position. At that point, the Board’s work of reviewing resumes, letters of recommendation, telephone calls to references and tangential sources of information about each of the candidates began. The Board scheduled each candidate to have a two hour first interview with the Board. The interviews were conducted back-to-back on a Friday and Saturday in Naperville.
As noted above, the Board agreed to conduct a confidential search, so the names of the other persons we interviewed will remain confidential. Each was and remains currently employed. The slate of interviewed candidates included people with experience in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Arizona, Texas, Alaska and Kentucky. We were impressed with each of them, and each brought something unique to the position.
Following the last of the interviews, the Board was then joined again by its search consultant and met for more than eight hours to review notes, discuss observations and opinions and arrive at a “short list” of persons to invite back for second interviews. The candidates invited back for second interviews were brought back to Naperville for a full day each, along with spouses. The candidates’ days included a lunch meeting with part of the Board, a tour of the district including some of the buildings, a dinner meeting with the entire Board and the candidate’s spouse, followed by second interviews that ranged from two and one-half to three hours in length. Each candidate also had an exit interview the following morning.
The conclusion of the second interviews brought to an end a process in which the Board had spent more than 85 hours together in the course of one week interviewing candidates and discussing them with each other. Adding in the individual time spent in vetting references, conducting background checks, triangulating from information supplied and information developed and preparing for the interview sessions, each Board member spent well in excess of 120 hours on the search in the last half of January alone.
The Selection of Dr. DaeschnerThe meetings which followed the second interviews were long and involved frank discussions of the remaining candidates. Eventually, the Board agreed that Dr. Daeschner was the front-runner among the candidates. At the beginning of the search, Dr. Attea had emphasized the importance of the Board conducting a site visit to the district of the front runner. As Dr. Attea explained to us last summer, a site visit presents the opportunity to see the candidate in his or her current environment. It affords the chance to meet with the Board members, parents, teachers, principals, central office staff and community and area business leaders to gain further perspective on what the interview process produces. In many ways, it operates as both a “double-check” and an opportunity to test the truth of what’s been learned against the reality present in a district. Finally, it presents the opportunity for a third interview.
Based on the advice of the search consultant, the Board made the decision to send all seven of its members to Dr. Daeschner’s district in Louisville, Kentucky. Among other things, Dr. Attea pointed out that having a seven member team would present the opportunity to cover far more ground in an urban and suburban district with more than 90,000 students. The Board developed a list of the persons with whom it wanted to meet and in the course of a one day site visit, met on a formally scheduled basis with 62 people and informally with many more.
The Board is aware that the decision for the entire Board to make the site visit will strike some as frivolous or a needless expenditure, but we deem the expenditure of less than $2,500 to confirm such an important decision a good investment. We traveled cheaply on Southwest Airlines at an average of approximately $225 per person and secured seven hotel rooms at less than $100 for the night. What that expenditure bought us was a complete convincing that Dr. Daeschner was the right person to hire.
The logistics of moving the Board members about and facilitating the planned meetings was an impressive display of organization. Everyone with whom we interacted (both scheduled and unscheduled), sung the praises of Dr. Daeschner. Each of us also had opportunities to talk to random area residents, all of whom spoke with pride about both the City of Louisville and their public school system.
Among the very impressive things we learned that day are the following:
Three adjectives every person had for Dr. Daeschner were the same: “Child focused, data-driven and tireless.” “Passionate” was a very close fourth, followed by frequent mention of “collaborative,” “outcome-oriented,” “innovative,” “forward-thinking,” “proactive,” and “energetic.”
Dr. Daeschner’s leadership and vision are exceptional. He is more of a visionary leader than we had expected to find, and has substantial, practical experience that will serve him well in Indian Prairie. One person we met with was Robbie Valentine, a Louisville business leader and member of the University of Louisville NCAA national men’s basketball championship team led by legendary coach Denny Crum. Mr. Valentine is, among other things, a school board President in the next county. After reminding us of his experience in working with a Hall of Fame coach, Mr. Valentine offered his opinion that Dr. Daeschner was a “Hall of Fame Superintendent.” He also confessed his desire to have Dr. Daeschner become his district’s next Superintendent.
Dr. Daeschner’s ability to muster the support and participation of the entire community – parents and business leaders alike – is a singular asset and very rare skill. Among other things, the Louisville district’s IPPC equivalent told us that parental involvement was, for Dr. Daeschner, simply non-negotiable. It is encouraged in many ways and the building principals spoke of the expectations imposed on them to gain parental participation and support. PTA membership is one of the data elements tracked and reported by the district each year as one measure of parental participation.
Businesses and area leaders flock to the Louisville schools in response to Daeschner’s encouragement. They like so much of what they see that they vote their support with their checkbooks. The Every 1 Reads program, championed by Dr. Daeschner as a vehicle for having all students reading at grade level by 2009 has collected more than $8 million in matching grants from area businesses in the last several years. Others have been inspired to take ownership of classrooms and provide for their upkeep, maintenance and student attention needs.
Data drives the operation of Dr. Daeschner’s district. Research driven, data-based decision making is the expectation for every aspect of the district’s operation. Principals are expected to quantify the specific student learning opportunities and gains produced in their buildings and requests for additional funds or programs are evaluated and sold on the basis of quantifiable benefit for student achievement.
When the GE Foundation went looking for a school system in which to make a substantial investment aimed at piloting improved student achievement in mathematics and science, it selected Louisville and Daeschner to receive up to $30 million to completely overhaul math and science education.
The District has a number of Blue Ribbon schools. Two of the five Blue Ribbon elementary schools have more than 89% of the attending students on free or reduced lunch (i.e., low income). That level of student achievement is exemplary, but it is hardly surprising in a district that has a near laser-like focus on student achievement across the board. One high school alone has forty-four National Merit Finalists walking its halls. The district as a whole had fifty-two finalists.
More than half of the enrollment of the Louisville schools consists of racial minorities. Under Dr. Daeschner’s leadership, the graduation rate in Louisville for African-American students has soared. And while district leadership will freely admit that the work is far from complete, the gains in closing the achievement gap are impressive. One of the people we met with is the Dean of the School of Education at the University of Louisville. He has been studying student achievement in urban districts in the United States and proudly reported that the accomplishments in student achievement and minority student achievement in Louisville easily outpaced every other urban school system in the country.
That Dr. Daeschner has been able to lead the sort of change taking place in Louisville is all the more impressive in light of Kentucky education laws, which present significant challenges. Among the difficulties is that the hiring of principals is controlled by a site-based decision-making council at each school. While the district could terminate a principal, the site council has the authority to rehire the fired principal, if it so chooses. Curriculum is similarly site-based. Kentucky law gives the decision-making authority over curriculum to the council as well. Dr. Daeschner’s ability to succeed in that environment (and to thrive in it professionally for fourteen years) is a significant testament to his ability to champion the needs of children. It also speaks volumes about his leadership in that he has been able to cause a majority of the schools to adopt a standardized curriculum and approach.
One of the ultimate goals of Indian Prairie has always been to foster a culture of lifelong learning. Dr. Daeschner practices that same notion, even with his staff – he leads by example. The entire administrative team in Louisville periodically receives a copy of the same book, and that book forms the focus of their collective efforts for the next several weeks. The books have included a number of well-known business and leadership titles, but it is apparent that Jim Collins’ Good to Great holds a special place in the hearts of Dr. Daeschner and his district’s leaders.
We believe that Dr. Daeschner possesses the skills to take Indian Prairie from Good to Great. We know that he has the skills to teach us to maximize student achievement by making substantial use of the growing volume of data we are now collecting. As a Board, we know that we will learn from Dr. Daeschner. So will the entire Indian Prairie community. We know that he has the ability to marshal the support of a community, and we believe that he will inspire our teachers, our principals and our parents to work together to make real the mission of Indian Prairie: Preparing All Students to Succeed.
* * * * *
In the late part of January this year, the Board received a small number of email messages from people passing along gossip, rumor and innuendo related to the possibility of our hiring Dr. Daeschner. Our research and investigations concluded that there was no basis for any of the worries expressed in those messages.
Some suggested that Louisville’s public schools were so poor that there was a run on private school enrollment. We found the opposite to be true. Given Dr. Daeschner’s thirst for data, it shouldn’t be surprising that one of the data points he tracks is market share – what proportion of the school age children in the district attend the district’s public schools. For each of the last several years, the Jefferson County Public Schools have taken market share from the private and parochial schools. One principal reported with pride the fact that two years earlier, more than 1,300 children transferred from private schools to the public schools. At present, almost 80% of the students in Jefferson County attend the public schools. By way of comparison, 88% of the students in DuPage County attend public schools (we don’t have easy access to the same data in Will County).
The teaching staff, principals and district leadership overwhelmingly choose the public schools for their children. Each spoke with pride about the education their children were receiving, and they were in buildings all over the county.
One worry that was expressed concerned Dr. Daeschner’s age – he is 64. We made a point of asking almost everyone about it, and generally received the same response: laughter followed by a challenge to even try keeping up with him. Dr. Daeschner is a former triathlete and avid bicyclist who rides up to 200 miles each week. He’s easily the youngest 64 any of us has ever seen and his energy is boundless. One of the things he told us that he was looking for was a district of 20,000 to 50,000 students for “one last good run” and an effort to take it to the top. The district size was important to him because he knows from his experience that in a district of that size he could have an appreciable impact without having to fight the layers of bureaucracy that come with a larger district. And he defines “one last good run” to be at least 5-6 more years. Given the average length of Illinois Superintendencies now falling below three years, we are comfortable with that sort of commitment, particularly since Dr. Daeschner will be implementing systems and approaches that can be carried on into the future.
One writer worried that Indian Prairie would incur substantial current or future retirement costs in hiring Dr. Daeschner. The district’s retirement obligations have nothing whatsoever to do with the age of the Superintendent, so that’s simply not an issue. Superintendent retirements, like teacher retirements, are handled by the state through the Illinois Teachers Retirement System.
Another set of authors expressed concern that Louisville had nothing in common with Indian Prairie, such that Dr. Daeschner’s experience wouldn’t translate. It’s true that the Jefferson County Public Schools are both larger than we are and considerably more diverse. We see both as a plus. The East part of Jefferson County is demographically indistinguishable from Indian Prairie (and actually larger), and the skills Dr. Daeschner needed to succeed there are no different than those he will need here. We believe that his substantial work on the achievement gap and minority student achievement will be a considerable asset. The process of the Superintendent search also reinforced our belief that success in the Superintendency is less about specific experience than it is about leadership skill and ability. We believe that his leadership will inspire our system to new heights of student achievement.
The final source of unease shared with the Board was the fact that the Louisville Board chose, after 14 years, not to renew Dr. Daeschner’s contract. We know that there are all kinds of reasons that a Board can choose not to renew a contract, particularly on a 4-3 vote. We’ve spoken with Jefferson County Board members, their principals, their parents, the community leaders and many people knowledgeable about the district. We are quite comfortable that the Jefferson County Board’s decision not to renew Dr. Daeschner’s contract is part of the political reality that comes with a Board elected by geographic divisions and does not speak to his professional abilities in any way. Not one of the more than sixty people we met with was happy to see Dr. Daeschner leaving. As one community leader we met with put it, “the only four people happy about Daeschner’s departure are the four who voted to make it happen.” The fact that Dr. Daeschner became Superintendent of the Year for the State of Kentucky in 2006 says more to us about his talent and ability than the decision not to renew his contract in that same year.
The Board of Education
Jeannette Clark, President
Bruce Glawe, Vice President
John Stephens, Secretary
Curt Bradshaw
Mark Metzger
Alka Tyle
Chris Vickers
Board of Education’s Statement to the Community On the Hiring of Dr. Stephen Daeschner
Click here to download this statement in Adobe Reader format (PDF).
On February 15, 2007, the Indian Prairie Board of Education announced that it has selected Dr. Stephen W. Daeschner to be the next Superintendent of Schools, beginning July 1, 2007. The purpose of this statement is to explain the process the board used to select the Superintendent and share our thought process and our excitement in naming Dr. Daeschner as our next Superintendent.
The Search ProcessWe began the search process in May 2006 with an in-service program provided by the Illinois Association of School Boards. Field Service Director Dawn Miller spent more than two hours with the Board describing the current processes of Superintendent searches and pointing out a number of important differences in the search process and the candidate marketplace since the Board last conducted a search in 1993-1994 to hire Dr. Gail McKinzie.
Ms. Miller provided articles and statistical information to amplify one critical point, that the number of persons seeking Superintendent positions – both in Illinois and throughout the nation – has declined dramatically. Part of that is due to early retirement programs in states such as Illinois that have made it financially attractive for educators to retire in their fifties. Part of it is also that the number of persons securing the credentials necessary to be a Superintendent is declining nationally as the pressures of the position grow. For those and a variety of other reasons, the average length of a Superintendency in Illinois is now less than three years.
Further complicating the situation of a shrinking market was the fact that most of the Superintendent candidates likely to be of interest to our school district would already have attractive jobs, would not likely be seeking employment, and would therefore require a consultant to persuade them to consider applying for the position.
With the combination of challenges we faced, the Board readily agreed with Ms. Miller’s advice that hiring a search consultant was a necessary part of the process.
The Board prepared a Request for Proposals and arranged for it to be delivered to more than thirty search consultants around the country with proven experience in locating and placing school Superintendents. After reviewing the proposals we received, the Board invited three firms to make a presentation to the Board on their proposal. That process resulted in the Board selecting the Glenview, Illinois based firm of Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates. This was the same firm selected by the Indian Prairie Board when both Dr. Thomas Scullen and Dr. Gail McKinzie were hired, and was the firm hired by Naperville School District 203 to find Dr. Alan Leis. The same firm has been selected by the Wheaton-Warrenville Board for their current search and by the Illinois State Board of Education to locate the next State Superintendent of Schools.
The firm’s sole remaining name Principal, Dr. William Attea, agreed to serve as leader of our search.
The search process began in the late Summer of 2006 with the Board’s initial meeting with Dr. Attea. At that time, Dr. Attea underscored the lessons provided by Dawn Miller in June and recommended that the Board consider conducting a search that was confidential. Reiterating Ms. Miller’s point that the candidate pool continues to dwindle, Dr. Attea reminded the Board that the majority of potential candidates of interest were most likely already gainfully employed in attractive positions. As such, they would have very little interest in jeopardizing those positions. A confidential search would provide such candidates with the assurance that their current districts would not easily learn of their interest in another district and create the largest potential applicant pool for our position. After deliberation, the Board agreed to conduct the search confidentially. The Board thereafter agreed to advertise and conduct a national search and to adhere to a timeline for the search to conclude in mid-February of 2007.
The formal commencement of the search took place in September of 2006, when a team of people from Hazard, Young came to the district to interview district groups (including Foundation board members and the Parents Diversity Advisory Council, among others). The consultants also met with individual parents, community leaders, PTA representatives, principals, teachers, district administrators and employees. Two different sessions were offered for members of the public at large to meet with search consultants as well.
In October of 2006, the search firm compiled the information they collected and presented it to the Board as the framework for the search criteria for the person being sought. Among the most commonly mentioned characteristics from all participants were visionary leadership, strong communication skills, experience in improving student achievement and ability to work toward closing the achievement gap between majority and minority students.
Advertisements were placed in national publications and the search firm began the process of recruiting viable candidates. In early January of 2007, the Board received a report from the search firm and was presented with a list of six persons whom the search firm recommended be interviewed for the position. At that point, the Board’s work of reviewing resumes, letters of recommendation, telephone calls to references and tangential sources of information about each of the candidates began. The Board scheduled each candidate to have a two hour first interview with the Board. The interviews were conducted back-to-back on a Friday and Saturday in Naperville.
As noted above, the Board agreed to conduct a confidential search, so the names of the other persons we interviewed will remain confidential. Each was and remains currently employed. The slate of interviewed candidates included people with experience in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Arizona, Texas, Alaska and Kentucky. We were impressed with each of them, and each brought something unique to the position.
Following the last of the interviews, the Board was then joined again by its search consultant and met for more than eight hours to review notes, discuss observations and opinions and arrive at a “short list” of persons to invite back for second interviews. The candidates invited back for second interviews were brought back to Naperville for a full day each, along with spouses. The candidates’ days included a lunch meeting with part of the Board, a tour of the district including some of the buildings, a dinner meeting with the entire Board and the candidate’s spouse, followed by second interviews that ranged from two and one-half to three hours in length. Each candidate also had an exit interview the following morning.
The conclusion of the second interviews brought to an end a process in which the Board had spent more than 85 hours together in the course of one week interviewing candidates and discussing them with each other. Adding in the individual time spent in vetting references, conducting background checks, triangulating from information supplied and information developed and preparing for the interview sessions, each Board member spent well in excess of 120 hours on the search in the last half of January alone.
The Selection of Dr. DaeschnerThe meetings which followed the second interviews were long and involved frank discussions of the remaining candidates. Eventually, the Board agreed that Dr. Daeschner was the front-runner among the candidates. At the beginning of the search, Dr. Attea had emphasized the importance of the Board conducting a site visit to the district of the front runner. As Dr. Attea explained to us last summer, a site visit presents the opportunity to see the candidate in his or her current environment. It affords the chance to meet with the Board members, parents, teachers, principals, central office staff and community and area business leaders to gain further perspective on what the interview process produces. In many ways, it operates as both a “double-check” and an opportunity to test the truth of what’s been learned against the reality present in a district. Finally, it presents the opportunity for a third interview.
Based on the advice of the search consultant, the Board made the decision to send all seven of its members to Dr. Daeschner’s district in Louisville, Kentucky. Among other things, Dr. Attea pointed out that having a seven member team would present the opportunity to cover far more ground in an urban and suburban district with more than 90,000 students. The Board developed a list of the persons with whom it wanted to meet and in the course of a one day site visit, met on a formally scheduled basis with 62 people and informally with many more.
The Board is aware that the decision for the entire Board to make the site visit will strike some as frivolous or a needless expenditure, but we deem the expenditure of less than $2,500 to confirm such an important decision a good investment. We traveled cheaply on Southwest Airlines at an average of approximately $225 per person and secured seven hotel rooms at less than $100 for the night. What that expenditure bought us was a complete convincing that Dr. Daeschner was the right person to hire.
The logistics of moving the Board members about and facilitating the planned meetings was an impressive display of organization. Everyone with whom we interacted (both scheduled and unscheduled), sung the praises of Dr. Daeschner. Each of us also had opportunities to talk to random area residents, all of whom spoke with pride about both the City of Louisville and their public school system.
Among the very impressive things we learned that day are the following:
Three adjectives every person had for Dr. Daeschner were the same: “Child focused, data-driven and tireless.” “Passionate” was a very close fourth, followed by frequent mention of “collaborative,” “outcome-oriented,” “innovative,” “forward-thinking,” “proactive,” and “energetic.”
Dr. Daeschner’s leadership and vision are exceptional. He is more of a visionary leader than we had expected to find, and has substantial, practical experience that will serve him well in Indian Prairie. One person we met with was Robbie Valentine, a Louisville business leader and member of the University of Louisville NCAA national men’s basketball championship team led by legendary coach Denny Crum. Mr. Valentine is, among other things, a school board President in the next county. After reminding us of his experience in working with a Hall of Fame coach, Mr. Valentine offered his opinion that Dr. Daeschner was a “Hall of Fame Superintendent.” He also confessed his desire to have Dr. Daeschner become his district’s next Superintendent.
Dr. Daeschner’s ability to muster the support and participation of the entire community – parents and business leaders alike – is a singular asset and very rare skill. Among other things, the Louisville district’s IPPC equivalent told us that parental involvement was, for Dr. Daeschner, simply non-negotiable. It is encouraged in many ways and the building principals spoke of the expectations imposed on them to gain parental participation and support. PTA membership is one of the data elements tracked and reported by the district each year as one measure of parental participation.
Businesses and area leaders flock to the Louisville schools in response to Daeschner’s encouragement. They like so much of what they see that they vote their support with their checkbooks. The Every 1 Reads program, championed by Dr. Daeschner as a vehicle for having all students reading at grade level by 2009 has collected more than $8 million in matching grants from area businesses in the last several years. Others have been inspired to take ownership of classrooms and provide for their upkeep, maintenance and student attention needs.
Data drives the operation of Dr. Daeschner’s district. Research driven, data-based decision making is the expectation for every aspect of the district’s operation. Principals are expected to quantify the specific student learning opportunities and gains produced in their buildings and requests for additional funds or programs are evaluated and sold on the basis of quantifiable benefit for student achievement.
When the GE Foundation went looking for a school system in which to make a substantial investment aimed at piloting improved student achievement in mathematics and science, it selected Louisville and Daeschner to receive up to $30 million to completely overhaul math and science education.
The District has a number of Blue Ribbon schools. Two of the five Blue Ribbon elementary schools have more than 89% of the attending students on free or reduced lunch (i.e., low income). That level of student achievement is exemplary, but it is hardly surprising in a district that has a near laser-like focus on student achievement across the board. One high school alone has forty-four National Merit Finalists walking its halls. The district as a whole had fifty-two finalists.
More than half of the enrollment of the Louisville schools consists of racial minorities. Under Dr. Daeschner’s leadership, the graduation rate in Louisville for African-American students has soared. And while district leadership will freely admit that the work is far from complete, the gains in closing the achievement gap are impressive. One of the people we met with is the Dean of the School of Education at the University of Louisville. He has been studying student achievement in urban districts in the United States and proudly reported that the accomplishments in student achievement and minority student achievement in Louisville easily outpaced every other urban school system in the country.
That Dr. Daeschner has been able to lead the sort of change taking place in Louisville is all the more impressive in light of Kentucky education laws, which present significant challenges. Among the difficulties is that the hiring of principals is controlled by a site-based decision-making council at each school. While the district could terminate a principal, the site council has the authority to rehire the fired principal, if it so chooses. Curriculum is similarly site-based. Kentucky law gives the decision-making authority over curriculum to the council as well. Dr. Daeschner’s ability to succeed in that environment (and to thrive in it professionally for fourteen years) is a significant testament to his ability to champion the needs of children. It also speaks volumes about his leadership in that he has been able to cause a majority of the schools to adopt a standardized curriculum and approach.
One of the ultimate goals of Indian Prairie has always been to foster a culture of lifelong learning. Dr. Daeschner practices that same notion, even with his staff – he leads by example. The entire administrative team in Louisville periodically receives a copy of the same book, and that book forms the focus of their collective efforts for the next several weeks. The books have included a number of well-known business and leadership titles, but it is apparent that Jim Collins’ Good to Great holds a special place in the hearts of Dr. Daeschner and his district’s leaders.
We believe that Dr. Daeschner possesses the skills to take Indian Prairie from Good to Great. We know that he has the skills to teach us to maximize student achievement by making substantial use of the growing volume of data we are now collecting. As a Board, we know that we will learn from Dr. Daeschner. So will the entire Indian Prairie community. We know that he has the ability to marshal the support of a community, and we believe that he will inspire our teachers, our principals and our parents to work together to make real the mission of Indian Prairie: Preparing All Students to Succeed.
* * * * *
In the late part of January this year, the Board received a small number of email messages from people passing along gossip, rumor and innuendo related to the possibility of our hiring Dr. Daeschner. Our research and investigations concluded that there was no basis for any of the worries expressed in those messages.
Some suggested that Louisville’s public schools were so poor that there was a run on private school enrollment. We found the opposite to be true. Given Dr. Daeschner’s thirst for data, it shouldn’t be surprising that one of the data points he tracks is market share – what proportion of the school age children in the district attend the district’s public schools. For each of the last several years, the Jefferson County Public Schools have taken market share from the private and parochial schools. One principal reported with pride the fact that two years earlier, more than 1,300 children transferred from private schools to the public schools. At present, almost 80% of the students in Jefferson County attend the public schools. By way of comparison, 88% of the students in DuPage County attend public schools (we don’t have easy access to the same data in Will County).
The teaching staff, principals and district leadership overwhelmingly choose the public schools for their children. Each spoke with pride about the education their children were receiving, and they were in buildings all over the county.
One worry that was expressed concerned Dr. Daeschner’s age – he is 64. We made a point of asking almost everyone about it, and generally received the same response: laughter followed by a challenge to even try keeping up with him. Dr. Daeschner is a former triathlete and avid bicyclist who rides up to 200 miles each week. He’s easily the youngest 64 any of us has ever seen and his energy is boundless. One of the things he told us that he was looking for was a district of 20,000 to 50,000 students for “one last good run” and an effort to take it to the top. The district size was important to him because he knows from his experience that in a district of that size he could have an appreciable impact without having to fight the layers of bureaucracy that come with a larger district. And he defines “one last good run” to be at least 5-6 more years. Given the average length of Illinois Superintendencies now falling below three years, we are comfortable with that sort of commitment, particularly since Dr. Daeschner will be implementing systems and approaches that can be carried on into the future.
One writer worried that Indian Prairie would incur substantial current or future retirement costs in hiring Dr. Daeschner. The district’s retirement obligations have nothing whatsoever to do with the age of the Superintendent, so that’s simply not an issue. Superintendent retirements, like teacher retirements, are handled by the state through the Illinois Teachers Retirement System.
Another set of authors expressed concern that Louisville had nothing in common with Indian Prairie, such that Dr. Daeschner’s experience wouldn’t translate. It’s true that the Jefferson County Public Schools are both larger than we are and considerably more diverse. We see both as a plus. The East part of Jefferson County is demographically indistinguishable from Indian Prairie (and actually larger), and the skills Dr. Daeschner needed to succeed there are no different than those he will need here. We believe that his substantial work on the achievement gap and minority student achievement will be a considerable asset. The process of the Superintendent search also reinforced our belief that success in the Superintendency is less about specific experience than it is about leadership skill and ability. We believe that his leadership will inspire our system to new heights of student achievement.
The final source of unease shared with the Board was the fact that the Louisville Board chose, after 14 years, not to renew Dr. Daeschner’s contract. We know that there are all kinds of reasons that a Board can choose not to renew a contract, particularly on a 4-3 vote. We’ve spoken with Jefferson County Board members, their principals, their parents, the community leaders and many people knowledgeable about the district. We are quite comfortable that the Jefferson County Board’s decision not to renew Dr. Daeschner’s contract is part of the political reality that comes with a Board elected by geographic divisions and does not speak to his professional abilities in any way. Not one of the more than sixty people we met with was happy to see Dr. Daeschner leaving. As one community leader we met with put it, “the only four people happy about Daeschner’s departure are the four who voted to make it happen.” The fact that Dr. Daeschner became Superintendent of the Year for the State of Kentucky in 2006 says more to us about his talent and ability than the decision not to renew his contract in that same year.
The Board of Education
Jeannette Clark, President
Bruce Glawe, Vice President
John Stephens, Secretary
Curt Bradshaw
Mark Metzger
Alka Tyle
Chris Vickers
