Breaking Down Silos to Build Towers

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Breaking Down Silos to Build Towers
Leadership Lessons at the State Level
Karen DeCoster kdecoster_at_doe.mass.edu Career/Vo
cational Technical Education Unit Massachusetts
Department of Education
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• If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 of your
  time in leading yourself your own purpose,
  ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest
  at least 20 leading those with authority over
  you and 15 leading your peers.
• Dee Hock
• Founder and CEO Emeritus, VISA

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Goals and Expectations of this Presentation

• To be informed. About leadership within state
  government and what is possible when you engage
  and gain the support of such leadership.
• To reflect. On what it is that you have a burning
  commitment to. (And what change may be
  required.)
• To identify. Ways that school counselors might
  create, support, sustain relationships with state
  leadership directly and indirectly.
• To inform. CSCOR (and me!) about leadership at
  the local level and what is needed at the state
  (e.g., MA) and national levels (e.g, NLC) in
  order to grow and support such leadership.

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• I have worked with and been led by leaders of
  varying shapes and styles
• quiet and steadfast
• bold and assertive
• strategic and structured
• but they all have one thing in common
• a burning commitment to something!
• Karen DeCoster
• MA Department of Education

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My Burning Commitments

• Career Development Education
• School Counseling Reform
• With a brief history of their evolution

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The Massachusetts CDE Guide Relevance, the
Missing Link

• Massachusetts first career development education
  (CDE) guide endorsed by MADOE and DWFD and
  developed to assist
• K-12 schools
• colleges and universities
• one stop career centers
• adult education programs and
• other service providers
• in the design, implementation, and evaluation of
  their career-development programs.

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The Massachusetts Model for Comprehensive School
Counseling Programs (another first!)

• Model Vision to implement standards-based school
  counseling programs statewide in order to ensure
  that every student has the necessary
• academic/technical
• workplace readiness and
• personal/social
• knowledge and skills for school and future
  success.

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The MA Model calls for

• Implementation of school counseling interventions
  in accordance with the
• by having counselors evaluate, modify and
  develop their programs for alignment with the CDE
  Benchmarks.
• Programs that are data-driven and accountable by
  having counselors implement evidence-based
  interventions, measure student outcomes, and
  document results regularly.

Massachusetts Career Development Education (CDE)
Benchmarks
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Why Should Career Development (CD) be Central to
School Counseling?
(Norm Gysbers)

• Needs of our students in a flat global economy
  (e.g, Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat)
• Needs of our society/economy (Half of the 13
  million kids growing up in poverty in our country
  will not finish high school and those who do will
  be where 8th graders are in privileged
  communities. As a nation we must do more to
  ensure that all our nations kids .. fulfill
  their true potential and have a chance at the
  American Dream. It is the most promising strategy
  for unleashing the full potential our country.
  Wendy Kopp President and Founder of Teach for
  America
• Heritage of the school counseling profession
  (e.g., early 1900s. School guidance/counseling
  vocational guidance. A response to the economic,
  educational and social problems of the times.)
  

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Why Counselors as Keepers of the CD Vision?

• Counselors are uniquely positioned to lead the
  systemic change that is required to realize this
  vision.
• School counselors must also redefine themselves
  to prevent extinction!

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Silos Need to Come Down in Our Thinking about the
Development Domains

• Not as 3 Distinct Silos
• Academic domain
• Personal social domain
• Career development domain

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But as domains that must be integrated and
factored into the student achievement equation.
So that student are

• Academically/technically knowledgeable
• Truly skilled in something
• Self-directed
• Purposeful
• Collaborative
• Academic/Technical Achievement and Career
  Development are a Both-And not an Either-Or

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• There is the danger, probably the most common
  one, that throughout the long years of going to
  school a child will never acquire the enjoyment
  of work and pride in doing at least one kind of
  thing really well.
• Erik Erickson

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Reflection What is your burning commitment?
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• Women are anxious to improve their
  circumstances,
• but are unwilling to improve themselves
• they therefore remain bound.
• The woman who does not shrink from
  self-crucifixion
• can never fail to accomplish the object
• upon which her/his heart is set.
• James Allen

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An Airplane View of Leadership at the State Level

• (i.e., the perch from which I)
• self-crucify
• get crucified
• attempt to advance CDE and SC reform
• (and, improve myself along the way!)

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Key Players in SC Reform Within MA State
Government (at least as of 7/13/06!)

• Career and Technical Education Unit
• MADOE Liaison to School Counselors
• Connecting Activities (CA) Director
• Department of Workforce Development
• Student and Secondary Support Unit
• Nutrition Health and Safety Unit
• and.
• The Commissioner of Education!
• State WIB, offices of career services,
  unemployment assistance, apprenticeship training

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Strategic PlanningWho Next?

• Special Education office/unit?
• State Licensure/Certification Office?
• Accountability Office?
• Department of Economic Development?
• Other?

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After all, state leadership requires

• A strategy (it helps to know some chess)
• Systems Thinking (i.e., understanding how things
  work and interrelate)
• Collaboration, tempered by compromise
• Patience (lots and lots of it!)
• Solid relationships/network (local, state, and
  national)
• Some political savvy
• Compelling data to make your case (still TBD)
• ????

• Of course, money helps too!

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• REFLECTION
• Is it any different at the Local Level?

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Four Rules of Leadershipfrom George Bush ,Former
President of the United States

• in a free legislative body
• First, no matter how hard-fought the issue, never
  get personal. Dont say or do anything that may
  come back to haunt you on another issue, another
  day.
• Second, do your homework. You cant lead without
  knowing what youre talking about.
• Third, the American legislative process is one of
  give and take. Use your power as a leader to
  persuade, not intimidate.
• Fourth, be considerate of the needs of your
  colleagues, even if theyre at the bottom of the
  totem pole.

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How state government can support school
counseling at this juncture

• First, authorize staff (who understand the value
  of school counselors in raising student
  achievement) to support reform
• Help to clarify expectations and outcomes for
  school counseling programs (e.g. State Model, CDE
  Guidelines)
• Support and promote professional development
  (aligned with expectations and outcomes!)
• Disseminate outcomes and make them visible
• And ?

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An example of Collaboration w/ State Leadership

• NEXUS 05 CSCOR Summer Leadership Institute (I
  went to learn of their agenda)
• MY AGENDA (hidden) Promote career development
  and the MA CDE Guide
• CATALYST Two days of PD with MASCA president and
  CSCOR director
• RESULT OUR state agenda!
• RESIDUAL EFFECT Understood silos as hurdles to
  advancing my individual and our new collective
  agenda

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Finding and Working with Leadership at the State
Level

• Do you have an interest in doing so?
• How might you do so, indirectly? directly?
• If not you, who and how?

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Silos Need to Come Down in Thinking About
Working With Our Colleagues/Partners in Education

• Academic Teachers
• Technical Teachers
• Administrators
• Business/Industry Partners
• Paraprofessionals
• Support Staff
• Parents

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• If you deal with every customer in the same way,
  you will only close 25 to 30 percent of your
  contacts, because you will only close one
  personality type. But if you learn how to
  effectively work with all four personality types,
  you can conceivably close 100 percent of your
  contacts.
• Rod Nichols

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Another Example of How Silos Came Down

• Life Science Literacy/Career Development Project

• MADOE CA Director saw value of MA Model and
  School Counseling (SC) Reform
• SCs Feed STEM Pipeline!
• Partnerships formed w/State and Local
  Stakeholders
• 6 Pilot Sites Supported through MCRN, MBCs MA
  BioEd and WIBs

LEGEND MBC Massachusetts Biotech Council STEM
Science, Technology, Engineering, Math MCRN
Massachusetts Career Resource Network WIB
Workforce Investment Board
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Activity National Cadre Self-assessment

• For each component criteria, score yourself in a
  scale of 1-4 as follows
• KEY 0 NO AND WE/THEY 1 NONEXISTENT, BUT
  WE 2 SOMEWHAT 3 WORK IN PROGRESS 4
  ABSOLUTELY!
• DONT CARE TO SHOULD/SHOULD
  HAVE

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My Tips on Personal LeadershipDevelopment

• Find and feed your burning commitment.
• read
• discuss
• seek quality professional development.
• (i.e., Homework is stimulating and empowering!)
• Seize every advocacy opportunity (present, speak
  out) seek to build critical mass and stay
  pumped up!
• Recognize that failure is trying to please
  everybody while embracing mistakes as a personal
  needs assessment.
• Find a mentor or two!
• Keep an eye on your commitment (and one or two
  students in mind) when you feel overwhelmed ( or
  scared).