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Leadership is a popular topic both in the business and education worlds. The main reason for this popularity is that effective leadership is a primary factor for the success of any organization. By implementing leadership at the middle school and high school grades, the belief is that this earlier intervention will ultimately help not only the students, but the local communities, small businesses and larger corporate citizens.

What constitutes an effective middle school or high school system wide leadership program that delivers a positive return on your investment? These 10 pointers may help you better answer that question.

1. All staff must be developed at leaders to ensure consistency of behaviors through modeling. From bus drivers to superintendents, these individuals become role models for many young people. If their behavior is not consistent with any curriculum, then the likelihood of sustained success is doubtful. Using a student leadership program that evolved from a proven adult leadership process is probably a better way to proceed.

2. The desired end results for this leadership program should be clearly articulated before adoption of any curriculum. Simple benchmarks could be improved grades, improved high school retention and less discipline referrals. All benchmarks need to be measurable because as the old adage goes “if you can measure it, you can’t manage it.” This is the beginning to determine a positive or negative return on your investment for the leadership program or any change initiative.

3. The curriculum should focus on the affective learning domain especially interpersonal skills. Additionally, the cognitive and psychomotor domains should include: communication, conflict resolution, goal setting and goal achievement, higher order thinking skills, team building and time management.

4. Alignment between the leadership curriculum and the other academic disciplines is also necessary to the success of such a program. There needs to be numerous opportunities to apply newly learned concepts outside of the leadership classroom.

5. A goal setting and goal achievement Action Plan is probably the most critical piece to the success of this program. This Action Plan for success should allow for all students to self-evaluate themselves and provide a mechanism to prioritize and organize current and future goals.

6. A mentoring or alumni program should follow the student leadership development program. At this juncture is when the youth can fully participate in community projects as well as mentor younger students.

7. Parents need to be informed and if possible included within this leadership program. With many parents lacking the necessary skills and tools to help their children, by proactively working with parents helps both the young people and the school.

8. Local small business owners to larger corporate citizens need to be also involved. These companies can help by participating as keynote speakers as well as work to fund scholarships to help offset the cost of the leadership program and employing the graduates.

9. The curriculum should be highly interactive, highly adaptable and flexible and modeled after the best corporate training and development programs. Also, this curriculum should be researched based and should reinforce sound educational research including emotional intelligence, cognitive retention, etc.

10. Any student leadership program should also include pre and post assessments both cognitive and attitudinal. Additionally, a mechanism should be included to track these students for longitudinal data collection. These assessments show both the short-term return on investments as well as the long-term investments.

Finally, this leadership program should be for the majority of your student body and not just the high performing students. The success of our country is due to the as much if not more so to the every day efforts of the average citizen.

If constructing a viable and sustainable student world-class leadership program is in your current or future plans, then these pointers should catapult you ahead of the class because you now know that you have created self-leaders who are capable of being the knowledge workers needed in the 21st century workforce.

Copyright 2005(c) Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S.

This article may be freely published. Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted).

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S. CEO of ADVANCED SYSTEMS located outside of Chicago, IL, is the Learning and Process Specialist. As one of the first nationally certified facilitators for America’s Rising Stars, a researched based student leadership program, Leanne speaks nationally on student leadership. Her 25 years of business & education experience allow Leanne’s clients to double their performance. Beginning with the belief systems, she brings a unique perspective to education, training and development that delivers a significant return on investment. Leanne infuses a 25 year old proven goal achievement action plan into her results focused solutions that work within a variety of industries including education, healthcare, manufacturing and professional services. Please contact Leanne at 219.759.5601 or visit http://www.processspecialist.com/youth.htm to read how you double your performance for unheard of results.

Tags: character education, education, Leadership, NCLB, schools, Student leadership, teen leadership programscharacter education, education, Leadership, NCLB, schools, Student leadership, teen leadership programs

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The “No Child Left Behind” law (NCLB), signed by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002 has shifted the way schools must deal with their student population. While the verdict is still out on whether or not the NCLB is beneficial for schools around the country, one must still ask the question, does that even matter? After all, are schools developed to benefit the schools themselves or the students that occupy them? Several states are now taking issue with the NCLB, stating that they are losing money as a result of this law. Before we get exasperated with our current President however, remember that the initial intention of NCLB was pure. With schools failing to reach federal standards across the country, something had to be done, subsequently, for the first time in the history of education a level of accountability was being implemented nationwide. Tying results to the bottom line seemed to be a good idea.

NCLB has had 4 years to produce results and even now many states are not in agreement with the current administration on the effectiveness of this new law. “Utah’s legislature passed a bill giving state education law priority over NCLB, even though the decision could cost the state more than $76 million in federal funding. Colorado also allows local districts to opt out of NCLB without incurring penalties from the state” according to Ellen R. Delisio (Education-World.com, 2005).

More states are following suit in fighting NCLB and the Federal Government. The focus seems to be on the fact that the Federal government has given states a mandate but has not funded the states with enough money to implement this mandate. A perfect example of this shortfall is in Connecticut where officials recently ascertained that full execution of NCLB will cost the state $41.6 million more than the state receives from the federal government through fiscal year 2008. (Education-World.com, 2005)

Connecticut has filed a law suit to fight against NCLB; that suit is pending. The fact is that schools in Connecticut repeatedly perform higher on annual standardized tests. However, there are significant pockets of failure among minority children, which is why NCLB was instituted, to make sure quality education was provided for ALL students in all areas. Civil rights leaders have taken a strong stance in the fight, stating that the Connecticut law suit is “ill-advised” and will only hurt the children.

The list of schools that have been labeled as failing was released on September 1st In Arizona 13 east valley schools have failed under the NCLB guidelines. Reportedly 21% of Arizona schools failed to meet “adequate yearly progress,” this number increased 3 percentage points from ‘04. All the information seems to point towards our school system moving backwards. Yet despite reports that showed 21% of Arizona schools had not made “adequate progress”, SAT scores for students in Arizona hit an all-time high.

Since the inception of NCLB a new industry has exploded. Within the last 4 years a multitude of educational companies, close to 1800, have found their way onto a multitude of our states Supplemental Education Services (SES) providers lists (ASU news release, 8/29). The most prominent of these companies produce millions of dollars in revenue and have created a niche market, operating on the failure of schools to reach their disengaged students. While the 1800+ companies have developed SES programs, Newton Learning (reported between 80,000 - 90,000 SES students in ‘04) and Sylvan Learning (reported approx. 70,000 SES students in ‘04) have consistently been fighting for the top spot. These programs are free to the students and yet are generating millions of dollars, tax payer dollars, for the companies operating them. The fight for student numbers in these programs is fierce. These companies are aggressively pursuing student populations for enrollment into their programs for pure profit.

The fact is that one student attending an SES provider program generates approximately $1500 per semester of attendance. This fee yields these companies millions of dollars and takes those dollars directly from the schools. Millions of taxpayer dollars are leaving the schools and going into the pockets of private sector companies, all under the guise of helping students improve their academic position. Some companies have produced statistical data to prove their programs are better than others. Numbers don’t lie. Or do they? Statistics are easy to use and manipulate to prove whatever your objective is. Are the students really benefiting?

Some SES providers are profiting so much that they can afford to offer incentives to the students for attendance. There are students across the country receiving incentives equaling $100 for perfect attendance. The profit is so significant that SES providers can pay their staff, develop and purchase materials, create marketing materials and offer student’s incentives to participate in their program.

Is it no wonder why tax payers refuse to vote in favor of school bonds across the country? With millions of dollars leaving the schools and going into the private sector, why do we think that taxpayers, already feeling taxed to death, would offer more cash to the seemingly bottomless pit of education? The new push is for parents to obtain outside education assistance for students. This year parents are expected to spend $2.5 billion dollars nationwide on additional academic tutoring. This can’t be the answer. Why can’t the students learn the necessary information within the same school day as their parents and grandparents before them?

So what is the solution? No one has come up with a solution that works. One has to question whether taking millions of dollars from the current school system is the answer. The fact that students are not being given the basic level of education necessary across the board is not acceptable. The question is how do we redesign an entire educational system to produce success?

Let me give you something to ponder over the next few months as the whole NCLB situation plays itself out across the country. The problem is not the teachers, or the principles within the schools, it is simply an issue of systems. The system is not working and yet we hold onto it like in time it will get better. Our current educational system is antiquated and it is not reaching the current clientele. What about taking some of the millions of dollars that are finding their way into privately held multi-million dollar companies and disperse that to the instructors that are creating an atmosphere conducive to learning? Why not look to reward instructors for finding ways to reach their population? The fact is that teaching is one of the lowest paid professions in the world. It’s time we took notice of that and kept the money in the schools and rewarded those instructors that are gaining ground and reaching their student populations, while providing specified trainings for those that are failing to reach their students.

Scott Lovely is the founder of Generation X Consulting

Tags: education, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, President Bush, SES, Supplemental Education Services, teachereducation, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, President Bush, SES, Supplemental Education Services, teacher

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