Transformative Principal

Jethro Jones: Welcome to Transformative Principle, where I help you stop putting out fires and start leading.

I am your host, Jethro Jones.

You can follow me on Twitter at Jethro Jones.

Welcome to Transformative Principal.

I am so excited to have on the program today, Kate Anderson Foley.

She is the founder and CEO of the Education Policy and Practice Group.

She's an international Keynoter McLean affiliate of Harvard Medical School Institute of Coaching Fellow.

That was a mouthful, a thought partner and an author.

She has experience in, uh, public schools and she also has a book out that is called The Radically Excellent School Improvement Keeping Students at the Center of It All.

So Kate, welcome to Transformative Principal.

Great to have you here today.

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: Thank you so much for inviting me.

I'm excited to be here.

Jethro Jones: Yeah.

Well, I'm very excited for this conversation.

Um, one of the things that I want to get into first is, uh, you highlight specifically.

Special education as a way, uh, to help improve schools.

And I think that this is essential.

Can you talk a little bit about that first, and we'll get into some other things first, but a lot of people think special education, like that's the their own thing.

And we're really trying to improve tier one instruction.

That's what we gotta do.

You're taking a little bit different approach.

Can you tell me about

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: Yep.

So thanks for that question.

Um, I have a special education background as a teacher administrator, but I never looked at special ed through the lens of just special ed, like that siloed approach.

I looked at it as well.

There's.

Students.

Students first and foremost, what does a fourth grade student need?

What does an eighth grade student need?

And then where is the the gap?

And then from there, design really tight.

Instruction, explicit instruction, and then the transference of those skills so they can be successful in their grade level.

And so, um, special education has always been one of those things of them versus the rest of the kids.

And I'm so glad you brought up tier one because I've.

It's been my experience and it's been my work and that's why I really kind of refashioned, um, these tier into a double helix.

You know, kind of like that one strand is absolutely dependent on another, but you look at the whole continuum of students as a teacher, as an administrator.

Every teacher knows there's no set group of students.

There's no norm, so to speak, but you have to pay attention to the tails as well.

And so special education has always been, um, a siloed practice.

And I say, no, we need to push it back into the classroom fully in that sense of, in the sense of what do, what does the student need to be successful, and then how do we support the teachers in that delivery?

Jethro Jones: yeah, and special education is the only place where segregation is still allowed and encouraged in our education system, which just isn't right either.

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: That that's correct.

Um, and so that's why.

Again, when I work with districts and I work with schools, I look at it from what, what, what does the student need?

You know, keeping the student at the center and then all the adult and all those decisions need to be centered around that student.

And that's where I help districts work on designing lessons that.

Are comprehensively situating the adults.

So special ed teachers related service providers.

Of course, all the generalists, you know, related people, but they need to understand.

How to work with each other, how to work and draw upon each other.

And this is the last, the thing that I'll say about that it we're in this new place and since the pandemic to now, there's been a huge increase in students being identified as special education.

There's almost over half a million students.

Just stop and think about that gravity of that, because once a student is identified as special education, to your point, they're automatically starting to have a lower trajectory, lower expectations moved out, or even if they're in the same classroom, they can be just as segregated and siloed.

Jethro Jones: Yeah.

Well, and, and what's so fascinating as a principal, my exposure to special ed was different.

That my exposure to special ed as a parent.

And, and that was really fascinating to me too because, um, because there are, there are two categories of special ed, those that don't do well in the school system, and so they get
labeled as special ed and those that have actual real disabilities, like my daughter with Down syndrome, like someone with cerebral palsy, like someone with something else that makes it.

Necessary for them to ha have that support all throughout their life.

And so when I, when, when I was a teacher and I was teaching middle school and students were able to test out of special ed, I thought, well, how is that even possible?

Like that is, I thought special ed was for kids like my daughter who have these permanent disabilities and that it's not just a short-term thing.

Because if it's a short term thing, then it's not actually a disability.

In my mind it is either poor instruction or some other thing that's making it so that they're not being successful.

Uh, help me process through that a little bit.

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: Well, you were a hundred percent right.

Um, I know when I was in the public sector before I started my uh, business.

I always worked to get myself outta special education.

That was the role that was, you come in there and try to get yourself out of the job.

And I was serious about it.

And the people that I surrounded myself were serious about it.

Um, but I think that there's, while we understand that disability is a natural point of life, it's just, and that's, that's great.

This all is included, right?

But if you have inefficient.

Education.

That's the instruction.

Both the academic and the behavioral side of learning.

And teachers are not, they just don't have the skillset.

Or maybe they don't have the mindset, but they don't have something and it's inhibiting well, who's paying?

The student pays.

And we need to flip that around.

And that's why I say that I I am very bold in saying, we need to ban the tears.

We need to fundamentally rethink how we're looking at, um, instruction.

And I call it, um, nimble and responsive.

Nimble means it's adaptive to the students in the classroom that are in front of this teacher.

And responsive means we are making real time decisions.

And that spirals out or cascades into those teacher-based teams, right?

And so you're not just looking at things in isolation, you're working in collaboration.

And that's where I say open up the doors like we all need to work together on this.

And what I have known, and I'm sure you have too, the students who came back from the pandemic are different students.

Now they were different before the pandemic from maybe, you know, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, but they're fundamentally different now.

And so I always say, well, if you, you know, you're doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

Meaning if what we did before wasn't working, what makes you think that it's going to work now?

And so that's why I really like to work with districts, uh, to say, let's dare to dare.

Because students' lives are actually on the line, their trajectory.

Right?

Jethro Jones: Yep.

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: a, with a diploma, not a

certificate, not an IEP completion, a diploma, a regular diploma.

Jethro Jones: Yeah, it's, it's interesting you say that because I was having a, uh, discussion with someone a few weeks ago and they said, you know, there's no, uh, consequences for parents if their kids don't do well in school.

And I was like, are you crazy?

The, the consequences are huge for parents if the kids don't do well in school.

That's why parents care so much about their kids' education.

Even if they are uneducated themselves, even if they are doctors and lawyers and highly educated themselves, they care about their kids' education because the consequences are very real for

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: Yeah.

And, and a lifetime.

I, I,

when I was working in, um, one district, it was a premier school district and the parents.

Really didn't want their students to graduate and they wanted to keep them, you know, until they aged out and everything.

And I kept saying, well, why are you doing that?

Because what's gonna happen at the, at their birthday, then they're gonna sit on the couch.

And that is literally what happens to some of our students.

And again, we have students that I'm gonna be bold and say maybe are wrongly identified now.

Half a million plus students right now are,

we need to really look at that and correct this.

We need to course correct.

And that's what I like to work on with, with other leaders who are willing to do this because that is the work.

Jethro Jones: So you talked a little bit ago about the double helix and then, um, you, you probably referenced it again later, but can you clearly describe the double helix approach and what that means in your work?

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: The double helix system of support it's a replacement for the RTI and the MTSS.

And because those two have been mashed together in an inappropriate way, it's still insufficient.

So the double helix is a strength-based system that actually is the foundation of the school improvement process.

And by that I mean there's clarity of, you know, that nimble and responsive system.

That's defined growth and support and achievement are the, the goals.

Um, high expectations of staff are the number one non-negotiable.

You know, you can say that that's a fluffy thing, but when it walks then you know it's real.

Right?

Um, and accountability is measured by evidence of impact.

So that's the difference because it's not that drive by of, well, I taught it.

It's how do I ensure that they have learned it?

And that means all students.

The second component of that is the design and the actual designs feature where the staff are comprehensively situated in the classroom.

And that nimble and responsive instruction and that strategy is delivered with precision.

So you think about, I, I kind of like think about this in the medical term.

Uh, you take a scalpel till somebody has to be precise.

The same thing has to be with our instruction.

Yet oftentimes it's not.

It's just, well, there's the lesson.

I delivered it.

Here we go.

Here's the activities and the data that is used to inform and monitor and adjust.

Remember, it's that responsiveness real time.

Indicators are used to monitor the growth.

And then finally, the third piece of that, uh, strength-based system is shared accountability.

So we talk a lot about special ed.

I. Special ed and gen ed and everybody else, ed, ed is all working on that together because the interdependencies are anchored to the improvement process and it's called out and it's spelled out.

And then the adult competencies for that are strategically supported.

And that's a lot of what I do.

Um, and of, again, it's delivered with precision.

And then the collaborative team structure then has real.

Student data, real student work samples, real ambitious instruction, um, that they can look at deeply and monitor and adjust.

So it's not happenstance.

It's a very precise way to make sure that, uh, if you're gonna equate tiers one, two, and three, it's within this system.

So then who actually really needs to be referred for special education is accurate.

Instead of the teacher saying, I don't know what else to do, they can't do it, you know?

Right.

It's the external.

They can't versus, so how are you supporting them?

What are you doing?

Let's look at that.

Not in an accusatory way, but a curious way.

How are you supporting the student?

Is it working?

How do you know?

What's the evidence like?

That should be the conversation.

Jethro Jones: Yeah.

Yeah.

So, um, I've got, I've got a bunch of questions.

I know we're not gonna have time to get to all of them.

Um, but I, one of the things that's so hard is accessing the data that we do have.

Um, well, all right, that's one piece.

Let me, let me ask this different question.

Um, I. I'm, I'm really going through a struggle right now with the whole explicit direct instruction thing,

and so I'm just gonna talk this through with you and try out some of my ideas and understanding.

So this was not in, in any kind of prep work or anything, but this is, this is where I'm struggling.

In my experience, I have seen that kids are.

Even kids with disabilities are capable of learning more than we can possibly imagine.

And it's incredible when we can turn them loose and and have them learn whatever in whatever way they need to, and we can follow behind and see how they can pass off standards that.

Would've been very difficult to actually teach them in an explicit manner.

And, and here's the thing that I'm struggling with, is explicit instruction works well when you know exactly what you want to teach and you know exactly what it looks like for them to do that well, but it doesn't work so well when.

You're not sure how to evaluate whether or not they can do it.

So there are specific things, and I believe the term is, um, secondary biological knowledge.

Things that like we very clearly can say this is, this is what the kidneys to learn.

Two plus two equals four.

That's great.

Where it falls down is when the students are trying to learn things that aren't within the scope of that thing that you're teaching.

And so, for example, if a kid wants to know what, uh, 25 times 25 is, they're not going to have a chance to learn that until you get to that lesson with explicit instruction.

And so are there, are there any drawbacks?

Two using explicit instruction, or is it all just gravy?

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: So I'm gonna separate a little bit.

Uh, explicit instruction of the actual content should be short doses, like small doses.

It should be,

again, very precise.

The tangential piece or the actionable piece would be coming with at, after the explicit instruction and into the activities.

And so as you were talking, I, I was thinking two things.

One is, you know, blooms.

How you scaffold the skill for students who already have come in with some prior knowledge or some students who haven't gotten the prior knowledge.

Like there's that piece of it.

Um, you talk about math, I always go to mathematical representation.

There are students, you're teaching it explicitly.

Two plus two is four.

But prior knowledge is super important, right?

And sometimes students don't have language.

Sometimes students, they understand it, but they can't get it out for whatever reason.

Maybe some expressive language or whatever it might be, executive functioning.

So there's ways within the mathematical representation for students to be able to say, well, a teacher goes, well then, you know, draw it.

So you can see it or write it or some symbolically or take some manipulative.

So that's another way.

But the other thing that made me um, pause when you said that was, that's the work that needs to be done in those teacher-based teams.

You can call 'em professional learning communities.

A lot of states do PLCs.

That's where you get the ideas, that deeper data, that deeper conversation of what do we want our students to learn unit by unit, and then how will we know that they've learned it?

That's the answer your question about, well, it's explicit instruction.

This is how I'm gonna do it, but this is how I'm gonna know that they've got it.

And then what do we do for students who haven't learned it yet, I always put yet, and capitals.

Because it speaks to, they can learn, they absolutely can learn.

Maybe they don't learn in some other fashion, but then it's up to us to do that.

And then finally, what do we do for students who've already got the skill?

How do we scaffold that rigor?

Same standard, right?

But how do we scaffold that skill?

So they're applying it in different way, in novel ways.

And I think from that.

That explicit instruction is, is, uh, delivered.

But can I just say the other part of that spec?

Special education specific.

We talk about direct instruction when I work with, um, my school districts and when I was at the state level and when in my consulting.

Now, I always say, well, what is the direct instruction?

It should be like 15 minutes.

And then you transfer that skill, you're applying that skill.

So when students with disabilities are kept away from grade level, I always say, why?

But maybe the teacher needs to work with that student very explicitly, very directly.

But then they need to be able to pivot to the greater classroom and say, and this is how you need to apply it.

And then you're practicing it and you're working with the general education grade level team.

To say these are some accommodations, but this is how they're gonna actually show that they've mastered that skill.

So explicit instruction isn't something that's just, you know, pie in the sky, but what I have noticed is that many people, even special ed teachers, really don't understand explicit instruction because they'll write it in an IEP as the length of a class.

Versus what is the skill and what will it take to do that skill explicitly?

And then generalization,

Jethro Jones: Yeah.

Well, and I, I appreciate this because you're the first person who's articulated in a way that I can understand and get behind it.

I don't, I don't think that explicit instruction is bad or direct instruction is bad.

I just think that it is limiting.

It puts a cap on, which you just said is by design, because you're focused on that one specific skill, which I, I agree with and I can get behind in that regard because, um, because that's by design.

It is that way and, and it's for when you want to teach a very specific thing.

And, and the reality is, is that our kids can and should be learning all the time.

All of that learning should be valued and quote unquote credited.

And what I mean by that is if a student shows that they know how to do the thing that you're doing the explicit instruction on, then you really should not, in my opinion, you should not force them to sit through that if they already know how to do it.

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: A

hundred percent.

A hundred percent.

Jethro Jones: Alright.

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: why I said the scaffolding is super important, but

teachers need to be having that ready lesson.

They need to have the stretch.

Jethro Jones: Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and here's, here's the other piece of that is if you take it how you just said that it's 15 minutes of explicit instruction, then that's different than the whole entire year, the whole entire curriculum, which is typically how people, um, approach it.

And so now I need to read with a new eye, the things that people are saying about that because, um.

Because I see that as, as unintentionally dampening what kids can learn and how they can grow by saying, this is what we're going to learn.

And, and that's it basically.

And, and that's a tragedy for.

For all students who, who may not be ready for that, that stuff just yet.

So, real quick example, just to explain this, um, my daughter with Down Syndrome had on her IEP for years, literally years, stuff about telling time and about counting money and finally I said, look, this is not working.

I don't care if she doesn't know how to do this.

Let's focus on some other skills related to math and numbers.

And maybe someday this will make sense, but right now what we're doing is not working and it's pointless for us to put this on her IEP yet again, that she's gonna do this and then have her fail it yet again.

And even in those situations where we know exactly what she needs to learn.

Uh, we still can't chunk it down small enough for her to find success with it.

Now, that's a very specific example, but that belies the problem with this whole thing, that if the kid's not capable in that moment of learning that thing, then you've got to do something else and move on.

You can't send them to the same, through the same curriculum four years in a row, hoping that that one time it's gonna finally work.

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: Well, you just, uh, encapsulated, um, all my conversations with frustrated parents.

Jethro Jones: Yeah.

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: yeah, and, and even when I was a teacher, um, I taught K through six special ed, and it came to a point of, it was analog clocks versus digital clocks.

I said, listen, if you can't figure out analog, we're gonna go to digital, but you have to understand the concept of AM and pm.

Like, and we worked through that.

Another example, money a hundred percent.

If money's not your thing, let's get the calculator out, but you have to understand how to input to get to the answer.

That was my thing.

Uh, shoe time you have, that was the big thing.

You know, parents wanted their kids to tie shoes.

I said, you know, there's Velcro and slip on at the end of, at the end of fifth grade, we're moving on.

Right, but that's the daring to dare.

You have to be bold enough to say this is in the interest of the student, right?

I have many stories of parents who, um, in high school, to your point, working on numbers and money and time when it is organically not accessible to them.

And so they wanna continue on past high school, you know, to the 21 or 24, whatever the age is to work on the exact same thing.

And I'd say, well, so you're gonna do it slower and louder and magically they're gonna get it.

Like, why?

What are you doing to prepare the child, the adult child, for life beyond school?

And even at the preschool level, 'cause I created a lot of integrated and supervised, um, uh, peer mentor preschool programs.

I said, your student will only be a child for a very short amount of time, and that they're gonna be adults a whole lot longer.

So our job is to prepare them, not in a passive way, but in a very active way.

Jethro Jones: Yeah.

Well, and that is the, the argument that I've been making for years that school should prepare kids to be adults, should not, should not prepare them for the next grade.

You're way too shortsighted, should not prepare them for graduation or college.

It should prepare them for adult life.

And, and so a lot of things that.

You know, that we think are important, turn out to be not as important when, when we recognize that we're preparing them for life.

alright, well this, this was awesome.

Uh, once again, the book is called Radically Excellent School Improvement, keeping Students at the Center of It All.

And you can get that@edpolicyconsulting.com or uh, it's by Corwin, so on their website also.

Um, but ed policy consulting.com is Kate's website.

Any other way that you want people to reach out to

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: you?

know they can email me at kate@edpolicyconsulting.com, my website, they can call me (440)

554-1789. I want to work with you so you can be the best school district for your students.

Jethro Jones: Awesome.

So good.

Thank you so much for being part of Transformative principle.

Kate, this was excellent talking to

Kate Anderson Foley, PhD: Thank you.

so much.