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Todd Flaherty

Photograph of Todd Flaherty
Todd Flaherty

As Deputy in Residence for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and Senior Policy Consultant for the National High School Center, Dr. Flaherty works on secondary school transformation at both the national and state level. Prior to that, as Deputy Commissioner of Education in Rhode Island for twelve years (1995-2007), Dr. Flaherty played a vital role in implementing Rhode Island’s systemic school reform initiatives outlined in the state’s Comprehensive Education Strategy (CES). Working with his SEA teams, he was part of leading and supporting a new set of statewide standards and online K-12 curriculum standards, new large scale assessments through the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP), formulating and implementing a set of high school restructuring regulations, and building a Highly Qualified Leaders program and website. Dr. Flaherty has also done substantial work in designing and implementing Rhode Island’s accountability system known as Progressive Support and Intervention (PS&I), primarily with urban districts.

Currently, Dr. Flaherty collaborates with other national policy-making organizations and state education agencies on secondary school redesign, addressing policy development and comprehensive implementation strategies. He has broad experience as a school administrator, and served as president of the RI School Superintendents Association (RISSA) and was principal of two award winning high schools: Governor James B. Hunt (Jr.) High School in North Carolina, and Narragansett High School, Rhode Island. Dr. Flaherty has been a visiting Associate Professor at Brown University focusing on educational leadership in urban and diverse settings. He holds a Bachelors Degree from Syracuse and a Doctorate from Boston University.

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Building Capacity for High School Improvement at the State, District and School Level

Question 1: State Education Agencies are under increasing pressure to be able to assist secondary schools and particularly low performing high schools that cannot significantly close the achievement gaps and/or meet state and federal accountability provisions. What advice do you have for State Education Agencies to improve their leadership and implementation capacity to assist high schools?

Over the past five years, State Education Agencies have come under increasing pressure to move from their traditional compliance functions to taking a proactive role in providing effective support and technical assistance in the area of secondary schools. State Education Agencies’ leadership is necessary in developing both a specific secondary school redesign model with clearly articulated components and useful technical assistance that goes beyond monitoring progress through development of planning schemes and data systems. While having a well thought out school improvement methodology is essential, research suggests that without specific secondary school redesign work at the State Education Agencies’ level and high quality technical assistance, high schools dealing with the most difficult challenges demographically speaking, will not reach their student achievement and learning goals. Support to both the district (LEAs) and schools needs to be provided by way of developing capacity at the State Education Agencies.

Three essential aspects for State Education Agencies’ leadership will have to occur to meet the new challenges they face in supporting their high schools.

  • State Education Agencies should collaboratively develop a cohesive model which all secondary schools have to implement. Each component of the model needs to have elements which are universally understood by practitioners and key stakeholders alike, but allow for flexibility in terms of local implementation strategies. The State Education Agencies’ design should be comprehensive in the sense it signals to schools that piecemeal strategies, uneven implementation of practice, and magic bullet approaches do not create sustainable systemic change over time. For example; if schools attempt to increase rigor and raise academic expectations based on higher standards, a well developed system of student supports must be part of a secondary school’s restructuring process or drop outs and failure could actually increase. Systems of student supports must be part of any State Education Agencies’ secondary school redesign model. Likewise, supports to teachers and school leaders must also occur. Teachers need support in the area of teaching higher standards, curriculum mapping, and formative assessment if they are to effectively teach these new standards no matter how defined at the state level. Leaders also need assistance in interpreting data, "distributing" leadership and collaborative problem solving and decision making.
  • State Education Agencies, in conjunction with their Boards, Legislative leaders and Governors, must review their current policies relating to secondary schools. In many cases this review could be considered a gap analysis to determine if the State Education Agencies' expectations are clear, coherent and consistent with regard to secondary school redesign. Policy alignment can enhance implementation through analysis of existing regulatory, statutory and executive orders which currently drive high school redesign. In some cases additional policy, connected to accountability policies need to be instituted, while in other cases, outdated, unclear and fragmented policies need to be withdrawn or changed. Existing policy for secondary redesign must provide practitioners, families and students with a set clear expectations and a rationale while providing for state and local contextual realities. In the final analysis, policy should drive an increase in learning requirements for students and revalue the diploma.
  • The reality that both districts and state education agencies must face is that technical and targeted financial resources are needed for systemic school improvement to occur. Many State Education Agencies simply lack the staff skills sets and capacity to adequately address the needs of their low performing high schools. Currently technical assistance may actually be so modest as to not matter, or in the times of diminished resources and state capacity actually be reduced. In any case, unfocused and disconnected technical assistance which is not based on any clear design most likely will have no long term effect. In order for State Education Agencies to create a sustainable impact at the high school level, resources must be increased including working with partner organizations, purchasing practitioner contracts and collaborating with higher education and other state agencies in an effort to provide coordinated support.

References

A good reference for State Education Agency Leaders is the CCSSO Web site and Secondary School web portal www.ccsso.org .

 

Coming Soon!
Tracy Gray, Managing Director at the American Institutes for Research; Director of the National Center for Technology Innovation; and Director of the Center for Implementing Technology in Education will be the featured expert for April. The topic of the month will be technology and its' role in increasing high school success.