The setting is the Quest for Excellence Conference XXI held at the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC. There is a stage at the end of the ballroom with a podium, plants, and a big projection screen. An audience of about 550 conference attendees is seated about the ballroom. Dean Smith: Our next speaker is Terry Holliday, Superintendent of Iredell-Statesville Schools. We also heard from Terry on Monday morning. Please welcome Terry Holliday. Terry Holliday: Thank you so much for staying a little while longer this morning. I know that planes are waiting and people need to get back to the office. I would like to thank one more time NIST and ASQ and ASTD staff. They've shown us that they don't only just talk about quality, they run a quality conference here. And all I know is, it's so quality, I probably gained about two pounds. How about you guys? Those little slushy things, boy, I'm going to have to take that back with me. Those are great. I want to thank you for making our team feel important. School people quite often go through life, they don't get a lot of pay, they donât get a lot of recognition. But theyâre out there dealing with our most important natural resource, our children. So if you would, give my team one more hand. What a wonderful team they are. Terry Holliday: You come here for a transformational experience, and we hope our team has been part of your transformational experience. We hope weâve helped you transform the way you speak into a little more southern. We hope youâve moved from ãyou guysä to ãyou all,ä to ãyâall,ä okay? We hope youâve moved from ãea-ra-dellä to ãeye-ra-dell,ä to just ãIredell,ä okay? So when come to Charlotte, you can say to people and theyâll understand you, ãWhere is Iredell?ä But now for the big question of the day: whoâs going to be booted off American Idol tonight? All right. So weâve gotten started. Just a little bit about our background of our school system. I was reading a website in 2000, 2001, I canât remember too much. And there was a story on the news about a local school superintendent that was being fired in Statesville, North Carolina. And what was amazing to me is the web was really taking off at that time. And the school board was in a lengthy trial. I think the thing went about six months. They had 70 findings of fact. And in their effort to be transparent, they had put all 70 findings of fact on their web page for everyone to see as to why they had released the superintendent for basically physical mismanagement. I told one of my friends, I said, ãThat might be an interesting job.ä And he said, ãWell, youâre crazy.ä And I said, ãWell, thatâs been told to me before.ä But I said, ãThey only got one way to go.ä So yeah. What I found was the whole thing, the turmoil of the trial, and he was a good superintendent, he had a lot of great ideas, a lot of innovation, and was going the right direction. He just made some dumb mistakes, like Simon talked about early on, leadership and evaluation and just making some bad decisions and trying to hide some of those decisions. You just canât do that in the climate weâre in today. And the student achievement wasnât where it needed to be, it was in the bottom third in North Carolina. And basically, the school board had taken a wonderful trip to San Diego, and on a credit card had done Disney and all this stuff. The bar bill I think was about $1,500. So they didnât stay at the Ritz Carleton, but they stayed close. So we came into a situation with a team that had low trust, and the teachers just really distrusted central office. They didnât want to see us, and they didnât believe anything we said. And it was that classic conflict between us. But they were great teachers. There was a wonderful staff and a great central office staff, and it was an exciting group of people to work with. And I remember some of the early board meetings when they were hiring me. The key thing was, we seemed to have a plan. The board of education liked it because we had a plan. And that plan, it was just Baldrige. They said, ãWhat is that?ä And I said, ãWell, I think itâs the Baldrige criteria, but we probably donât want to use that word.ä Because Iâd used that word in a previous school system. Weâd gone from kind of middle of the pack to one of the top two school systems in North Carolina. And when you used the word, sometimes-- I think thereâs a little hidden teacher network out there that any time the Baldrige pops up, they all email each other and say, ãWatch out for that.ä So I don't know if you all have that problem. I don't know if that happens in healthcare. But what weâre trying to do is keep the focus on the children and keep the focus on learning. And thatâs where the conflicts kind of started. It was great to have a top 10 vision, that we wanted to be a top 10 system measured by learning outcomes. Because it wasnât about being top 10, it was about if we did get more children learning to higher levels, then top 10 would just naturally happen. So the clash began. Youâve got the beliefs of an existing culture. And all of you out there that are on this journey, you know this clash. You know when it starts happening. In education, the way it happens, teachers just pick up the phone and call the school board members. ãWho is this crazy superintendent you all got now? I liked what he said the first week, but then he actually wants us to do something. He wants us to change something. He wants us to be a little bit more focused on the children. Well, you know my job is to teach and their job is to learn. And Iâm not supposed to worry about if theyâre learning or not, Iâm just supposed to worry about if weâre teaching or not.ä And you know, most systems, educationâs probably one of the worst, but we believe in stories. We believe in status quo. Well, you know, itâs been like that for 100 years. Weâve done cemetery teaching for 100 years. Kids sit in rows and they stay quiet. ãWhat do you mean, Iâm supposed to get these kids engaged and collaborative and working together?ä So the clash was on. And innovation, ãWhat do you mean weâre going to let kids have cell phones?ä Well, they might be a good learning tool. Did you ever think about our children? You know what happens to our kids when they come to school every day? We call it the power down effect. They have to power down. All of you have or know children in this age, say 15 to late teens or early 20s. I was thinking about my daughter the other night, sitting there on the sofa. Sheâs working on her computer. Sheâs got a little texting going on over here on the side. Watching TV, and sheâs got her iPod in the other ear. And Iâm lucky just to try to stay tuned to the TV and not fall asleep. And I think about that. And sheâs in college now. But when she was in high school, it was always the same thing, you know, just come in and letâs power down. Letâs go from the wealth of this world in technology to a 90-minute lecture on a high school block schedule. So our kids have to power down when they come to school. So what we tried to do is, in our Baldrige journey, we tried to move everybody forward to really focus on this passion and commitment for learning, and it would lead us into a great change process. And what I tell everybody about the Baldrige criteria, itâs the same, youâll hear it from everybody. Guys, this isnât an add on, this is just the way you ought to do work. And with education, our only key to get educators moving forward with using the Baldrige criteria is to get them to understand that if you use the criteria for what itâs intended, a good blueprint, a good framework, a measure on a national, world, international standards level, itâll help you improve the learning of all children. I guess what really drives this, every time I get in a little bit of trouble, which is quite often. It seems like Ryan and I have that in common, I don't know. But anyway, we get in a lot of trouble sometimes for saying the wrong things at the wrong time to the wrong people. I always have to go back to this quote. And Iâm going to show you a quote from Ed Deming on the next slide that talks about all children come to school with a yearning for learning. And our aim should be to increase the positives and decrease the negatives so that those children keep their yearning for learning. Hereâs what happens. And I told you a little bit about this the other day. But itâs worth repeating. If you donât believe this quote, and if you donât believe this happens in schools, just visit those kindergarten classrooms and see what a yearning for learning every child has at the beginning. Kind of walk it through. Kind of spot check third grade and you begin to see the shoulders start to drop. Then you go to middle school and you see the bullying and intimidating taking place. And then you go to high school and you see kids who have to power down when they go to class. And their sole purpose in life is just to survive another class. Now, there are exceptions to that rule everywhere, and weâre trying to make more exceptions to that rule in our school system. But this is the thing we have to do. All of those children start out wanting to be successful. What is it we do to them between kindergarten and when they drop out of school that made them not feel successful? So we focus on that passion for learning. And that always gets me out of trouble, because thatâs a hard one to battle with. Well, you may not like what the school systemâs doing, you may not like what the school board wants you to do, but you know, they really have one thing in mind, and thatâs the kids and helping the kids learn. So a key belief in our system is about the level above enabling the level below. If children arenât learning to high levels in every classroom, itâs because we have a teaching-centered classroom. Now, it is not the teacher thatâs the issue, itâs the classroomâs learning system. So we need to help the teacher improve. I truly believe 95 to 98 percent of our teachers are wonderful and theyâre going to do a great job, they just need help learning what to do to help more children learn. So how do you enable teachers to create learning-centered classrooms? Well, principals have to create a learning-centered school. Youâve got to make decisions about whatâs best for children and learning, rather than, ãWell, this teacherâs been here 25 years, so she deserves the honors class. Weâve got to have this schedule because weâve always had the schedule this way and teachers have always had 50 minutes of planning at this school.ä You canât make decisions based on the adults. Youâve got to make decisions on the children in front of you each day. Principals, if theyâre not creating learning-centered schools, itâs because your school system and your school board and your superintendent are still creating an adult-focused system. Theyâve got to create a learning-focused system, where the number one belief is that all children can learn, all teachers can help children learn, and all principals can help all teachers help children learn. So the level above always enables the level below. So a little bit more about our belief systems. If we believe that our issue is to decrease the failures for the kids, where do we lose teachers? I havenât met one teacher yet coming out of college that wasnât excited about finally getting that first teaching position. And then you go a year or two later, five years later, ten years later. Do they still have that passion for teaching and helping kids learn? If they donât, it could be our fault as the system. What do we need to do better to help our teachers keep that passion for learning and then give it to the kids, and keep the kidsâ passion for learning. Itâs tough work. Itâs tough work out there because hardly a day goes by that public education isnât beaten up somewhere. Iâm sure somewhere, somebodyâs going to figure out that the current global recession is due to public education. I was waiting on Simon to say it, but he didnât say it this morning. All right, so as we started our Baldrige journey, the key word there was donât throw the criteria at people and say ãRead the criteria and do it.ä What you want to do is start them with small actions that lead to successes. And you try to repeat those behaviors. When we started the journey, we were asking three questions. We came in and no big changes early on. Went out and wanted to ask three basic questions, and here they are. No big deal. We went out very low key, very low tech, very low cost. What we did is we put up three posters on the wall in the faculty gathering rooms. And we asked the questions: whatâs getting in the way of helping the kids learn? What do you need to help your kids learn to high levels? And then, what do you expect from a superintendent? So question one was whatâs getting in the way of student learning? What we did there is that began to change the culture. Because the question wasnât, first, what do you need? The question first was whatâs getting in the way of helping more children learn? So we focused right away on the mission and vision of our organization. Second question was all about what do you need to help these children be more successful? What we found out is mainly they were talking about external issues. It was always some elseâs fault or something else that they needed other than, well, we need to change our teaching or our learning processes. But the big thing for me was what do you expect from a superintendent? Because it had been such a confrontational issue between superintendent and teachers that we needed to find out what they wanted. And what they want is what Ron, what Simon, what everybodyâs said so far, they want you visible. They want you communicating. They wanted me to attend ball games. They wanted me to come into classrooms. They wanted me to communicate honestly and openly. Donât try to put a spin on it, just give them the facts and tell them what you needed them to do. And if they sensed you were honest and open, teachers will move mountains for you. So what we did find out is they said school attendance was a big issue. They had some of the worst attendance in the state. And they said, ãIf we could get the kids to school, we could do a lot better job with them.ä So we started modeling right there. We didnât call it a PDSA, we just put together a PDSA team and started working on our attendance. We used the issue bin, affinity charts, we used tools and nobody knew they were tools. All of a sudden we had a plan, we had a deployment plan to address attendance. We went from having one of the worst attendance in the state to the second year we worked on this, we state average or better. And then the third year, we reached top five in North Carolina with student attendance percentages. And weâve held onto it. The sustainability of our attendance PDSA, weâve held on, and on average we ranked in the top three over the last four years. So what did we learn from our early journeys? Well, I think what we learned is when you go in and you ask people, ãWeâre not getting too good of results, what do we need to get better results?ä Itâs always someone elseâs fault. We call it the blame game. You know, college professors say ãIf the high schools would just send us a little better prepared students, weâd do much better work with these kids.ä The high school teachers say, ãWell, itâs the middle school teachers. If they would just better prepare them, we would do a much better job.ä The middle school teachers blame it on the elementary teachers and say, ãIf theyâd just teach them to read, we could do a lot better job.ä Elementary teachers blame it on the parents and say, ãYou know, if theyâd just get them ready for school.ä And the mama blames it on the daddy, says ãHis familyâs always been like that, what are you going to do?ä And then the daddy blames it on the mama, says, ãWell, the little thing probably isnât mine to begin with.ä For those of you that know Brenda Clark, I first learned that from Brenda. So I take no credit for that one. All right. But what we learned is, we donât have enough computers. We donât have enough of time. We donât have enough of paper. Itâs always external to the system. And complacency was always there. And no sense of urgency. These kids donât need Algebra 1, theyâre not going to college. My job is to teach, their job is to learn. If they wanted to learn, theyâd be learning. You know, thereâs nothing going to change here. You know, this is the way itâs been happening for 50 or 60 years. Problem was, in our community, the kids used to go to work in the textile mills or the furniture factories. Those jobs donât even exist anymore, not in our country. And they certainly wouldnât pay what they were used to getting paid. But what we did learn is something very important, is this resistance is always going to be there. Someone asked me for this quote, and you can download this afterwards. But in education, these folks, theyâre everywhere. Theyâre everywhere. They guard the past. They constantly guard the past and they guard the status quo. And like I told you the other day, they guard the status quo because everybodyâs an expert in education. They went to school. So what does not work is we learned that facts alone wonât work. You canât just give the numbers. Youâve got to put people and faces to numbers. Fear doesnât work. You canât hold a gun to peopleâs head. You canât force them into this stuff either. No Child Left Behind has tried to force us into things by just labeling us as failures based on a one-day, one-time test, or one subgroup that doesnât meet it. That hadnât worked, so weâve got to try something else. But what have found and through our Baldrige journey, what we did find that does work is relationships. Youâve got to build relationships with your people. And what I sense in the leaders that have presented is thereâs wonderful relationships. Youâre getting out there, whether youâre out there in an Easter Bunny outfit or a Santa Claus outfit. Iâve got an elementary principal, he wears a costume about once a week. So itâs great, you build relationships. We build relationships by going out and visiting, and the walk arounds and the communications with our staff. So youâve got to have those relationships. And youâve just got to start small, and youâve just got to keep, ãWell, letâs do this.ä Itâs got to be the way that you do the work, and eventually, youâll get around to reframing beliefs. The great book there I told you about that my wife gave me on Valentineâs Day a couple years ago was Change or Die. So read that book, Iâd recommend it. It could really change your life, and it could really change the way you work. The biggest thing in education is changing beliefs though. The Pygmalion effect is the key issue. And if we believe that we can make a difference in childrenâs lives, we will. If we believe we can impact student learning, we will. There is no bell curve. It does not exist. All children can learn to high levels on a standards-based educational system. If we do not think our actions can make a difference in childrenâs lives or if we donât think we can overcome demographics, then we wonât. But youâve got to create a sense of urgency. And the way we did that in our school system, the school board brought in the Baldrige, the feedback that we get every year, that feedback report. Weâre just like the hospitals and the businesses, that drives our work. Youâve got to listen to your employees. Youâve got to publish results, youâve got to put that data out in front of people, and then youâve got to let people know what youâve done. So have we gotten any better? Well, youâve seen our results. Weâve gone from an academic composite ranking of 55th to 9th. You see on the screen here our graduation rate is the thing weâre most proud. We want to be the first large system in the nation with diverse population to get 100 percent graduation. On our next slide, you see that weâve closed academic achievement gaps. Weâve worked on computer skills. Weâve done great work in drop out, because itâs the leading indicator for our graduation rate. And weâve improved our attendance. We certainly have become a top 10 school system in North Carolina. Now, by igniting a passion for learning in everyone, we hope to continue to move forward. As I close today, what I want to do again is to thank you and to ask you to do something for me. I always close this way, but Iâm going to put a little twist on it today. I always close with asking you to believe in children, because children are our future. Iâm asking you today to not only believe in children, but Iâm asking you to believe in yourself. Iâm asking you to believe in your country, because our country is in challenging times. And if this thingâs going to be flat for a while, weâve got to get more innovative and weâve got to create a belief in our nation that we will come out of this and we will be stronger in the future. And the only way we can do it is to believe in each other and make a commitment to implementing quality, continuous improvement in everything, in every way, shape of life we do. Because weâre sending those children forward. And youâve got grandchildren or children, or youâve got nieces or nephews that weâre sending forward with massive debt and lots of challenges to overcome. And letâs make sure we send them forward prepared, and letâs make sure we send them forward hopeful and not being negative. Thank you again for making us feel welcome. #### End of TERRY HOLLIDAY-NIST PODCASTS.mp3 #### Terry Holliday / TERRY HOLLIDAY-NIST PODCASTS.mp3 Tragert Media Productions 6/2/09 Page 1 of 7 RF# TRAGMP-12 www.ProductionTranscripts.com ö 888-349-3022