David Walker, GLD19 – Response to Request for Clarification Dr. Dean Elias, Ed.D.
- Request for Clarification
I would like to thank you in advance for bearing with me while I provide responses and explain my reasoning. One of the most common clinical practices in law is to attack your opponent’s work as: “overly broad” “ambiguous” or “uncertain.” There is a former U.S. Supreme Court Justice who once said something to the effect that, “. . . a conclusion is something you reach after you decide to stop thinking.” The intention of my paper “21st Century Education and the 21st Century Leadership Challenge” is to connect not fragment: Hall, Burns, Rost and Bordas. 1. “USING OBAMA'S STATEMENTS AS A CASE STUDY MAY BE CHALLENGING, BUT I AM WILLING TO GIVE IT A TRY. WHAT I STILL WANT IS AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CASE STUDY USING THE LENSES OF OTHER THEORISTS.” In my paper submitted Dec 10, 2008 titled “Leadership Theory” I claim that although, Hall, Burns, Rost, and Bordas travel very different paths they all arrive at a similar conclusion that the empowerment of a transformative 21c leadership style among other things are qualities such as intentional compassion, empathy, non-coerciveness, and non-violent interactive communication. These elements are essential to defining 21c leadership. Hall espouses that personal and organizational progress through leadership is a deliberate act of deep personal and organizational understanding of what it means to be a human being. My understanding of Hall is that superficial humanity, understanding, and responses, are insufficient for a values shift or transformation. Hall’s thesis is congruent with the Obama $10M pledge to advance early childhood education. Foundational values, means, and goals are essential for not only for progress in education but progress in American humanity (citations omitted). Burns emphasizes the elevation of the collective morals without becoming a moralist or judgmental. Obama speaks of elevating morals without coming across to me as a moralistic bible thumping hypocrite when he speaks of what is and is not acceptable morality (citations omitted). Rost brings his surgical definition of 21c leadership and clarity to the transformative leadership discussion - especially, the need for a dynamic interaction and participation between leadership and followers who freely exchange roles. I extracted the London Finacial Times article about how they observe the Obama Presidential campaign effectively connecting with the American voter as an example of this essential 21c leadership quality and that sense “participative government” supports this essential element of 21c leadership (citations omitted). And, Bordas embraces leadership lessons from a culturally diverse leadership perspective. Although, Bordas discusses cultural diversity in the context of American history, I do not think it would rupture her thesis to extend her reasoning to a global context of global village of many tribes and peoples. The
Obama statements relating to blacks, Hispanics and the poor and National Governors Association report pleading for elevated thought using a global education metric supports this 21c leadership element (citations omitted). When I first read the Rost book, I did not appreciate the framework he sets forth in his definition of 21c leadership - especially the part about fluidity between leader and followers. I was distracted from Rost’s real message by what many people in cohort GLD19, including myself, describe as “Burn’s Bashing.” After reading three extracurricular books on leadership theory: Leaders – Bennis & Nanus (1985); Leadership Lessons of the Navy Seals - McGraw-Hill (2003) and; The Bible on Leadership – From Moses to Mathew Management Lessons for Contemporary Leaders by Lorin Woolfe (2002), I have attached two of these books as PDF files to email, I started to appreciate in greater depth how what Hall, Burns, Rost and Bordas deliver is that 21c transformative leadership is a non-coercive connection between leaders and followers. Rost’s thesis that fluidity exists between leaders and followers and that management is not leadership at first seemed highly absurd and just sat on the back shelf of my mind like cans of unused food in the kitchen cupboard. It was not until I read my extracurricular books did I gain an appreciation for Rost’s clarity and his framework as the keystone that ties himself, Hall, Burns and Bordas together. Both Burns and Rost agree that management is not leadership. Burns continues down this path even further to include that bureaucracies and Machiavellian modalities are not leadership qualities but administrative and management tactics. 2.
“DO I HAVE THE CORE ELEMENTS OF YOUR ARGUMENT?”
Yes. Your attention and distillation is very gratifying. 3. “YOUR PAPER LEAVES ME WITH THREE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, AND ONE BASIC CONCERN. THE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS: ON WHAT BASIS DO YOU INSERT IN BRACKETS THE WORDS [AND PRIVATE] INTO THE QUOTE FROM THE AP REGARDING THIS BEING A PROMISING PERIOD FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THIS COUNTRY (PAGE 3)?” I include my own words “[and private]” because a rising tide will lift all the ships. Although private education may perceive itself as divorced from the public education system, in some ways both are connected analogous to brothers and sisters being related. A new elevated national value of the role of public education may be synergistic to the private education sector as well. 4. “ON PAGE 5, YOU SAY THAT A 20C EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS CANNOT SURVIVE INTO THE 21C BECAUSE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, BUT ISN'T THE GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION COMPLAINING THAT WE ARE DOING JUST THAT -- CONTINUING A 20C EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM INTO THE 21C?” A 20c education system is stuck using 20c education metrics. Obama and the NGA Report plead for global view of the role of national education policy and
education metrics. This may be a dramatic paradigm shift in thinking about policy and management of the American education system. 5. “ON PAGE 6, YOU ASSERT THAT TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP DEPENDS ON HAVING A SHARED PURPOSE BETWEEN LEADER AND FOLLOWER, AND GO ON TO CITE THE GOVERNORS' ASSOCIATION ACTION STEPS AS INDICATORS: WHAT IS THE SHARED PURPOSE THAT THE INDICATORS ARE MEASURING?” The new purpose is transformation of the American education system to not only compete but excel in the 21c world. 6. “THE BASIC QUESTION HAS TO DO WITH THE NATURE OF THE ASSIGNMENT. WE DON'T YET HAVE A CASE STUDY OF OBAMA AND EDUCATION: WE SIMPLY HAVE HIS STATEMENTS. BUT, ASSUMING HIS STATEMENTS GIVE[S] US ENOUGH WITH WHICH TO WORK (AND I WILL ACCEPT THAT FOR THIS AS A CASE STUDY FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT).” First, thank you for allowing me to venture into this wilderness. If you give me enough rope I would probably hang myself. True enough we do not have a case study unless we return to the Obama record as Senator for the State of Illinois. Maybe I should have focused upon this tangible area of academic and legal research. If you go to National Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/RuralEd/statebystate.asp) and compare standardized test results of California against Illinois, you will discover that the state education in California in consistently lower than the “average” test scores in all areas of testing for the nation and that Illinois is at the norm for the nation. Yes, using this national metric maybe an outdated 20c concept but this is all we have to work with right now because I cannot find an international education metric to measure state by state education performance. Before Obama became an Illinois State Senator and Arne Duncan the CEO of Chicago public schools, Illinois education according to standardized testing was below that national average scores. When Obama left office and elevated Duncan to U.S. Secretary of Education, both men left an improved state education system. “The man Barack Obama announced Tuesday as his choice for secretary of education is from the president-elect's home court in more ways than one. Arne Duncan is not only a fellow Chicagoan who lives in the same Hyde Park neighborhood as Obama. He is, like the president-elect, an avid basketball player who has played pick-up games with Obama since the 1990s. The one-time co-captain of Harvard's basketball team who advised Obama on education issues during the campaign has run the country's third-biggest school district for the past seven years. "I am convinced that no issue, no issue is more pressing than education," Duncan said Tuesday at a news conference in Chicago. "Whether it's fighting poverty, strengthening our economy or promoting opportunity, education is the common thread. It is the civil-rights issue of our generation, and it is the one sure path to a more equal, fair and just society." As CEO of Chicago Public Schools, the 44-year-old has focused on improving struggling schools and closing those that fail — a policy that has sometimes put him at odds with parents and the teachers union . . . "In just seven years, he's boosted elementary test scores here in Chicago from 38 percent of students meeting the standards to 67 percent. The dropout rate has gone down every year he's been in charge,"
Obama said” (“Top education official is Obama neighbor,” Associated Press, Dec 16, 2008). There is no clear case study unless I go back into the Senate record for Obama and studying this area with a Rost-like surgical precision may have yielded some relevant and clear information. 7. “I STILL MISS A RESPONSE TO MY REQUEST: "CRITICALLY EXAMINE A MODEL OR TWO OF LEADERSHIP FROM THE PUBLIC SPHERE, USING THE LENSES OF THE THEORISTS (YOU SUMMARIZED IN YOUR EARLIER PAPER) TO EVALUATE SPECIFIC LEADERSHIP ACTIONS." I FIND AN ASSESSMENT USING BURNS'S THEORY, BUT MISS A LIKE ASSESSMENT USING THE OTHER THEORIES YOU HAD SUMMARIZED EARLIER.” For all the reasons stated above I may have answered this question. ### Respectfully Submitted, David P. Walker