“We ask principals to be strong instructional leaders,” she said, “but we also ask them to also be sophisticated managers, sometimes over million-dollar operations. It’s in HISD’s best interest to develop a cadre of leaders who have this level of business savvy and skill.” REEP applicants from HISD are hand-selected by HISD administrators, who identify the employees who show the most potential to be good principals and other leaders. “We know well in advance which teachers show real leadership potential,” Best said, “and the school district wants to invest in them.” The educators who go through REEP are then fast-tracked into leadership roles in the district. Cendie Stanford, who finished her REEP Business Fellowship in May, is one of those educators. Until last summer, Stanford was a seventh-grade principal at a Spring Branch middle school. Now she’s a Leading Excellence Fellow at a YES Prep charter school and is in training to be the founding principal next year of a new YES Prep campus in Spring Branch. And she’s on the cutting edge of a new partnership between Spring Branch ISD and some successful charter schools. Stanford had two master’s degrees already — in technology education and educational administration — but she believes REEP offered her a more “tangible experience” that was in touch with what’s really happening in schools. “I feel like it was much deeper learning,” she said. “The stuff we were exposed to was real, not just textbook examples.” For example, Stanford did a case study that examined the practice of using outside consultants to help turn around low-performing schools. It was a real-life example: At her school, a consultant had been hired to recommend changes. She wanted to take another look at this common practice in education. “You can get so caught up in being in the same system for so long,” Stanford said, “that you don’t know what something else looks like or how something else operates.” Stanford said it opened her eyes when she met other educators with different practices and new ideas. They compared notes, visited each other’s schools and shared ideas. “I had an opportunity to really learn from those people, and I’ve kept in touch with them,” Stanford said. “Having those authentic conversations and those campus walkthroughs was invaluable.” That interchange of ideas is one of the most important opportunities that REEP provides. “There are a lot of folks who don’t even know what it is they don’t know when they come into the program,” Hodge said. “They’ve been in their bubble — their district, their school — and they may not even know what the sister high school in their district is doing.” Like business, education can be all about connections, and REEP is good at building connections. REEP students learn from fellow educators, yes, but they’re also making connections outside of education, and the exchange flows both ways. In the Jones School, REEP students take classes with students enrolled in the standard MBA for Professionals program, and Hodge has witnessed the power of having, “in a high-powered classroom full of young professionals,” a handful of educators asking new questions and offering different perspectives.
Cendie Stanford and Andrea Hodge
“People talk about how the teaching profession is underpaid, or like it’s some sort of social mission,” Hodge said. “And there’s that condescending phrase: ‘If you can’t do, teach.’ But our regular MBA students were able to say, Wow, there is talent in education.” Because of this, Hodge believes that REEP is helping foster a new respect for teaching that is long overdue. Apparently the MBA students think so, too. Last year, Jones School students started the Education Leadership Club composed of a mix of educators and business professionals. “They’re creating partnerships and friendships with future business leaders in Houston,” Hodge said, “and that’s a good thing for educators and their schools.” REEP is building connections to the Houston community as well. A lecture series has brought in several big names in education and entrepreneurship, and a REEP Innovation Exchange last July welcomed more than 200 public-school educators to campus for an all-day session with entrepreneurs. The REEP program is small, and it’s just getting established. But with a web of solid connections — and the energetic desire to make a positive change in education — REEP can create a ripple effect, Hodge said. As graduates return to their schools with the knowledge they’ve gained from REEP, they are making a difference on each campus, and their influence will spread as they move up through the ranks in their districts. “Our graduates — and even our students — are fast-tracking into leadership positions in the Houston area,” Hodge said. “That, for us, is an early indicator that something valuable is happening here.”
Rice Magazine
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No. 11
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2011
33