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School committee member Dave Conway made a motion last night to create a Council for Creative Solutions, which would be charged with analyzing and determining the feasibility of cost-saving ideas submitted by school department employees, with a potential for such employees to receive bonuses for successful submissions.  I’m not sure if Mr. Conway reads The New Yorker or not, but in the May 12^th issue James Surowiecki describes the phenomenal success of Toyota, which has recently surpassed GM in car sales, and ascribes their long term profitability to a similar program of employee-driven change.  Here’s how they do it:

Toyota implements a million new ideas a year, and most of them come from ordinary workers.  Most of these ideas are small – making parts on a shelf easier to reach, say – and not all of them work.  But cumulatively, every day, Toyota knows a little more, and does things a little better, than it did the day before. 

Toyota’s changes and innovations result from a relentless focus on incremental improvements in process, rather than product.  Their methods are no secret, and many companies have tried to copy them, but the prevailing cultural mentality of expecting innovation to be dramatic and exciting, which Surowieki likens to crash-dieting as opposed to sensible eating, causes them to abandon such mundane efforts early on.  In addition, as Surowieki points out, most companies (and, I would argue, school districts) are still organized in a very top-down manner, and have a hard time handing responsibility to front-line workers. 

It does sometimes seem that school districts are always ready to put money into a new theory or program, scrapping previous efforts and jumping on the latest bandwagon, like dieters who go from one faddish eating plan to another.   The wearied teachers and staff follow along because they must, but their ownership of such top-down, theory-driven plans is often lacking.  Small, grassroots initiatives may have a better chance of succeeding and may also invigorate an openness to change throughout the system.  I hope the motion passes successfully through subcommittee and is positioned to be simple and effective (do we really need another council?), and that employees and school leaders will enter into the spirit of this, not just to save money but to improve the way we do the job in our schools.  It could pay off for everyone in the long run.
 

After crafting a budget within the revenue guidelines set by the city, which required a less than one percent increase and the elimination of 60 positions, the Lowell School Committee voted last night to send the manager a list of 10 priority teaching positions to fully or partially restore if additional funds are made available. (Related Sun article here.) The restorations, as the list below indicates, are for teaching positions in core areas such as math, reading, and English-language instruction. Restoring all 10 positions will cost $550,000—not an easy ask given the current fiscal environment. But we can’t afford NOT to do it when the ultimate price may be a serious decline in student achievement. For example, in our latest MCAS results from 2007, 14% more Lowell sixth graders scored advanced/proficient in math and 15% less scored in the warning category. Three of those priority positions directly impact middle-school math instruction. Also, four of the positions are to restore elementary reading teachers at state-labeled Commonwealth Priority Schools—those schools that have not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) on MCAS. In yet another case of unfunded government mandates, these schools are judged on student performance without being provided the resources to meet their students’ needs. Worth noting: Last year, of the five largest districts in the state, Lowell had the highest percentage of schools making AYP in English, and the second highest for AYP in math. We’re making progress and Lowell is one of the state’s most successful large urban districts, but we still have a long way to go. We will not get there by constantly cutting positions—360 since 2002. The only way to improve our schools is to make educating our children a priority, which right now means funding the priority list. To see the list, check: more »