MI-LIFE

Good to Great? It's Not Just for Business Any More

The Core Faculty for the MI-LIFE Project (Michigan Leadership Improvement Framework Endorsement) met to discuss the progress of the courses they are writing for the project, which is being underwritten by a Microsoft Partners in Learning grant. The curriculum will be built around the Michigan School Improvement Framework and aligned with McREL's 21 Balanced Leadership responsibilities.. After a long day of curriculum work, a lengthy discussion ensued about leadership competencies and characteristics. One book title came up again and again in the conversation -- Jim Collins' Good to Great.

In the "great minds think alike" category, we discovered this evening that Scott McLeod wrote about this very book today in his blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. He mentioned that Collins has published a monograph to acccompany Good to Great titled Good to Great and the Social Sector. In the monograph, Collins applies the Good to Great lessons to social sector (non-profit) leaders, including school administrators. Collins writes in the monograph about the systemic factors facing the social sector:

Still, the fact remains, we can find pockets of greatness in nearly every difficult environment—whether it be the airline industry, education, healthcare, social ventures, or government-funded agencies. Every institution has its unique set of irrational and difficult constraints, yet some make a leap while others facing the same environmental challenges do not. This is perhaps the single most important point in all of Good to Great. Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.

Sounds like a good addition to our leadership library!

Who Has to Know How to Read?

A recent blog posting by David Warlick brought our attention to an MSNBC article reporting that adult literacy is on the decline. The MSNBC article in turn referenced a Washington Post article titled "Literacy of College Graduates Is on Decline: Survey's Finding of a Drop in Reading Proficiency Is Inexplicable, Experts Say."

We decided to avoid secondary sources and went to the heart of the matter by locating the actual survey, titled "2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) Results." It was published in December, 2005 and was based on interviews with more than 19,000 people 16 or older, who were asked to read prose, do math and find facts in documents. The results were reported in four reading levels: below basic, basic, intermediate, and proficient. In the proficient category only 31% of college graduates can read a complex book, analyze it, and understand it.

Based on her research, Lois Romano, the author of the Washington Post article, offers several scenarios as reasons for this low literacy rate, one being that state universities were not particularly selective in their admissions and that low literacy rates in high school are the real elephant in the living room.

MSNBC responded to the survey results with a tongue-in-cheek futuristic opinion piece suggesting that because of technological advances, reading be taught to only 10% of the population. Looking ahead 20 years, the author, Michael Rogers, surmises that technology will obviate the need to be able to read anything more than 100 words at a time and most entertainment and information will come through multimedia channels where text is an option. As a result, Rogers adds, "The nation’s leaders must be able to read; for those who follow, the ability should be strictly optional."

His closing argument follows:

We have made at least two generations of American children miserable trying to teach them a skill that only a small percentage of them really need. A nd we have wasted billions of dollars that might well have gone for more practical education and training.

In 2025 it’s time to put reading into perspective for the remainder of the 21st century: it is a luxury, not a necessity!

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Reminiscent of Charles Lamb's essay, "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig," but with a much more serious topic, the article does force one to wonder what is the cause of the reading proficiency decline. What do you think?