The 2011 Maine School Management Association conference

I just got back from the MSMA conference in Augusta. A few thoughts:
I hate window-less rooms.
That said, my first "clinic" was Re-inventing Educator performance Systems: A Collaborative Approach. My former boss, Bill Webster, is now Superintendent of the Lewiston Public School System, where they received a grant to implement a program of educator accountability (performance measuring)and professional growth to try to bring about greater student achievement. Bill comes from the private sector, and I know he has thought to himself, 'if we can pay for performance in the private sector, why can't we do it in public education?' The answer is, you can, and they are going to do it in Lewiston. The secret is buy-in from stakeholders during the design of the new system,and professional growth to support the new accountability paradigm. This was the first of several times in the conference where the "they do it in the private sector, why can't it work in public education?" threaded to the surface.
Clinic 2 was on RTI, or response to intervention. RTI is a middle point between an individualized education program (IEP) for a student with a learning disability, and the regular classroom. The big take-away for me was that a school needs to act in concert when a student starts to fall through the cracks. Often, the problem is behavioral (messy divorce going on, poverty). But these kids who need a little extra can get that help early on and avoid a downward spiral. Why doesn't the regular assessment process catch this? Why is RTI a trendy thing? What's going wrong in our schools to make RTI popular?
Clinic 3 was "The Changing World of Teacher Bargaining: How National and Maine Reforms Affect Your Negotiations." I haven't been a part of teacher bargaining, but I have to admit I'm looking forward to partaking. The insurance part is going to change, and this is good news. The probationary period is changing, and this is also good news. The interesting news is with regard to the use of evaluations in determining teacher compensation. The evaluation process and outcomes are going to be the topic of a lot of scrutiny, and it should be so.
Thursday's last attended clinic was A Policy Primer: the Basics of School Board Policy, and this was a disappointment. I asked about the difference in meaning between "will" and "shall", and got nowhere.
I hope to write again soon on the keynote speakers and the Friday clinics.