Education Week - October 5, 2016 - 32

Lessons
From an
Outgoing
Chancellor

By Kaya Henderson
spent the last six years as the chancellor
of the public schools of the District of Columbia and the last decade working for the
school district. For 20 years, I have been focused on improving educational outcomes
for students in the nation's capital. With the
recent conclusion of my time as a district
leader, I see enormous promise in the future
of education, and I am very optimistic about what we
can do to help students in traditional school districts.
During my time at the school system, we showed it
is possible to make dramatic improvements in only
a few years. We improved student performance, increased enrollment, increased student satisfaction,
expanded our graduation rate, and improved college
access for all students. This success didn't come easily, but the lessons we learned can be applied to any
other school district. In fact, they must be, because
we owe it to the more than 90 percent of students in
this country who attend public schools to create great
opportunities for a bright future.
While it's impossible to capture in a short list all
that we've done in Washington, five simple lessons
were key to our success:
You need to be clear about your goals. One of
the first things I did as chancellor was to publicly
state the five goals by which we would measure
our success. These goals were derived from input
from thousands of community members, but they
were clear, specific, and quantifiable. Our goals
showed that we were going to improve outcomes
for all students; that we were going to focus on our
lowest-performing schools; that we would increase
our graduation rates; that student satisfaction was
important to us; and that having more parents
choose our schools was crucial to our success. We
haven't yet met all of our goals, but they shaped
our work, ensured the public understood our approach, and helped hold us accountable for our
performance.
There is nothing more important than people. We all know that research says that the quality

| INSIDE |

Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images-File

COMMENTARY

Kaya Henderson, former chancellor for the public schools of the District of Columbia, is pictured here at her
confirmation hearing before the City Council in 2011. Previously, she served as Chancellor Michelle Rhee's deputy.
Following Rhee's departure, Henderson was the city's interim chancellor for eight months.

of a teacher matters more than anything else in a
child's classroom. That is why our district worked to
recruit, reward, and retain the very best teachers.
In fact, 90 percent of our very best teachers return
to our public schools each year.
But just having great teachers isn't enough. We
need great school leaders and great district-level
staff as well. Classroom work, school leadership,
and district-level work all require similar skills-
the ability to work collaboratively, a sense of urgency, and the ability to implement workable solutions to complex problems. You simply cannot be
successful at this level of work unless your team is
made up of the very best people.
Every student deserves the opportunity to
have rich experiences across the curriculum.
One of the things that I am most proud of is the fact
that, with $2 million of private funding, we were able
to send 400 students, most of whom had never left the
country, on international trips. This is important to
me because I know that all students should have the
same opportunities as their wealthier peers. I also
know that while it is tempting to focus on remediation and the notion of "fixing" our students, the real
key to their success lies in helping our students blossom through broadening experiences. This is why we
make sure that every 2nd grader learns about his or
her neighborhood while learning to ride a bike, and
it is why every high school chemistry student learns
to build a cellphone battery. Yes, we must meet our
students where they are with instruction, but we must
also help students see how far they can go.

All students
should have
the same
opportunities
as their
wealthier
peers."

Families are the very best partners in education. Our teachers had thousands of home visits with their students' families, and I held scores
of meetings with parents everywhere from their
PTA meetings and living rooms to our local Costco.
Through these experiences, I can say that families
are the very best partners in their children's education. However, I've also learned that parents can be
good partners only if you give them the tools they
need to engage.
Our home visits gave teachers a chance to learn
about individual students' needs and interests at

THE EMPATHY GAP
AND HOW TO FILL IT

32 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 5, 2016 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary

TRUST: THE MISSING
INGREDIENT IN
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

the start of the school year so teachers and families
could work together to help those children succeed.
At our community meetings, we provided parents
with key information but also let them know the issues that needed their feedback. We used this feedback every year when we formulated our budget,
and we focused on families when we had to make
decisions about opening new schools, consolidating
schools, or changing school boundaries. I have found
that even the busiest families will gladly make time
for you when you seek their input.
School district leaders need thoughtful,
aligned political support. I was fortunate to work
under three different mayors, three different City
Council chairmen, and two different City Council education committee chairmen-all of whom have taken
a strong interest in education, and all of whom have
worked to invest in our schools. As a district leader, I
had to make hundreds of decisions, including closing
underenrolled schools, and I am certain that some of
our city's political leaders wished that I had made different decisions from time to time.
While we may have had contentious hearings
and difficult conversations, nearly all of our city's
elected leaders lent their support to our work. Simply put, this was absolutely fundamental to our
success. We have all shared the goal of greatly improving educational opportunities for students and
that-rather than quibbles over facilities, policies,
or program-defined our relationship.
Ten years ago, the District of Columbia had a
struggling school system. There is still a great
deal of work to do from ensuring that every
school provides students with an excellent education to supporting students who haven't been
successful in a traditional setting. But over the
past decade, we showed that with the right approach, our school district was able to become
one of the fastest-improving school districts in
the country, according to the 2013 and 2015 Trial
Urban District Assessment. n
KAYA HENDERSON joined the District of Columbia school
system as deputy chancellor in 2007 and served as its
chancellor from November 2010 until last week.

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Education Week - October 5, 2016

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