WSU News Archive

By Julie Titone, College of Education

RICHLAND, Wash. - In the school of her dreams, students aren’t segregated into grades. They solve community problems instead of fabricated ones. They work on class projects with kids in other countries. They have a voice in how their school is governed.

 

Michele Acker-Hocevar is an associate professor at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Her vision of education has gained attention in three books and an upcoming report produced with colleagues around the country.

"Living on the Edge of Chaos: Leading Schools into the Global Age,” written with Karolyn J. Snyder and Kristen M. Snyder, was released in 2000, with a second edition in 2008. This year it was published in Chinese (Beijing; Educational Science Publishing House).

The translators, husband and wife educators Ximnin Sang and Shuhua Sang, were impressed by the authors’ premise that teachers and educational leaders are shackled by policies, mandates and bureaucracy - which they translated as "dancing with chains.”

 

Educators must take a global approach to instruction so they can prepare students for international careers, Acker-Hocevar said.

 

"We need to give students a more cosmopolitan world view,” she said. "We have the technology to connect them with students in other countries to work on problems like hunger, poverty, pollution, use of resources and health issues.”

 

The fact that "Living on the Age of Chaos” was translated into Chinese demonstrates that educators everywhere are grappling with changes in leadership roles, she said.

 

In the United States, the head-down focus on test scores troubles Acker-Hocevar. It detracts from innovation, she said.

 

"Many of them are so buried in mandates and requirements that they lack time to look forward,” she said. "For example, one threat to public education is for-profit online course providers who aren’t based in a school district.

 

"That means the potential loss of millions of dollars to public schools,” said Acker-Hocevar, who teaches in WSU’s educational leadership programs. "Administrators should have seen the online competition coming and taken the initiative to head it off.”

 

"Leadership from the Ground Up: Sustainable School Improvement in Traditionally Low Performing Schools,”  released this year, chronicles the journey of seven Florida schools serving low-income students, English language learners and students of color. All of them not only improved student learning, but were able to sustain improvements for a decade without backsliding.

Acker-Hocevar and co-authors Marta Cruz-Jansen and Cynthia Wilson found that community and parental involvement are essential if schools are going to get better and stay better.

Successful principals, they found, are those with strong professional networks at the district, state and national levels. They share power with teachers, students, parents and the community.

 

"The school culture and climate is the root system of what we call the Learning Partnership Tree,” Acker-Hocevar said. "It’s a root system deeply connected to values of care, respect, openness and forging strong connections.”

 

Finding out what school leaders think has been a mission for Acker-Hocevar and her colleague Gary Ivory from New Mexico State University. They co-edited the 2007 book "Successful School Board Leadership: Lessons from Superintendents.” More recently, they came up with a research plan that involved organizing 27 focus groups of superintendents and principals around the country to talk about social justice, democratic community and school improvement.

 

One thing they heard repeatedly, Acker-Hocevar said, is how the federal No Child Left Behind law had reinforced the governance of schools in a top-down manner. The federal government tells states what to do, states tell districts, district superintendents tell principals and principals tell teachers.

 

The full report will be contained in "Snapshots of School Leadership in the 21st Century: Perils and Promises of Leading for Social Justice, School Improvement, and Democratic Community,” due out later this year. It will be published by the University Council for Education Administration. 

 

Acker-Hocevar studied developmental psychology as an undergraduate and began her career teaching a combination class of first- through third-graders. She used a lot of learning strategies with them and was methodical about monitoring which ones were most helpful, she said.

 

"The director of learning programs in North Carolina came out to see why my kids had such dramatic gains in reading,” she said. "I always thought of my role as amazingly interesting: How do you help students learn? I was curious and just did what worked.”

 

Looking back on her early career, Acker-Hocevar concluded that her professional identity gave her the confidence to figure things out.

 

"Today, many teachers are told what to do and when to do it,” she said. "They have pacing charts and have to move on with students, even if the student has not learned. Education standards have resulted in standardization.”

 

After attending graduate school at the University of Idaho, she switched careers.

 

"I was the first person this Fortune 10 company hired with a master’s degree in educational administration,” she said. "I started in sales, moved to key accounts in Tampa Bay and Naples, Fla., and was fast-tracked into territory management.”

 

When she returned to education, earning her Ph.D. at the University of South Florida in organizational studies, she brought with her a basic rule of business:

 

"I got to know my buyers and what they wanted,” she said, "and that’s what teachers should do with students. Know them. Know what motivates them. Tailor learning so that it is meaningful to the student.”

 

Contacts:
Michele Acker-Hocevar, WSU Tri-Cities, ackerhoc@tricity.wsu.edu, 509-372-7251
Julie Titone, WSU College of Education, jtitone@wsu.edu, 509-335-6850

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