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A New Uprising By Amanda Nelson An elementary classroom at Eminence Independent Schools uses MacBook computers to enhance a lesson Eminence Independent Schools Superintendent Buddy Berry and Instructional Supervisor Thom Coffee took part in the College s Next Generation Leadership Academy When students in Eminence Ky recently took to Twitter to protest a decision made by their town s officials school leaders held their breath Perhaps the new culture they had created one where it s OK to do things like bring an iPhone to school or voice to teachers and administrators how you want to be taught had opened the doors to student voice a little too wide Nobody could argue the cause wasn t good hearted The students were rooting for a man in town who helped make ends meet by collecting cans to recycle Some residents were concerned about him coming onto their properties so he d been told he was no longer allowed to pick up cans As it turns out the students acted maturely during their cyberspace campaign The town altered its decision and school officials proud of their students responsible use of social media breathed a sigh of relief It s commonly said it takes years for a trend to reach Kentucky Someone merely passing through Eminence population 2 200 might describe it as a sleepy little town But Eminence students impromptu Twitter campaign is just one example from among the forward thinking Kentucky schools on track to become models for the state nation and perhaps even the world Given their innovative spirit it is no surprise that when the College of Education at the University of Kentucky created a program last summer to build capacity in leaders to design new systems for learning Eminence s superintendent Buddy Berry and instructional supervisor Thom Coffee were among the first participants The Next Generation Leadership Academy an output of the College s Kentucky P20 Innovation Lab was a game changer for Eminence Berry and Coffee were already on an innovative path but the academy allowed them to get further connected with what school could be They say it also allowed them to think purposively about how to enact changes in a designed format 14 that s systematic rather than happenstance In one particularly eye opening session UK Associate Professor John Nash brought in some high school students and prepped the academy participants on how to ask probing questions about what they want from school As we interviewed them about how to do school differently the students were so stuck inside the model they had seen for 15 or 16 years they couldn t think differently It convinced me that we ve got to go back to Eminence and find a way to get from students what they really want from school not just a version of what they think school is supposed to be Coffee said Across America there are students teachers principals and superintendents who similarly to Eminence know all too well the way we do school no longer works While we may refer to what is needed as education reform the effort shouldn t be confused with reform programs we ve all watched come and go in decades past The new education reform is designed to root out what doesn t work and replace it with ways of learning that will prepare all students for college and careers Interestingly this kind of reform is student centered meaning students have a say in designing the future of their education And perhaps most importantly Kentucky has spent years building the sorts of infrastructures that will make this work sustainable over time Kentucky P20 Innovation Lab Co Director Linda France compared the initiatives being put in place at Eminence Independent Schools to the Wright Brothers taking flight She is pictured here with Eminence Superintendent Buddy Berry during a press conference to launch Eminence s School on F I R E model Here at UK we call this type of reform Next Generation Learning or NxGL for short In 2010 we created a launching pad for NxGL called the Kentucky P20 Innovation Lab referred to around here as P20 A lot of people ask us What is P20 At the simplest level it means pre school P to graduate level 20 education The activities that fall under the P20 label are diverse and complex however the heart of P20 is quite simple P20 builds a bridge between school districts and higher education The work we do is parallel which begs the question Why don t school districts and universities University of Kentucky College of Education

particularly colleges of education spend more time working together It s a daunting task tearing down a system that has remained virtually unchanged since the 1800s But the participants are up for the challenge and College of Education Assistant Prothe UK faculty fessor Gerry Swan demonstrates to members involved Kentucky school leaders at the Next in P20 are excited Generation Leadership Academy to lend a hand and how to utilize CaseMate a digital be part of the trans technology that enables teachers to formation Within develop deliver and formatively asP20 is a set of sess multimedia lessons mini labs that are based upon issues or themes For instance the importance of self beliefs is a founding principle of Associate Professor Ellen Usher s work as codirector of the Motivation and Learning Lab Meribeth Gaines principal of Lexington s new Wellington Elementary co directs the lab with Usher The lab gets us out of our silos and helps us share expertise we both have for solving challenging problems we face Usher said By having a university researcher and school principal collaborate we are able to ask the right questions and conduct the right analyses so our lab is able to solve problems encountered daily in Kentucky s schools The NxGL Leadership Academy begins work with school leaders because they are in a position to make school wide and system wide changes Keep in mind these leaders have been part of the current system since about age 5 when they entered kindergarten And it s likely most of their career successes have come from performing well within that system But they also realize how the current system isn t keeping up with the demands of a global world and are ready to lead the state nation and the College s international partners in changing it to meet current demands With all this talk of radical transformation that s not to say we re going to pull the proverbial rug out from underneath the current schooling systems While the task at hand is big and the need for transformation vast we re starting small Yet we re making sure we can scale up what works very quickly Here s how it works Once a school leader takes part in the year long leadership academy he or she will have a set of goals and ideas for how to make important changes The ideas worth trying out we call prototypes We have the chance to work with their schools to test out these prototypes within Learning Innovation Zones iZones created inside the schools iZones provide a safe place for college faculty and school personnel to work together to redesign and rethink current policies practices and programs to support 21st Century learners When something shows promise among the students in the iZones we have networks set up across Kentucky at other iZone schools and in several other states through the Council of Chief State School Officers CCSSO Kentucky is one of seven states chosen by the CCSSO to participate in an Innovation Lab Network The Partnership for Next Generation Learning to strategically work together to design new systems for learning to more fully prepare ALL students for college and career This partnership seeks to spark a broad based educational transformation through the establishment of state based networks to create proof points of scalable initiatives and system redesigns that deliver the educational outcomes we seek UK is working collaboratively with the Kentucky Department of Education to lead this work throughout the state Kentucky is the only state among the CCSSO network that has a high level of involvement between P12 and a university We think this puts our state at an advantage because with a job this important no one is willing to leave any of this to chance Collaboration with a tierone research university allows our schools to deeply analyze prototypes and research the impact on student achievement As for Eminence here Next Generation Leadership are some of the ideas they are implementAcademy participants from ing within their schools Madison County share ideas Partnership with Bellarmine College to during the February session offer college level courses to qualified Pictured from left to right are students with no cost to students Randy Peffer assistant superin Redesigned Master Schedule Core tendent Gina Lakes director of classes three days per week Benchprofessional development and mark ready students take classes two Alicia Hunter Farristown middays a week on Bellarmine s campus dle school principal Wi Fi on school bus transporting students to Bellarmine College in Louisville One to one technology devices MacBook Pro for all high school students Students trained to give feedback on educational experiences using Twitter Student and Teacher Voice Teams for input in district decisions Standards Based Report Cards and Working with sister school in England on using results from student aspirations surveys to better engage students in learning v summer 2012 education uky edu 15