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Allan Odden

November 2008

Education administrators and managers cannot improve student achievement just with talented people, high expectations, and random acts of good practice.

Even the most talented individuals must be professionally managed within a well-designed educational improvement strategy—a strategy that enables them to turn their aspirations and talents into instructional practices shown to boost student learning to high levels.

The project works to:

- Define strategic management of human capital in public education.

- Create a network of leaders collaborating to reengineer human capital management systems in public education.

- Document the nature and effects of promising human capital management systems in several districts and states.

- Establish strategic management of human capital as a prominent issue on the nation’s education reform agenda.

- Advance local and state policies to support widespread adoption of SMHC in public education.

Odden and Kelly are working in concert with a 31-member national task force, chaired by Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and focusing initially on the nation’s 100 largest public school districts. Kelly is founding president and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). He also serves on the boards of many educational, philanthropic, and civic organizations.

The improvement of student achievement presents the greatest challenge in the country’s largest 100 districts, Odden says, particularly in urban districts with significant concentrations of students from low-income and minority backgrounds. Odden says this challenge deserves the finest talent and management that can be found.

Getting to the Root
Funded with more than $4 million from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation, the SMHC project aims to improve K–12 instruction and student outcomes by radically improving the strategic management of teaching and instructional leadership talent. The word radically is important: it descends from the Latin term radix, or root. This project aims to identify and nourish the roots of improved student achievement.

In terms of strategically managing human resources, the private sector has long been ahead of the curve, and a USC expert in this area, Professor Edward Lawler, is a member of the SMHC Task Force. Many K–12 education systems continue to employ decades-old methods for hiring teachers, principals, and other leaders. Odden says this first-ever comprehensive campaign can significantly revamp the school staffing system as we know it.

Putting SMHC concepts into practice will require significant change in large districts’ organizational systems, as well as courageous education leadership and plenty of outside political support. Two aspects of SMHC are critical.

The first is talent. An initial task is to identify how to recruit and retain the best talent as teachers, principals, and leaders. Large urban school districts need, and deserve, top talent at all levels, from teachers to top district leadership.

The second aspect of SMHC is strategic management. The private sector knows that the highest performing organizations not only recruit and retain top talent, but also manage it in ways that support their strategic directions.

Improving talent management in public education will require aligning all aspects of the human resource management system, Odden says. That includes recruitment, screening, selection, placement, induction, evaluation, compensation, promotion into instructional leadership, and ongoing professional development focused on curriculum and classroom practice.

But Odden says we’re only in the beginning stages of measuring teachers’ instructional practice and using the measures as a management tool. Because a key desired outcome of SMHC is to produce better classroom instruction, an important SMHC objective is to advance valid ways of measuring teachers’ classroom instructional practice and designing human capital management systems to ensure that the highest quality instruction is provided in all classrooms.

SMHC researchers are conducting case studies to document the impact of reforms in New York City; Chicago; Boston; Long Beach, California; Fairfax County, Virginia; Minneapolis; and the state of Minnesota. Additional case studies are being conducted of Teach for America, The New Teacher Project, and New Leaders for New Schools.

Key practices and initiatives being examined in these case studies include:

• Instructional improvement strategies
• Uses of student data to help improve classroom instruction
• Recruitment strategies
• Selection processes
• Placement strategies
• Induction and mentoring programs
• Performance evaluation of teachers and principals
• Professional development practices
• Strategic use of compensation for teachers and principals

Odden says one challenge is to use the data from the measurement of student and teacher performance to guide management decisions (including talent recruitment, selection, and placement). Another challenge is to support and reward those who acquire and practice the kinds of instructional practices in classrooms that actually boost student learning.

These actions will require deep-seated changes in the ways most districts operate, Odden says. Based on past experience, he thinks the changes are likely to generate controversy. Success will require strong education leadership, aggressive performance management, and broader political support.

The project has developed a Web 2.0 site—www.smhc-cpre.org/—that they hope becomes a digital meeting place for the community of individuals interested in changing strategic talent management in public education.

Odden says one way to understand SMHC reform is to think of five elements as the “river that runs through it.” They are: talent, management, instruction, achievement, and data. These five elements are constants that require relentless focus and transparent procedures and metrics. SMHC reforms must be aligned with and coordinated across these elements.