Dr. William Pearson: M.D.E. Partnership Districts, and Addressing the Teacher Shortage
Podcast for Leaderful Schools has had a series of conversations with influential people talking about how schooling has been affected by the pandemic, how we're coping with it, and how we hope to be coming out of it. Today's guest is Dr. William Pearson, Director of the Office of Partnership Districts in the Michigan Department of Education (M.D.E.). The Michigan Department of Education is the state’s administrative office that supervises education across the state.
Dr. Pearson proudly continues a family tradition as educators. To achieve his goal of becoming a superintendent, Dr. Pearson ensured he had both teaching and administrative experience at the elementary and secondary level. His career continued as Assistant Superintendent for Instruction in South Lyon and then superintendent there for 20 years. “I left South Lyon, actually retired but still kept on being a superintendent. The best move I ever made was to accept a position in Mount Clemens, in Macomb County, for two years where I was able to work with a high poverty district and we made some marked turnaround efforts. I was a superintendent at St. John's for a little bit, and then I worked for Munetrix, which is a data analytics company for a few months.” He had a chance conversation with Sheila Alles, who was Interim State Superintendent at the time, and offered to help out high poverty districts, resulting in his current position as Director of the Office of Partnership Schools for M.D.E. “When I was hired in December of 2018, I was also named the State School Reform Officer. There was only one in the State and the Legislature removed that position, so I remained the Director of Partnership Districts, and we currently are working with 26 districts around the state and 98 schools.”
Dr. Pearson provided historic context for his position. “In 2017-2018 Dr. Whiston, the previous state superintendent, decided that instead of trying to close schools, a new concept called partnership districts would be formed where M.D.E. would work with a district that had schools or a private school with a score in the bottom 5% of schools in Michigan. They began to have index scores from zero to 100 points that you would attain. Schools are identified based on their growth and proficiency rates which are 63% of the index score, with additional percentages added for English learner progress, graduation rate, and school quality and student success. Other categories which add percentages to the score are: K-8 access to media specialists, K-8 access to arts and P.E., the number of advanced classes for students in high school, and the post-secondary enrollment in some type of university or some type of college. All those percentages and numbers are input and the bottom 5% of the schools become C.S.I. (Comprehensive Support and Improvement). Once labeled C.S.I. you qualify to become a partnership school that includes P.S.A (Private School Academies), or a partnership district (with several C.S.I. schools). With approximately 830 districts in the state of Michigan at the current time, we have 26 districts with a partnership agreement and 98 schools.”
“The agreements are supposed to be three years in length. Within the partnership agreement there are benchmarks to attain in 18 months, which is halfway through the agreement, and there are three year goals to meet. There are goals that are based on proficiency or growth and benchmarks, and there are goals that are based on what percent you want to decrease the number of kids chronically absent for example, or what systems you need to put in place in your districts or what type of school improvement planning needs to be put in place to help a district become better equipped to meet the needs of students and get out of the bottom 5%. With COVID, the U.S. Department of Education gave us two years of accountability waivers which extended the partnership agreements to four or five years, depending upon if they started in 2017 or 2018. This spring everybody believes there won't be any more waivers and the students are going to be assessed in M-STEP and S.A.T., so we will identify new schools this fall for round four. We'll have new schools and new districts that we will be working with new three-year partnership agreements.”
Dr. Pearson noted, “There will be some schools and districts that will be re-identified and we're putting a new system in place with more intense support. A liaison from our office is assigned to that district to work closely with the district on systems that they need to put in place, interpreting data, changing systems for providing technical assistance. The state budget has awarded the Office of Partnership Districts $6 million each year that we approve and disseminate to districts, based on their needs and their plans to use the money. In terms of support, there's money involved and we have a liaison that works specifically with them. There are other offices within the Michigan Department of Education that we can also work with and dovetail into making the partnership district meet its goals at the end of three years.”
Dr. Klein inquired about additional supports for teachers beyond the partnership work that is currently in place, citing communication from Dr. Michael Rice, State Superintendent, to certain members of the State legislature outlining opportunities to support educators in what in Michigan has become an impactful teacher shortage. Governor Whitmer suggested in her State of the State and budget messages that there be attention paid to that. When you think about the work that the M.D.E. is doing and the recommendations they're making, how is it proposed that the shortage of educators be addressed?
Dr. Pearson expressed his optimism, “I know Dr. Rice work diligently with the governor's office and with legislators trying to put a plan together that would help not only retain teachers, but get high school seniors and college freshman to enter the educational field. The governor’s budget includes retention bonuses for teachers, which I believe go from $2,000 a year for the next two years, $2,300 in 2024, and$4,000 in 2025, to continue to work in their current district. There is a plan to create Michigan Educator Fellowships, enabling student teachers to be paid $15.00 per hour while they student teach. There's money out there to entice high school seniors and college freshmen to go into the educational field. They are going to offer $10,000 to help out future educators that are going to school, if they provide two years of service for each year they would receive the money, to continue to go through the educational programs and come out and become a teacher somewhere in our state. There's a lot of money that is proposed to the legislature to provide dollars for future teachers and to retain staff, so the goal is to produce 10,000 plus more educators each year with this particular recommended budget from the governor. Additionally the governor’s recommendation is a $435 per student increase in state funding, which is a base amount of $9,135 and that is a significant increase.
Asked how might he respond to the teaching and learning in the classroom that has been disrupted in a variety of ways over the last few years, Dr. Pearson replied, “I would push the acceleration versus the remediation aspect. Work with the kids at the grade level they are, looking at the course content and standards that are in front of them. Teach those standards and accelerate the students as much as possible without really reverting back to a lot of remediation. I think there's some value to maybe having some remote learning for some kids. My personal opinion is students and children need to be in front of the teacher face-to-face, so they can work more closely with the professional and the needs of the individual students can be met wherever they are, whatever place they come from.”
Dr. Maxfield suggested Dr. Pearson once again don the hat of a superintendent and share his advice with new and aspiring superintendents. “I would say always when you're making decisions, what's good for kids, what's good for your district, not necessarily what's good for specific adults or adults. Always keep the kids in mind when decisions are made, whether you're building principal or whether you're in central office, specifically when you're a superintendent. Never lie to people. You can’t fool people. Don’t give them false hope. You don't give hope when there's an aspect or a topic that there's no hope for. You don't tell people, yeah well, maybe, when there is no hope that it's going to occur; you tell them straight on. Be visible and keep working and talking with everyone.”
When asked about teacher leaders, Dr. Pearson continued the thread of leadership lessons. “You have to learn how to listen to people. When you listen to people it doesn't mean you're always going to agree, but you have to listen to what people are saying. People have to perceive that you are an open individual who will take what your colleagues are telling you. You have to be well versed in what's out there in terms of research. We do a much better job teaching kids, assessing kids, and figuring out what's good for kids in the classroom. We have a school improvement planning that was never there when I started. We look at different points of a particular school and classrooms on how can we improve. I think leaders have to continue to meld all that into their daily activities as they work with individuals.”