National School Reform Faculty

NSRF National Accountability Council
Responsibilities:
1. Hire/replace co-directors
2. Annual and thorough review of budget and staff
3. Make sure NSRF’s interests are represented on the Harmony School Education Center Board
4. Give input and feedback; make decisions by consensus when asked by the co-directors
5. Do a thorough critique/ annual review of the co-directors work once a year
6. Meet together 2-3 times a year, with expenses paid
7. Include a strong “centers” voice

This new Accountability Council is distinct from

NSRF Centers Council (formerly the Governance Council)
Responsibilities:
1. Review organizational vision and processes
2. Raise important issues
3. Give input on organizational and program issues
4. Clusters of interest become ad-hoc work teams
5. Peer collaboration; interaction is CFG-like (across centers)
6. Meet twice a year – use the listserv for on-going communication and input

This is a very important step for our organization, and the co-directors, Gene Thompson-Grove, Steve Bonchek, and Daniel Baron, are very excited about working in-depth and over the long term with a small group of committed and talented people from NSRF. The Accountability Council is being formed and will have its first meeting in Chicago prior to the facilitators’ meeting in May.
Katy, Update for the National Center

Saturday, April 12, 2003 5:07 AM
Hi Katy,

Have people been invited to indicate an interest in the Accountability Council, or will the Co-Directors choose based on regions, gender, experience, etc.?
Peggy, NH

Tuesday, April 15, 2003 12:21 PM
Hello All:

As Katy Kelly wrote in the National NSRF Center Update, we have reorganized NSRF's Decision Making and Governance Structure.

As part of this reorganization, we are inviting a small group of our colleagues nationally to sit on an Accountability Council. In this first iteration of the Council, we have worked hard to invite individuals who as a group are representative of the organization nationally, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, roles, and geography. We were also interested in this first council being comprised of people with a long history with the organization who have worked both locally and nationally, who are strategic thinkers, who have had experience with organizational and program development, and who are familiar with organizational budgets and finances. Finally, we were interested in creating a team of people who together would create some synergy. A tall order, I know.

However, after compiling a list of about 30 possible people, we finally invited ten individuals to sit on the first Accountability, and have asked them to make a two year commitment (during which time they will work to determine how to replace themselves!). We have heard back in the affirmative from all but two people. We will post their names as soon as we have heard from everyone.
From our invitation to them:

"...This is a very important step for us, and as co-directors, we are very excited about working in-depth and over the long term with a small group of committed and talented people from NSRF. We will count on you to help us make better decisions, and to keep us true to NSRF's guiding principles and beliefs in the midst of what can be very hectic work...

...We asked you to be on the Accountability Council because we respect your ability to think strategically, as well as to work collaboratively to come up with insights and ideas no one of us could have had alone. We also asked you because you have been involved with the work of NSRF both regionally and nationally for many years, and so have a long and deep history with the organization and its values. In addition, we considered the strengths and interests of individuals, as well as their regional affiliations. Finally, and most importantly, we wanted to assemble a strong team that is representative of the diversity of our constituency. As each of you contributes to the whole in a unique way, we hope you will be willing to serve..."

There have been many steps toward this action, beginning last September with a three-day retreat by the current three co-directors, Gene, Roc and Daniel. At that retreat, we drafted a "case study" entitled "Thoughts on NSRF's Governance and Organizational Structures and Program Development." It read it part (the complete text can be found on NSRF's web site).

"...A Transition Committee was established in January 2000. This group set up a democratic Governing Council developed on a consensus model. Whoever is at the table has a voice in making whatever decisions are being discussed, and these meetings are linked to two NSRF national meetings a year to increase the likelihood that a broad representation of people will be present. While the Council has done some excellent work, it is becoming more and more difficult to make complex decisions in a timely manner within this structure. In addition, the people who come to the Governance Council meetings, while having important perspectives to offer, haven't necessarily been involved in past decisions, or don't know the history and/or background of the decisions being considered...

...An unintended consequence of this structure has been that many decisions get made in between meetings by the co-directors, and many of the Council decisions are actually recommendations to the co-directors, because Council participants feel that they don't have the necessary background to make informed decisions. It now seems obvious that we have outgrown our original structure. We have a new mission, our governing body needs to set priorities based on where we want NSRF to be in five-ten years, and we need to begin a strategic thinking process designed to help us figure out how best to get there..."

We sent this case study to a group of 15 people, all of whom were long time participants in NSRF, and some of whom were part of the original founders who wrote the initial NSRF proposal to AISR. The complete text of the notes of this second retreat (held in early December 2002), including the agenda and final recommendations, can also be found on the web site. The invitation to the participants read in part:

"...This is a very important meeting for us - as co-directors, we are at a place where we need the best thinking of some of the most experienced, long term members of NSRF in order to move forward. We asked you to join us because we respect your ability to think strategically, and to work collaboratively to come up with insights and ideas no one of us could have had alone. We also asked you because you have, as a group, been involved with NSRF since its early years, and have been involved nationally and regionally in the on-going work of NSRF. We also tried to include people who work (or recently worked) full time in district offices and schools, because you know what the work looks like "on the ground," so to speak. We know that this is a particularly difficult time for people to leave their schools, and we appreciate your willingness to participate... "

We took the recommendations from this group to the Governance Council Meeting immediately following the January 2003 Winter Meeting. The recommendations and the notes from the Governance Council meeting can be found on our web site, but in essence, the group there approved the recommendations put before them regarding changing the way decisions are made and how we hold those who make those decisions accountable.

Again, complete agenda and text of the January meeting can be found on the web site. Some note worthy items from the discussion were as follows:

Discussion, January 18, 2003:
...[with this new governance/accountability process], the Co-Directors are at the center of decisions, and they engage others as well as outside information to make the best decisions they can.

The Co-Directors need to have job descriptions, and these roles need to be made public.
The relationship between NSRF and the Harmony Education Center (HEC) Board of Directors needs to be clear to the whole NSRF community. Everyone needs to know how NSRF's interests are being represented on the HEC Board.

The NSRF National Accountability Council will be a CFG-like structure for the Co-Directors. As such, this Council will hold the Co-Directors accountable for decisions made.

Hiring, review and firing of NSRF staff should lie within NSRF rather than HEC.

The Accountability Council needs to represent the diversity of the organization; however, this group also needs to know the history of NSRF, and its members will need to make a commitment to being involved over a period of time to bring continuity to the conversation. It will have 8-12 members. The Centers Council and on-going working groups will be the places to build capacity within the organization, as well as where we can do focused work on making the organization more diverse. Rather than distributing decision-making, we will focus on distributing leadership throughout the organization.

The Accountability Council will both preview and review decisions. In addition, the co-directors will prepare a written quarterly report to the Accountability Council. There will be Task Forces and Working Groups for particular interests and projects. National design teams for new projects will also be formed.

The national community of NSRF will be kept informed and asked for input. Town meetings on issues of the organization will potentially be used, along with other media. "Membership" in NSRF will still be up to individuals, and people can be involved as much or as little as they wish in the governance and running of the organization.

There will also be a National NSRF Centers Council that is reflective of the local centers of activity, and will meet twice a year-after the annual Winter Meeting (as this council is presently meeting), and the day before the annual National Facilitators Meeting.

If the new governance proposal is accepted, this meeting will become the first Centers Council meeting.

The recommendation for a new governance structure/process as presented by Frances Hensley and Margaret Maclean as described here and in Appendix D was agreed upon by consensus.

Finally, we have the first recommendation by the new Centers Council to the Co-Directors. It reads as follows, and we support it whole-heartedly. This means that the very first task we will ask the new Accountability Council to undertake with us is the implementation of this recommendation:

"The individuals in leadership roles within NSRF must understand and practice the mission and work of the organization and must reflect the members and constituents of the organization."

Discussion:
This means that the "co-directorship" should represent the constituency in terms of gender, race, ethnicity and geography.

Approved by consensus of those in attendance.

The new Accountability Council will meet for the first time in Chicago on May 15. The agenda and notes/minutes from all of its meetings will be posted on our web site. As our colleagues said to us at the December 2002 retreat:

"...Communication, information, full disclosure and transparency are key. As Margaret Wheatley has said (sent to us by Nancy Mohr): "We need information coursing through organizations like the life blood flowing through them." That makes leaders of an organization the "hearts," whose job it is to keep that blood constantly circulating. We also need to be thoughtful about what we are transparent about-there needs to be enough nuance so people are not overwhelmed by information...

..."We are not going to tell you what to do - but what you do is NOT none of my business." [Alan Dichter] We want the decision making structure to be accountable to the constituency, with full disclosure and opportunity for input, transparent decision making and public feedback. This means that the co-directors are required and obligated to articulate how and why decisions were made - to make this public - and to get feedback on the process and on the decisions...

...Our job is to make sure our leaders develop good habits, so they don't slip up, and so they don't succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. We need to create the environment in which the co-directors can behave in a trustworthy manner. We are not saying we trust you to make good decisions - we are saying we REQUIRE you to make good decisions..."

We know that transparency, full disclosure and multiple opportunities for input will be key.

Respectfully,
Gene, MA

Wednesday, April 16, 2003 8:22 AM
Hello Gene et al.

I would love to hear about the decision to invite folks onto the Accountability Council, vs. accepting applications. Thanks for any information/insight you have.
JoAnne, ME

Saturday, April 19, 2003 8:04 AM
We are pleased to announce the NSRF's first Accountability Council, and we want to thank them for agreeing to serve on this first Council. They are:

Amy Schuff (OR)
Debbi Laidley (CA)
Josephine Rice (TX)
Pete Bermudez (FL)
Frances Hensley (GA)
Lois Butler (IL)
Camilla Greene (CT)
Alan Dichter (NY)
Steve Strull (MA)
Ted Hall (NH)

A word about selection of this Council.

We talked as co-directors last week about our decision to invite this first council rather than ask for applications/interest (in response to JoAnne Dowd's question), and Daniel will write to the listserv about what went considerations into that decision.

What I want to say here is that putting together this group was incredibly gratifying, because it put into perspective the strength, capacity and talent we have in this organization. Unlike most education organizations, we have a small, "lean" central office staff - our vitality lies in the hundreds of leaders around the country doing this work, and challenging each other to push the work deeper. We literally had lists and lists of names of people we could have asked to be on this first Council. A group of you told us in December that what we need to do in NSRF is to distribute leadership, as opposed to distributing decision-making, and then get input from those leaders constantly as we make decisions. The Accountability Council is the first step in our setting up a process for this to happen. We are counting on this Council to help us think through how we make sure we are accountable to all of you - soliciting input from you, asking for feedback from you, and making our thinking and decision-making absolutely transparent to you.

We know the list has more people on it from the east coast than other parts of the country. When we came up with the final list, we made sure there was one person from the northeast, southeast, midwest, northwest, and southwest. Some of those people filled other criteria as well. We thought long and hard about the charge from the Centers Council meeting in January that this Council represent the diversity of our constituency - in terms of the adults in NSRF, but also in terms of the children in the schools where we are working.

So, we have people with a lot of experience in some of this nation's largest urban school districts. We thought about racial and ethnic diversity and gender balance, and we attended to sexual orientation as well. We have a teacher, former teachers, a principal, a former principal, district office administrators and university/teacher educators. We have people who work as school and district change coaches. We have professional development specialists. We have people who live on the east coast, but who work mostly in the mid-west. We have people associated with the Small Schools movement, with work funded by the Gates Foundation, with the Rural Education Trust, with CES, with Cleveland, with Knowledge Works, with the Lucent Peer Collaboration Project, and with La Raza - some of our current funders/contractors. We have someone piloting NSRF facilitator endorsement portfolios. We have someone who is administering a major US Dept. of Education beginning teacher preparation grant. We have people who have experience with developing and monitoring large budgets, with leading organizations in strategic thinking, and with developing democratic organizations. We were interested in all of these qualities and experiences.

And we are missing some folks. We would like to have someone from the four corners region - New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado. We would like to have more teachers, especially an elementary teacher. We would like another principal, a superintendent, someone else who has his or her "feet" in more than one school reform organization, more people who are gay/lesbian, and others from the Hispanic community. We knew we had the budget to support an eight person Council, we are stretching it to include ten, and eventually we might find we want more than ten people. This is just a beginning.

It is also important to stress that these are not the only people who are charged with holding us accountable, or questioning our decisions, or from whom we need to solicit input. There are all of you, as well as people who choose to not be on this list serves.

The retreat group in December told us:

"...Our job [those of who are part of NSRF] is to make sure our leaders develop good habits, so they don't slip up, and so they don't succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. We need to create the environment in which the co-directors can behave in a trustworthy manner. We are not saying we trust you to make good decisions - we are saying we REQUIRE you to make good decisions...."

I don't take this trust lightly, and I take this charge to heart. We (all of us who lead this work, but especially the co-directors!) will slip up, but you will tell us, and we will do better. I remember being at our last Annenberg funded Colloquium in Philadelphia in April of 1999, with 625 people at the closing ceremony, all publicly making commitments to kids and to each other. I was standing next to Paula Evans and Faith Dunne. We knew our time at Annenberg was about to end, and we didn't know what the future would hold for NSRF, although we hadn't shared that with the larger organization yet. Paula looked at me and said, "What a long, strange ride it has been." I suspect we will look back some years from now, and will say the same thing to each other. I know I am looking forward to the ride!

All My Best,
Gene, MA

Saturday, April 19, 2003 2:01 PM
Eloquently written, Gene. And a well-chosen council. Congratulations to all. To quote Ted Sizer when asked what it means to be included in reform work... "It means we get to work harder!"

I too, look forward to the roads ahead of all of us in NSRF.
Linda, FL

Saturday, April 26, 2003 1:58 PM
Hello All:
I just wanted to respond directly to JoAnne Dowd's very good question about why we decided to invite people to sit on the Accountability Council, instead of asking interested people to apply. I know I didn't address that in my previous e-mail message about the Council. I find the idea to be interesting.
We didn't go that route for this first council because we were particularly interested in assembling a team (as described in my previous message), which we thought would be difficult to do if we were only choosing from a pool of interested applicants. We didn't want to ask people to go through the effort of applying, and then find ourselves asking people who didn't apply to please do so.
I do think this is something we all have to think about for future councils, however. Do we continue to invite people? Do we nominate people (with individuals free to nominate themselves)? If we go the nomination route, should people have to apply? All of this will have to be discussed. I know that what we don't want is for anyone to feel that this group is exclusive - that there is an inner circle (so to speak) that people don't know how to get into.
When I think about future council members, I know I imagine people who are assuming leadership for NSRF work all over the country. So, I think that argues for making sure we distribute the leadership of NSRF, and include as many people as possible in that kind of work, as our the retreat group suggested to us last December.
Gene, MA

Monday, April 28, 2003 7:45 AM
Hello JoAnne Dowd et al,

I am writing in response to JoAnne's query regarding our "decision" to invite members rather than to have an application process. Actually, we never really considered an application process nor was it ever recommended. Gene, Roc and I were directed by the original NSRF Council, at the Winter Meeting, to form an Accountability Council that reflected all of the great diversity represented in NSRF (please see Gene's email post on April 19).

The Council gave the Directors broad responsibility to make most decisions on behalf of NSRF and then for the three Directors to be held accountable to those decisions by the Accountability Council. The process of inviting rather than using an application process avoided the certainty of folks working hard on their applications and then being turned down due to the very limited number of Council members. I hope and trust that we have chosen a founding group of Council members that reflect the diverse interests, talents, concerns, and constituencies of NSRF. We are very excited to initiate this new phase of growth and development of NSRF governance.

What excites me the most is that we have designed our governance structure in response to the question, "What would the governance structure look like if it were founded on the principles and practices of a learning organization?" Our new structure is our best attempt to respond to this question. I know that we will make mistakes based on the assumptions we hold. I am honored to be part of an organization that will view our errors as opportunities for growth. We are committed to be publicly transparent in our reflections regarding our challenges and our responses to those challenges.

I look forward to our continued work together in support of every child's right to be taught by thoughtful, caring and responsive educators who share a commitment to each learner while being mindful of serving the common good.

In Solidarity
Daniel, IN