Thanks to our good fortune in being a neighbor to Tennessee, Kentucky 
has been able to invite Jim Ford to present an overview of the Baldrige 
framework for program improvement and quality for two years now; and it 
is making a difference for those who have fully participated in the 
Leadership Institute.  I'd like to share some of their testimonies in 
response to the original question, "What is program leadership and 
improvement?"

One participant reflected on the distinction between being a manager and 
being a leader this way.  "A manager manages what is there on a 
day-to-day basis; a leader is visionary and takes a program somewhere.  
A manager uses the state report form as the only source of evaluation, 
which means he or she is concerned about a year.  A leader uses the 
report to build for the future and supplements it with other forms of 
evaluation, such as surveys of students, discussions with community 
leaders, and input from the team.  Asking for feedback/input from others 
is a sign of a strong, confident leader."  One interesting result of 
this kind of thinking is that participants now refer to themselves as 
program directors rather than program managers - an important 
distinction to them.  And we've learned to talk about the difference 
between performance goals, which the state sets, and improvement goals, 
which the staff sets.

 Another participant who moved from a teaching position into the 
director position, a common occurrence, said that even though she has 
been her program's director for many years now, it was only after 
participating that she realized that she needed to think of herself as a 
leader and that her staff expected her to act like a leader.

 Directors are establishing leadership teams and learning to delegate 
responsibility.  As one director said, "I no longer feel that I have to 
carry the entire burden for achieving program goals."  Instructors tell 
me that they appreciate being involved in decision-making and in knowing 
their roles in meeting goals.

 Part of my function is to help program leadership teams assess their 
needs as organizations (using Baldrige) and as ABE programs (borrowing 
from Judy Alamprese's work in the northwestern states).  I help them 
identify priorities and develop written improvement plans, and I remind 
them to pull out those plans at staff meetings to check progress.  The 
"checking" seems to be the hard part for busy program directors.  Plans 
are necessarily developed in a retreat-like situation, but collecting 
data and analyzing what it means must occur in the middle of daily 
work.  We are still working on that challenge.

Fortunately we have the full support of our state director, Dr. Cheryl 
King.  Because Kentucky does not have a Baldrige affiliated state 
quality council, programs cannot aspire to earn the state version of a 
Baldrige award.  So to recognize the efforts of Leadership Institute 
participants, our state director presents an award in her name to 
programs that can document progress toward meeting process goals.  As 
programs improve processes, they improve results, which is the one of 
the criteria for the highest level award.

Connie Spencer-Ackerman
Adult Education Academy for Professional Development
150 University Blvd., Box 968
Morehead State University
Morehead KY 40351
Ph: 606-783-9377  Fax: 606-783-9111

"In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia." -- John Lubbock



Kim Chaney wrote:


>

>>

>> Jim Ford, Research Assistant for Quality Adult Education in 

>> Tennessee, responded to this posting (see below), based on his 

>> experience working with ae programs in TN who are utilizing the 

>> Baldrige approach to program improvement.

>>

>> Here are Jim's comments:

>>

>> In Tennessee, we [also] include "student, stakeholder, and market 

>> focus" as a significant category based on the Baldrige Education 

>> Criteria.  The stakeholders are the community, family, employer, and 

>> any other entity that has a stake in the Adult Education program.  

>> The market is the potential number of students, specific locations, 

>> and population groups that could receive program services.  This 

>> entire "students, stakeholder, and market focus" includes the 

>> following items:

>>

>> - Student, stakeholder, and market knowledge, which are the 

>> requirements, expectations, and preferences

>> - Students and stakeholder relationships, which means building 

>> confidence, trust, loyalty, etc. to attract, retain, and enhance 

>> student performance

>> - Satisfaction determination, which means taking a hard look at 

>> external and internal program elements for satisfaction and/or 

>> dissatisfaction

>>

>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

>>

>>

>>

>>> Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 17:28:21 -0500

>>> From: Kim Chaney <kchaney at utk.edu>

>>> Subject: [NIFL-PLI] What *is* Program Leadership and Improvement?

>>>

>>>

>>> What *is* Program Leadership and Improvement?  What does it include 

>>> - or not include - in the context of adult basic and literacy 

>>> education?  Are some aspects of program leadership and improvement 

>>> more important than others?

>>>

>>> ...For some of us, the answers may come quickly - we have very 

>>> specific ideas when we see these terms.  For others of us, the list 

>>> seems unending.  I struggle with these questions.  My formal 

>>> education and training, as well as my work experience point to 

>>> fairly defined ideas about quality and improvement and are for the 

>>> most part, quantifiable. However, since so many parts of the 

>>> day-to-day workings of adult education efforts are (hopefully) 

>>> making the "program" better/improved, thereby ultimately serving the 

>>> needs of the adult learner in the best way possible, then doesn't 

>>> program leadership and improvement include almost every aspect of 

>>> adult education?

>>>

>>> When the Core Knowledge Group for the Program Leadership and 

>>> Improvement Special Collection met for the first time to thrash out 

>>> the beginnings of the collection, we brainstormed resources that  

>>> came to mind.  Later in the process, we worked to come up with a 

>>> list of "categories" that those resources seemed to naturally fall 

>>> under.  While the collection is continuously evolving, the list of 

>>> topics we have up to this point, is I think, a solid start.

>>>

>>> However, are there others areas of program leadership and 

>>> improvement that are missing from this list?  Are some of these 

>>> topics more important than others? ------- Your thoughts and 

>>> comments are welcome.

>>>

>>> Program Leadership and Improvement is...

>>> Developing instructional capacity

>>> Strategies and frameworks for managing program improvement

>>> Volunteer retention

>>> Using data for program improvement

>>> State leadership in adult education

>>> Capacity building for non-profits

>>> Outcomes and impacts

>>> Performance accountability

>>> Program quality indicators (state)

>>> Teacher competencies

>>> Manager competencies

>>> Professional development as program improvement

>>> Assessment

>>> Evaluation

>>> _______________________________________________

>>> NIFL-PLI mailing list

>>> NIFL-PLI at literacy.nifl.gov

>>> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to 

>>> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/nifl-pli

>>

>

> _______________________________________________

> NIFL-PLI mailing list

> NIFL-PLI at literacy.nifl.gov

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to 

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/nifl-pli



--