Last year, I placed Rod Rock of the Clarkston school district in Michigan on the honor roll. A member of his staff sent me his latest letter to his colleagues, and I realized I not only respect Rod Rock, I admire him. He represents the highest values of American education.
He reminds us how adults are supposed to care for young people. He is not subservient to fads or gurus or politicians. He is not intimidated by Arne Duncan or Rick Snyder.
He is an educator. Don’t you wish there were more like him?
Here is the letter he sent to his staff:
From: Rod Rock
Date: Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 10:26 PM
Subject: Thoughts
To: All CCS Staff
Colleagues:
I know that I write often to you and I hope that you will tolerate one more rambling (at least until the next one). Also, I may have said this already to you, so I apologize if this is a repeat.
When my daughter, Haley, who is now a freshman at MSU, was in third grade, she stood one evening in our tiny, outdated kitchen, leaning against the wall next to the refrigerator and cried. When we asked her what was the matter, she said that she was certain she wouldn’t do very well on the MEAP test the next day and that she didn’t want to let anyone down.
At that moment, I said to her that no test will ever define her. I said that she is Haley Rock and that she is talented in many ways. No matter how she performs on any test at any point in her life, I stated, she will always be Haley Rock and possess many talents. No test, person, or relationship, I reiterated, will ever define who she is or what she is capable of becoming.
On Friday as I drove in to school through the snow and slush (with more winter predicted for Tuesday), I listened to a story on the radio wherein three academics from Stanford (or thereabouts) discussed America’s place in the world specific to academic achievement. One of the academics stated that achievement in America has flat-lined for 40 years. Another said that there is tremendous disparity in funding in schools, using two neighboring California districts as an example, one of which is funded at twice the level of the other. She (Linda Darling Hammond) stated that the highest achieving countries pay their teachers at the same levels as engineers. Another of the panel members said that even if we dramatically improved the levels of achievement of our African American and Hispanic students (who generally perform at the lowest levels), our students would only be in the middle of the international comparisons. The three agreed that we can do much to close opportunity gaps for America’s children.
Last week, I watched Beauty and the Beast. Last Thursday I watched our girls’ basketball team. On Monday, our boys ski team will compete for a second consecutive state championship. This week, I will enjoy watching our boys basketball team play (and they also played on Friday). Next weekend, our district will host an a cappella competition. The poetry slam is forthcoming. Talent shows are happening across the district. Kids are volunteering and making differences for others. Over 1,000 of our students sat in the high school auditorium last week and listened respectfully as a mother–who had lost her teenage daughter to a traffic accident, while the daughter talked on her phone–spoke to them about the choices they make. Many other performances of understanding will occur, under your guidance, today, tomorrow, and beyond. We currently have students who are attending colleges all over the world, competing with students from many other countries. When our students graduate from college, they go on to get jobs as engineers, doctors, teachers, plumbers, electricians, custodians, musical directors, and writers. They posses skills beyond test taking and they make contributions to their communities and the world (many of them come back to Clarkston and many of them are you).
If our students weren’t achieving in engineering school or college in general, our community would be very upset. The reason that our kids do well (one of whom is currently earning a PhD in physics at Cornell, having been inspired by one of our teachers–Mr. Ned Burdick, and the reason that Haley will be okay (and I wish she could have attended Clarkston–and so does she after watching Beauty and the Beast with me) is that she and most of our graduates posses skills beyond test taking. They posses agency which means that they believe in themselves and their abilities to overcome obstacles that stand in the way of their dreams.
You know our kids by name. You know who they are and how they are smart.
If we want to compare our students to those in other countries, why do we not use the same test as they use? Why do we assess every child every year? Why do evaluate every teacher every year? Why does a portion of our society not value teachers and other school employees at the same level as other professionals? Why is our government trying to expand instead of close the opportunity gap? If college or training beyond high school is essential for every child, why don’t we make it affordable for every child? These are not the practices of the world’s highest performing countries.
I was recently invited to a meeting to give comments on proposed administrator evaluation systems. I am not going. Robert Marzano, who is a leader in teacher evaluation, is coming to a meeting in Detroit in some weeks. I am not going. Every time I receive an e-mail that states a silver-bullet on how to improve achievement, I delete it before reading it. I am going to focus on research and not politics. We have to do what is right for our kids. We will do what is right for our kids.
Please do not allow any test score, number, grade, or moment define our children. Please see them as works in progress. Please look at their strengths and not their weaknesses. Please help them become owners of their own futures and steadfast believers in their abilities to overcome any obstacles that stand between them and their dreams.
If America didn’t posses the best educational system in the world, why would parents from other parts of the world fall over themselves to send their kids to American schools?
What messages are we sending to our kids today about learning? How coherent is our system? What do we need to change in order to ensure that our values of learning are clearly communicated and advanced? How do we respond to criticism or judgments? How do we demonstrate for our students the capacity to look at evidence and contradict it with other, more substantial evidence?
Perhaps we are not solely in the business of shaping minds. Perhaps our business is also about changing minds–including our own.
If the MEAP parent report says that a student is a 4 and needs immediate attention, provide also those parents contradicting evidence that resolutely shows that their child is much more than a 4-and-in-need-of-immediate-attention. Perhaps, you can show them, it is the test that needs immediate attention. What we say and how we say it matters.
Last words: Stress affects kids physiologically. Learning is a mind and brain endeavor. We cannot separate one from the other. I want to thank each one of you for any efforts that you make to support our kids as whole people. I want to thank you for any moments that you spend helping a child feel certain. I want to thank you for any moments that you spend convincing a child that he/she is able (or not what another child or adult said of him/her). I want to thank you for any moments that you spend giving kids something that helps them overcome an obstacle, whether this something is a pair of shoes, a pat on the back, a word of encouragement, or a sticky note. When they know truly that we care deeply, they care deeply about what we know (this is paraphrased from John C. Maxwell and perhaps others who believe in people).
Last, last words: Please don’t let anyone or any moment define a child. Please help our children discover, create, and continuously recreate their own, unique definitions of themselves. If they don’t know themselves, they’ll struggle to contribute and become.
Enjoy the week (I am going to see Haley on Tuesday, which is her 19th birthday),
Rod
—
Rod Rock, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Clarkston Community Schools: Think Beyond Possible
Follow me on Twitter: @RodRock1
Check out my Blog: http://rodrockon.blogspot.com/
Find the Clarkston Community Schools on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Clarkston-Community-Schools/164498640303901?bookmark_t=page
Cultivating thinkers, learners, and positive contributors to a global society.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wow.
I want to work for him.
My superintendent just okayed yet ANOTHER assessment for the 8th grade students across our district, this one being piloted by the highly-paid “consultant” that now owns my school district. I believe that when this 4th quarter is over, my 8th graders will have been “assessed” 20+ days, almost half of the nine weeks period.
It’s not surprising that my students are far behind where they should be at this point in the school year.
Like many others, I am inspired by confidence, compassion and courage! I applaud this letter and would add Dr. Gary Mathews to your honor roll! He can inspire with confidence, teach with compassion, and lead with courage as a superintendent he has taught me many important life lessons! Brava for publishing this letter!
This is true educational leadership. Courageous, wise, kind. Bravo, Dr Rock!
If I could work for educational leadership like that I would go back into the classroom in a heartbeat.
I agree, Ken. I taught for forty years and left before I felt ready because of what we were doing to kids. This kind of open support and message would have kept me in the classroom, with a smile and boundless energy.
Agreed!
Rod, you rock!
It’s true that lower income kids generally don’t perform as well as middle and upper middle class children.
The “reformers” have looked at the most dire schools and lowest socio-economic populations and designed a system based on these outliers. These same reformers and their free market “choice” based models are enjoying tax benefits that most average workers can only dream of. It is these same profiteers who stratify society in class, not equalize it.
As far as choice goes, it’s true. We really should be given choice. But to choose from what? Vouchers that won’t fully pay for expensive private schools? Vouchers that don’t really apply to schools that embrace English language learners and disabled/differently abled children?
By defunding schools as a public choice, we will have far more diversity in our choices, but what most people will be able to chooise will be either of poor quality, rejecting of certain types of children, or simply unattainable cost wise.
“Choice” is a specious word.
Funding our schools resplendently the way we do other government programs, improving teacher education at the college level, creating long term internships for teaching, reducing the test obsessed culture of accountability, and PREVENTING POVERTY before children arrive in pre-K are the most effective measures one can take. We see this approcah in countless other countries.
Anyone living here in the states, or voting, or working, or any combination thereof:
Let’s all wake up and launch our own average person’s education revolution, Let’s fight with research and policy. Let’s hold our elected officials as accountable as we do teachers. Let’s take back the middle class and prove once and again that education should be preserved as a public trust.
Let’s just tell the truth. And never remain silent about it, employed or not.
What’s your recipe for PREVENTING POVERTY?
Ah, Harlan, our designated Grinch.
So polite and gentile are you, Diane . . . . 🙂
And you, Mr. Underhill, . . . . . nevermind. I am choosing to comply with Diane’s common sense rules of blogging etiquette.
How does one prevent poverty?
For starters, it’s not a recipe or a formula. It’s a combination of individual responsibility and collectivist social safety nets that ensure an evening out of resources which faciliate opportunity.
You once referred to me on this blog as “my good little European communist”.
Again, I will indefinitely refrain from labels and categories I think might characterize you. I’m not much of a foul mouth either.
For lack of a better label, I am a capitalist, first and foremost. I believe in the free and open market system, but one that is regulated with a series of checks and balances to make sure that opportunity is never concentrated in the hands of the few or monopolized.
I make a very healthy salary, for now, that is. I am a Nationally Board Certified Teacher. I have a moral responsibility to my fellow man, my average fellow man and not just my impoverished fellow man, to pay taxes to make sure that those not earning enough can have access to universal pre-K, affordable housing, food, medical care, and some steady dignified income in their old age. Of course, one must save for old age as well, not over consume, work hard, take education very seriously, and be intentional for a career and civic participation.
So to prevent poverty, let’s find out exactly why the child poverty rate in FInland is barely 4%. Are there any lessons we can learn from the Japanese, the Swedish, the French, the Spanish, the Australians? What do they do to have such lower rates of poverty than the accelerating rate occueing here in the United States?
Are there any dots to be connected between countries that have nationalized healthcare systems and education that remains free, public, and well subsidized with teachers who are trusted and respected?
In western Europe, the average worker may never rise to the upper middle class or have a two car garage or a million gadgets and creature comforts from WalMart or Target. But they will also never be forced to not have housing, decent medical care, or food. And they don’t have to be indigent or homeless to receive help to attain those things if they really need the help.
I could write volumes about this, but Harlan, I’d rather spend my time and pen on people who are like minded, at least far more than you.
I defend militantly your right to free speech here and anywhere in the world. I am comfortable in that very same vein in saying that “designated grinch” is an interesting choice of words to describe you.
Harlan, you have so much potential. I will try not to spend too much of my time helping you fulfill it. I’m too old, too tired, and too wise. Keep on posting on this blog, however.
Throughout all this somber and serious news in education, I would venture to say that you keep so many of us readers amused.
And what’s wrong with a little comic relief from Monsieur Grinch?
I was hoping that letter would be followed by a call to end standardized testing as the end-all barometer of success. We will never be “successful” as long as our definition is a narrow as it is right now. And the more we strive towards that elusive one-dimensional goal, the more we will fail thus providing continued need for more and more reforms.
How do districts measure and prove their success without using a standardized indicator? How do we meet our own students needs without applying the misaligned band-aid of federally/state mandated reforms?
How inspiring to come to the time of year which gives us rebirth and grab this new beginning with such an awesome message by Dr. Rock and each of you.
Yesterday I attended a meeting between a couple in their nineties who have led incredible lives and have been married seventy one years. They remember having met in their early teen years, fell in love and went on from the inspiration of their public schools (South Philadelphia High School, Pa.-SPHS and Atlantic City High School, NJ-ACHS) encouraged and educated ready to move forward achieving successful careers. Books have been written about each of them.
Interestingly, they were seeking the advice of an attorney who graduated from ACHS and went on to have a very successful practice in law. His Mother was one of my inspiring teachers at that same school in the early ’60’s. I had been an advocate for this attorney who is what I refer to as one of my hero’s because he struggled through his educational life with Dyslexia. Yes! A gifted learning disabled student. Having a disability does not have to mean handicapped. You are as handicapped as the lack of supports,
accommodations, services, and professionals available to help. Special Education was
in a golden age and this young man had the advantage of those laws and accommodations. In his mid forties now he went on to a magnificent legal career.
A friend of mine who is a retired administrator and teacher showed me a book a
student had written and in it there was a foreward about this man and how he inspired the man who wrote the book. In fact, the book was built around my friend who retired as a high school principal and could tell you every name of each of the children who went
through his school and something about them, He came earlier then he had to and left later then others. He surrounded himself with caring, disciplined, and dedicated educators. He and some of those same people continue to serve the community and
the children. I work with them and continue to be inspired. We work in an inner city
school district believing that all children should have a level education playing field.
What is my point? Each of these people come from varied backgrounds of race, gender, religion, finance, IQ’s, talent and ability, including myself. Each found public education inspiring their success and a wonderful foundation for their lives. Each of you can probably tell story after story of folks who have come through the public school system
and are the backbone of our society. Working and contributing one way or another.
The public schools of this country are proud engines allowing everyone to come aboard and take an education ride. The destination could be survival and success filled with
a diverse set of memories and a network of life connections. It could be failure and
pain if not approached with an open mind and good supports and teachers who
continue to believe in each and everyone of their students and their own concern for reaching out to them.
It is all worth fighting for and would be tragic to lose. Happy Holidays to each of you
and thank you Diane Ravitch and each of you who have shared this rebirth and adventure for a new beginning for the sake of our children.
To Mr. Rock,
Students, anywhere, are indeed works in progress. Well stated comments to your staff & inspirational reminders of what teaching is! To assist in the development of the learner. I write from NYC.
R. Reid
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
I teach on the other side of Oakland County from Rod Rock’s Clarkston Schools. We compete against them regularly in athletics (I coached for 15 years) and their teams and coaches always exemplified sportsmanship, dignity and talent.
Earler this school year, Mr. Rock had a letter published in the Detroit News editorial section where he noted that he could pretty much predict district test scores for any district. Of course, he was referencing socio-economic status and test results. He grasps reality in terms of what schools should be doing.
I enjoyed that he alluded to teachers’ effects that are not scored by tests. Providing confidence, extra help, teaching grit (Paul Tough’s term). with the endless emphasis on testing, I’m getting concerned with the idea that if a task cannot be measured then it simply doesn’t count. The biggest part of our jobs is transmitting skills and knowledge. But it is far from the only part of our job.
I am standing in awe of a true educational leader. Thank you Dr.Rock for demonstrating courage. compassion and character, all of which are in short supply these days by our country’s leaders. President Obama, Arne Duncan…..pay attention. This is leadership.
A MUST READ AND IT’S FROM A SUPERINTENDENT–ALSO LIKE WE TALKED ABOUT!!
*Christa Allan **Threads of Hope, 2013 *
*Love Finds You in New Orleans, 2012 *
*Edge of Grace, 2011*
*Walking on Broken Glass, 2010* [image: Facebook] [image: Twitter] [image: WordPress]
What a great man and a great leader. It is tragic that so many are drinking the Kool-Aid now. I had forgotten that leaders like this still exist. May they continue to speak out and instruct others as to what educational leadership looks like. Bravo Dr. Rock.
A true leader! I would be proud to be part of his faculty.
I’m in tears as I write this. You have touched my heart because of the way that you touch the hearts and lives of others . Your letter to your staff sums up why I went into teaching and stayed in teaching for almost 40 years. You give your “family” in Clarkston the best gift of all: Hope!
Fight the powers that be with hope and encouragement!
Thank you Rod Rock for everything that you do for education. Your continuous commitment to creating a Culture of Thinking is appreciated by many educators within and outside of the Clarkston Community Schools. You are a true leader with a clear vision.
Boy were you wrong! He’s a pervert who preys on children!!! You should also resign!
Looks like he’ll be looking for a new job: http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2018/01/clarkston_schools_superintende.html
The only man for whom there are no consequences for inappropriate behavior with women is our president.
And why is this? That this is so continues to baffle me? The Teflon Don?
You’re probably aware by now that Dr. Rock resigned today following admission of an inappropriate relationship with a Clarkston (MI) High School graduate. Of course, they were only “friends” until after she graduated. Then the relationship “became inappropriate.”