TASA Academy for Transformational Leadership
2014-2015
The information below has been copied directly from the TASA website. If you prefer, click the following link to
access the website. http://www.tasanet.org/Page/444
This year-long, four-part academy is open to any superintendent, district, or campus leader who is passionate about
the transformation of public education in Texas. TASA and the Schlechty Center have designed the TASA Academy
for Transformational Leadership. The academy is specifically designed for educational leaders who are passionate
about:
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Nurturing joyous student learning
Creating inspiring workplaces for teachers and all staff, and
Envisioning school districts that are less like factories and more like organizations designed for learning
The academy offers a customized professional development experience specifically tailored for Texas leaders who
want to learn more about transforming school districts so that students and district staff, as well as the entire
community, realize the benefits of a healthy and vital public education system. These leaders share a vision of what
could be for the children of Texas—a vision in keeping with the one articulated by the Public Education Visioning
Institute in Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas.
The underlying conceptual base and assumptions about leadership come from the Schlechty Center frameworks and
will encompass the six articles developed by the Visioning Institute. The academy was first established by TASA in
2010 in response to superintendents who expressed a strong desire to ensure the continuing transformation of their
school districts into learning organizations through the work of future leaders.
Academy activities, including reading, deepening thinking through structured discussions and activities, exchanging
ideas with invited speakers, and applying new ideas in their workplaces, will prepare these leaders to contribute to
the future of public education in their districts. In doing so, they will come to understand what is required to build
district capacity for change and for joyous student learning, and to become future-oriented organizational architects
who understand social systems and their critical function in shaping public education.
By the end of the academy experience, participants will have compiled a portfolio reflecting their learning in the
following areas:
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Commitment to and capability for leading Texas school districts into the future
Actual artifacts of their individual or collective work pursued in their roles as transformational leaders
New understandings and strategies for sustaining the direction of their districts and innovative work that
supports that direction
Answers for themselves and others to the questions: What are the moral responsibilities of a
transformational leader? What must a transformational leader know and be able to do?
Facilitators
Academy facilitators include Schlechty Center Senior Associates George Thompson, John Horn, and Roland
Chevalier, in partnership with the Texas Association of School Administrators. The Schlechty Center is a private,
nonprofit organization committed to partnering with school leaders across the country to transform their classrooms,
schools, and school districts from places focused on compliance to those focused on engagement.
Required Reading
Content and discussion for each session will be around specific required reading, listed below. Since some
participants may already have one or more of these books, and others may want to order the books in electronic
format or purchase them from another source, TASA is offering these as an optional purchase within the online
registration form. NOTE: The books are required reading; however, purchasing them through TASA is optional. The
book price if purchased through TASA is listed after each selection.
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Session One: Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas
(There is no charge for this document; it may be downloaded from TASA's transformtexas.org
website.) Participants will also take the Self-Analysis Survey in preparation for Session One.
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Session Two: Engaging Students: The Next Level of Working on the Work, by Phil Schlechty ($34)
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Session Three: TBD
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Session Four: TBD
Key Concepts & Resources
In four two-day sessions spread throughout the calendar year, academy participants will explore four Key Concepts
and Resources:
1. Transformation and the Learning Organization
The changes in schools that are most likely to have an impact on learning are those that require transformation.
Organizational transformation involves changes in the social systems—particularly the Directional System,
Knowledge Development and Transmission System, and Recruitment and Induction System. When these social
systems are changed, conventional sources of power and authority are threatened and members of an organization
are asked to rethink all the norms that define their roles and the rules by which they do their work.
Many school districts choose the easier, though less effective, path—implementing innovations that only require
superficial changes that do not get at the essence of what a district is about, how roles are defined, and what will be
the focus of everyone's work. Many current programs are just such innovations, requiring only good management and
asking much less of all members of the organization. As programs, they may ask teachers to learn new teaching
strategies or to implement new classroom procedures. However, these strategies and procedures are based on
existing assumptions about the roles of student and teacher and about the core business of school, and, therefore, do
not require leadership and moral commitment—as does transformation.
2. Directional System and Superordinate Goal
The Directional System refers to the social system through which goals are set, priorities are determined, and, when
things go awry, corrective actions are initiated.
Leaders who wish to transform their schools into learning organizations must be attentive to superordinate goals. In
contrast to strategic goals, operational goals, and action goals, superordinate goals are direction-setting goals that
provide overarching meaning and guidance to members of an organization.
Leaders in bureaucratic schools may not be interested in superordinate goals and other issues related to direction
because they are pursuing an externally set direction dictated by others, most likely state and federal regulators.
Sometimes in bureaucratic schools, leaders are not even conscious of their lack of self-determined superordinate
goals.
3. Core Business
An organization's core business is what it busies itself doing, what it does to pursue its superordinate goals. The core
business involves all the most important things members of an organization do. If a school system aspires to make
student engagement central, it will have to transform itself and become a learning organization.
4. Continuity of Direction
Leaders who desire to sustain a direction will be required to understand the capacity needed to sustain a focus on its
core business.