Participants Making Change

What is Servant-Leadership?

Servant-Leadership is a practical philosophy which supports people who choose to serve first, and then lead as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions. Servant-leaders may or may not hold formal leadership positions. Servant-leadership encourages collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and the ethical use of power and empowerment.

Robert Greenleaf, the man who coined the phrase, described servant-leadership in this way.

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He or she is sharply different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve – after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

The difference manifest itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer , is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?”

Taken from the Servant As Leader published by Robert Greenleaf in 1970.

Failing Schools Strain to Meet U.S. Standard

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Published in N: October 16, 2007

LOS ANGELES — As the director of high schools in the gang-infested neighborhoods of the East Side of Los Angeles, Guadalupe Paramo struggles every day with educational dysfunction.

For the past half-dozen years, not even one in five students at her district’s teeming high schools has been able to do grade-level math or English. At Abraham Lincoln High School this year, only 7 in 100 students could. At Woodrow Wilson High, only 4 in 100 could.

For chronically failing schools like these, the No Child Left Behind law, now up for renewal in Congress, prescribes drastic measures: firing teachers and principals, shutting schools and turning them over to a private firm, a charter operator or the state itself, or a major overhaul in governance.

But more than 1,000 of California’s 9,500 schools are branded chronic failures, and the numbers are growing. Barring revisions in the law, state officials predict that all 6,063 public schools serving poor students will be declared in need of restructuring by 2014, when the law requires universal proficiency in math and reading.

“What are we supposed to do?” Ms. Paramo asked. “Shut down every school?”

With the education law now in its fifth year — the one in which its more severe penalties are supposed to come into wide play — California is not the only state overwhelmed by growing numbers of schools that cannot satisfy the law’s escalating demands.

In Florida, 441 schools could be candidates for closing. In Maryland, some 49 schools in Baltimore alone have fallen short of achievement targets for five years or more. In New York State, 77 schools were candidates for restructuring as of last year.

Some districts, like those in New York City, have moved forcefully to shut large failing high schools and break them into small schools. Los Angeles, too, is trying small schools, along with other innovations, and David L. Brewer III, its schools superintendent, has just announced plans to create a “high priority district” under his direct control made up of 40 problem schools.

Yet so far, education experts say they are unaware of a single state that has taken over a failing school in response to the law. Instead, most allow school districts to seek other ways to improve.

“When you have a state like California with so many schools up for restructuring,” said Heinrich Mintrop, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “that taxes the capacity of the whole school change industry.”

As a result, the law is branding numerous schools as failing, but not producing radical change — leaving angry parents demanding redress. California citizens’ groups have sued the state and federal government for failing to deliver on the law’s promises.

“They’re so busy fighting No Child Left Behind,” said Mary Johnson, president of Parent U-Turn, a civic group. “If they would use some of that energy to implement the law, we would go farther.”

Ray Simon, the deputy federal secretary of education, said states that ignored the law’s demands risked losing federal money or facing restrictions on grants. For now, Mr. Simon said, the department is more interested in helping states figure out what works than in punishment. “Even a state has to struggle if it takes over a school,” he said.

A federal survey last year showed that in 87 percent of the cases of persistently failing schools, states and school districts avoided wholesale changes in staff or leadership. That is why, Mr. Simon said, the Bush administration is proposing that Congress force more action by limiting districts’ options in responding to hard-core failure.

In California, Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of schools, calls the law’s demands unreasonable. Under the federal law, 700 schools that California believed were getting substantially better were counted last year as failing. A state takeover of schools, Mr. O’Connell said, would be a “last option.”

“To have a successful program,” he said, “it really has to come from the community.”

Under the No Child law, a school declared low-performing for three years in a row must offer students free tutoring and the option to transfer. After five years, such schools are essentially treated as irredeemable, with the law prescribing starting over with a new structure, new leadership or new teachers. But it also gives schools the option of less sweeping changes, like reducing school size or changing who is in charge of hiring.

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One Life Experience

Visit World Vision's One Life Experience, coming to Calgary for a limited engagement this October.
This 2,000-square-foot interactive village transports you into the heart of Africa. You'll be guided by a captivating audio tour, combined with powerful photography, to experience the impact of AIDS through the eyes of a real child.
You'll move beyond the statistics of HIV and AIDS, and hear the voice of a child in the midst of this struggle. As you see the challenges children face, you'll understand more about why your support is so critical in bringing hope to children.

Please invite your family and friends to join you.

Free Exclusive Event for our Valued Supporters
Location:
Roundup Centre Stampede Park
Date:
Saturday, October 20
Times:
6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The One Life Experience is approximately 30 minutes.
Admission is free. Parental discretion is advised

World Vision

Homeless 'crisis' Hurting Revitalization

Marty Hope, Calgary Herald
Published: Saturday, September 29, 2007

Until definitive action is taken to house the homeless, changing the profile of downtown Calgary will not succeed, says an official tackling the growing problem.

"We will not regenerate the downtown until we have homes for everyone," says Wayne Stewart, president and CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation. "The East Village plan is in jeopardy until we have homes for all."

The former oilpatch executive -- who has become a strong advocate in the battle to reduce, if not eliminate homelessness in Calgary -- says the situation is at a "crisis level."

He is continuing to push civic officials to review their priorities.

An estimated 58,000 Calgary households are at risk of losing their homes because they are using more than the recommended 30 per cent of household income to keep a roof over their heads.

All it will take, in many cases, is one family crisis to tip the financial scales and put those people on the street, says Stewart.

"The face of those without homes is changing," he says. "More than half now have jobs and on a given night, there are 145 families using shelters."

Stewart was making the comments as part of activities related to the recent Homeless Awareness Week, but he adds that it's a problem that is with the city 52 weeks a year -- and something must be done about it.

Stewart believes there is a direct correlation between crime, drugs and homelessness.

"We will not stop crime in the downtown until we solve the homeless problem," he says. "We will be further ahead with a council committed to housing those in need first and crime second."

He uses the successful Housing First concept that's being used in the United States as a model of what should be done in Calgary.

The strategy behind the idea is to get those in need into a more permanent housing environment, not a shelter.

Those behind the program believe the causes and effects of homelessness cannot be resolved as long as people reside in the shelter system.

"Housing First places people in housing without first requiring them to be clean, sober and fully mentally capable," says Stewart. "We must accept people as they are, get them into a stable, safe environment, and then work on their issues."

The Calgary Homeless Foundation has partnered with the Calgary Region Home Builders Association and Horizon Housing to create the Bob Ward Residence, as well as the Inglewood Project, to provide affordable housing for Calgary's needy.

Stewart says a longer-term goal is to have similar residences in place in all quadrants of the city.