Moral rudders and superintendent values: the hardest choices arise when both sides are right. How do good leaders make these tough calls?

As Ellen recalls it, the case was remarkably complex. It had exploded dramatically in a midsize metropolitan school district, where a principal was arrested and led out of his school one morning on a sex-abuse charge.

Five years later, when Ellen became superintendent in that district, the case was still wending its way through the courts with a final appeal yet to be heard. The charge came from a woman who accused the principal of molesting her decades earlier when she was a student in his primary school classroom.

Ellen, who asked not to be named due to local sensitivities, found the case had sharply divided her Pacific Northwest community. Many colleagues of the principal strongly supported his innocence. But others in the community felt that, as Ellen put it, "it was just a matter of time before he was convicted."

That latter view was held by some on the school board. "I found myself having to address an assumption among some board members that this man was indeed guilty," says Ellen. This view, she recalls, was likely to pre-empt the decision of the courts as the board considered "termination of his employment" prior to his appeal being heard.

On this point, certain board members were well dug in. They had read transcripts of the earlier trials. What's more, Ellen says, some were being called by prominent citizens saying, "'If you bring this guy back into work, don't you plan to return to the board again!'"

On one hand, Ellen knew she had to confront the board. "There was a point where I had to raise critical questions," she says. "There was an assumption that, notwithstanding the outcome of his trial, we wouldn't be obligated to bring him back into the district. And I had to say, 'I believe we are obligated, morally and legally.'"

On the other hand, she recalls, "there were moments when I had to say to myself, 'Who do I think I am? What if, in fact, he committed these acts?'" Knowing that judicial systems occasionally do misfire, she recognized that bringing him back to work might put others at risk. What's more, she was a newly appointed superintendent with no experience in that role, needing to maintain good relations with her board. Summarizing her feelings, she puts it simply: "It was awful."

Common Scenarios

To anyone in the superintendent's chair, Ellen's dilemma sounds eerily familiar. While the issues vary, the core challenge is the same--a tough ethical decision, where values are in play and both sides have powerful moral arguments in their favor. What should superintendents do when

* Pressure is mounting from the board of education to award a contract to a firm that, while highly regarded for its quality work, is well-known for getting several board members elected?

* A subordinate, when questioned about a glowing letter of reference he wrote for a notably problematic employee, claims he wanted to be candid but observes that honest references are no longer possible in today's litigious climate?

* Faculty members insist on remaining in the teachers' lounge rather than in their classrooms before school begins--even though, during a sudden cold and rainy spell, kids have no place to stay warm and dry when parents drop them off early?

* A school board insists on appointing a principal with strong political ties to the community, although the superintendent's selection committee didn't even rank the candidate in the top five?

* An influential parent living close to an all-white neighborhood wants her son assigned to its school, despite a district policy permitting such adjustments only in rare circumstances.

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Like Ellen's dilemma, each of these issues--all of them raised by superintendents interviewed for this article--has some degree of moral rightness on both sides. (For a framework for addressing right-versus-right dilemmas, see related story, page 15.) And while neither side involves outright illegality, one side may intuitively seem more "right" than the other. Yet superintendents who argue for that side may find themselves wondering whether their values are up to date. Am I living, they may ask themselves, in a moral universe that no longer exists, clinging to old-fashioned principles when the community has moved on?

What is a superintendent to do when his or her values come into conflict with accepted community norms?

Mounting Complexity

Many educators agree that such conflicts come with the turf and that worrying about them is part of what it means to be a superintendent. "How to make those decisions and to be ethical--that's the most difficult part of the job" says Betsy Webb, assistant superintendent in Bangor, Maine. "It's the part that keeps me up at night, but it's also the most rewarding part."

"That's why for me the role [of superintendent] exists," says Chris Kelly, superintendent in Vancouver, British Columbia. "The reason you would be in that role is to address that tension, to recognize it as an essential tension that characterizes how life proceeds, how meaning is found, how tragedy is understood and hopefully avoided at times, but at least embraced."

Kelly likes to talk about the need to "draw meaning at the locus of uncertainty," a phrase he credits to Canadian management theorist Henry Mintzberg. That willingness to confront uncertainty also features in a recent research report by the Institute for Global Ethics[R] titled "Tell Me What You Really Think: A Report on the Schools of Integrity Project." Conducted in independent schools but with broad application for public education, the report identifies highly ethical school cultures as defined by 10 hallmarks, one of which is described as "tolerance for ambiguity." Educators in such cultures who encounter murky situations, according to this research, tend to engage rather than recoil.

Today's superintendents also sense that the values-driven issues themselves are growing increasingly complex. Asked why, some cite the expansion of new technologies and media structures. Others point to a growing culture of legalism, where administrative decisions are more open to civil rights challenges from students, parents and lawyers.

Reflecting on his years as superintendent in Louisville and later as superintendent of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Donald W. Ingwerson observes that "it tended to get extremely more difficult as time went on." For Ingwerson, who was named 1992 National Superintendent of the Year, one key reason was the challenge to every sort of authority.

"When I first started, it was very simple how a school is run and who was in charge," he recalls. "Then there came a time in the '60s when the rules were tested and broken, and nothing was done about them."

Ingwerson doesn't so much lament the loss of a culture of authority as the loss of what he calls "a sense, a rudder of what's right," an inner ethical compass that he feels is being lost.

Willing to Question

Given these two points--that ethical issues come with the territory and that they're growing more complex--it's not surprising that Ingwerson's call for a moral rudder finds strong resonance among educators today. While they recognize the difficulty of values-based navigation, they also recognize its importance.

"Sometimes it's tough being very moral and ethical," says Terry W. Despres, superintendent in a small rural district in Livermore Falls, Maine. "There's always the quick decision that gets you off the plate. But to really make [things] work requires an ethical thinking process."

For many superintendents, the notion of being a real leader without such an ethical process seems almost an oxymoron. Among the ethical values most frequently mentioned in conversations for this article were fairness, honesty, trust, respect, caring and responsibility. Supplementing them are such tangible, school-based attributes as inclusion, equality, justice, open communication and (from the Schools of Integrity research) "open feedback," "authentic student input" and "growth, not punishment." And crucial to a values perspective is a readiness to question rather than to moralize.

"What is fair?" muses Joseph Mattos, who heads a school district centered in Unity, Maine. "How do you see 'fair'? Fair to whom?" For him, ethics is not always "having the right answer [but] asking the right questions to get people to reflect."

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What happens when a superintendent's strongly held set of values comes up against a different set within the community? John W. Porter, who became the nation's first African-American state superintendent of schools when he took up that post in Michigan and who then served for a decade as president of Eastern Michigan State University and later for two years as superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools, has encountered that challenge so often that he's developed a rubric for dealing with it.

"The most important ability of a school superintendent," he says, "is to be able to separate, in terms of ethics, one's personal preferences from the organizational objectives." His shorthand version, which he says has "guided me enormously," is a simple imperative: "Don't allow your PPs (personal preferences) to influence your OOs (organizational objectives)."

Porter sees serious problems, however, arising from a more dangerous separation--that between one's private life and one's public ethics. "We often say, 'What you do privately is your business,'" Porter observes. But for public officials, he counters, ethics "doesn't come in two parts--a professional part and a private part. Ethics is ethics. What you do privately has got to be able to stand the test publicly."

Uncomfortable Support

The need for a clear separation of the personal from the organizational, the PPs from the OOs, is a critical point for Darline Robles. Before coming to her present position as superintendent of the Los Angles County Office of Education, she encountered a situation in which a school board took a conservative stand on a hot social issue. Robles argued strongly for a more expansive policy but recognized that "for this community, for the majority," her position was more than they could accept.

Following the vote, she said, her role required her to support publicly the school board's decision. When she did so, she recalls, "somebody said to me, 'How could you do that? It's against your being!' I said, 'Their reasons were their values, and I respected that.'"

Three years later, Robles says, the board reversed its decision and left her with an important lesson. "We could have different opinions, and disagreements about them," she says. "But we both agreed that we would do it in a humane way and explain why and be there and talk to the kids" about the reasons.

Now, as she talks with the 80 superintendents in her county, she emphasizes the importance of building clear, respectful relationships with boards that permit "that kind of honest conversation." A superintendent's priority, she says, is to "have that relationship where the board knows what you stand for, and you know what they stand for and why they're there."

Robles' experience points to another important element of the leadership-values equation: the need to let resolutions develop over time. That may sometimes appear to be indecision, says J. Duke Albanese, a former education commissioner of Maine who was a long-serving superintendent and president of the Maine School Superintendents Association. So he likes to remind superintendents that "it's not going to be seen as indecisive to take some time and cogitate on things, not just by yourself but with others."

When an ethics issue arises, he advises, "let it percolate a little and have conversations about it. You don't do that by yourself, but you set the tone for how to do it."

Thoughtful Navigation

How then does reflection differ from compromise? Must superintendents, navigating in today's world, be prepared to compromise their values?

"Compromise, in my work, has normally meant negotiation," says Ingwerson. He defines it as "coming up with something that you can live with in your core beliefs, and that lets someone else exist within their core beliefs, on the public item being considered."

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Ingwerson admits that "negotiating" often is viewed as "flip-flopping." But that, for him, is all the more reason to steer by a set of core values. While "the implementation of values will change," he says, the values remain intact.

His role of thumb: "Don't go outside of what you know is right or basically ethical. Never commit to something you can't implement or make sense of to your audience." When you violate that tenet, he says, "you soon have the reputation of double-talk: 'He's all over the ballpark,' or 'You can't count on him--make sure you get it in writing.'"

Pamela Fisher, a former superintendent and former director of the Great Schools Partnership in Portland, Maine, agrees. "I don't think values become outmoded," she says. What happens instead is that "some of the practices" have not kept up with changing times. What was right during the industrial revolution, she explains, when "we knew some kids were going to be mill workers and some kids were going to college--that's all gone. It was right at the time, and we're still doing it, but it's no longer right." For her, the demand is to "redefine the practice, not the value."

On one point, however, there is wide agreement. While superintendents need to articulate values, they are not appointed to dictate values. Yet the temptation to become the values guru--especially for long-term superintendents--is always present.

"Having been in this community for nine years," says Patricia M. Hopkins, superintendent in Camden, Maine, "I find people looking to me to tell them what to do. And it's a very fine line because I believe that would not be ethical. They need the information. They need to make the decision."

Ingwerson agrees. "The superintendent is not God," he says with a chuckle. Instead, the task is to "try to move the district" toward its stated goals.

Personal Truth

This is exactly what Ellen, the superintendent in the Pacific Northwest, sought to do in defending her colleague's right to fair treatment. To their credit, she says, her school board members "took the cue" from her insistence on justice and dropped the effort to terminate the principal. In the final trial, the judge acquitted him of all charges. The man remains today doing excellent work in the school district.

Given all the pressures Ellen faced, what kept her from being more protective of her own position? Why put out so much energy on behalf of a colleague?

Pondering that point for a moment, she reframes the query. "If the question is, 'What stops you from looking after yourself?' it comes down to 'Where does this moral imperative come from in the first place?' You come down to that sense of what you think truth is, what you think is the most durable principle."

In their search for that "durable principle," what's the most important support superintendents can have?

"Fellowship," says Chris Kelly, superintendent in Vancouver, British Columbia, meaning "those one, maybe two, if you're lucky three people you find in the course of your career who are ready to go with you far beyond the normal confines of professional dialogue into deep, abiding, trusting, critical dialogue." Your most valuable resource, he says, is having "somebody who will pose an opposite question and listen really carefully to what you're thinking."

And the biggest obstacle? With a knowing smile and typical Yankee economy, Thomas Farrell, superintendent in Kennebunkport, Maine, puts it in six words: "Finding time to have these conversations."

Additional Resources

For more on the process of ethical decision making, Rushworth Kidder suggests these resources:

* From the Institute for Global Ethics[R], Rushworth M. Kidder's book How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living (William Morrow) lays out a framework for right-versus-right decision making in the context of five globally shared values. See www.globalethics.org.

* The Schools of Integrity project research report. "Tell Me What You Really Think," at the same website provides specific recommendations for building ethical cultures within schools as well as an extensive literature review. The Ethical Literacy[R] Approach links school systems electronically and face to face to promote ethical behavior.

* The San Diego Unified School District has a well-developed website promoting "a culture that encourages ethical conduct, supports personal responsibility and builds trust." See the "Tools, tips and resources" category at www.sandi.net/depts/ethics.

* The What Works Clearinghouse, established by the U.S. Department of Education in 2002 as a centralized source of scientific evidence of what works in education, released its first report on character education in 2007. Reviewing 93 studies of 41 programs on ethics, values and character, it concluded that only 18 met its evidence standards. See http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/character_education/topic.

* The Washington-based Character Education Partnership, a national umbrella organization for the character education movement, hosts conferences and publications and oversees the National Schools of Character Award, based on its "Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education." See www.character.org.

RELATED ARTICLE: Standing for something on bedrock values.

BY ARLENE ACKERMAN 

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

--DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

I have read countless books about leadership. I've taught courses on leadership. I've heard people describe outstanding leaders using positive traits such as visionary, inspirational, articulate, charismatic and commanding. However, I have found the quintessential meaning of leadership embedded in these poignant words of Martin Luther King Jr.

Sooner or later, every superintendent encounters a difficult professional decision, a defining moment that cuts to the core of why effective leadership comes replete with challenge and controversy. Sooner or later, all leaders face a dilemma that demands an exception from personal standards or core beliefs they hold in trust.

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It might be the necessary closing of a failing high school with deep roots in the community or a decision not to meet with union officials until there is a mutual agenda focusing on how to improve the district's lowest-performing schools. Whatever the issue, it is inevitable that a superintendent will confront situations where there is a conflict of rights--real or perceived.

For a superintendent to navigate her or his way through the tumultuous episodes of difficult right-versus-right decisions, I believe it is necessary for the district leader to have core values and/or beliefs that anchor the superintendent's professional behavior. Many years of experience in leadership and decision making have helped me to clarify five core beliefs that guide and direct my actions as a superintendent:

* Children come first. Each decision is weighed against what is in the best interest of all the children.

* Parents are our partners. I must give to other people's children what I would want for my own.

* Victory is in the classroom. Improving student achievement is directly related to improving teaching and learning.

* Leadership and accountability are keys to our success. Every adult in the district plays a role in the success of students and should be held accountable for results.

* It takes the entire community to ensure the success of its public schools. The adults in the community are responsible for the academic, physical, social and emotional well-being of the children.

Marking Parameters

These core values are deeply held convictions that serve as buoy and beacon, clearly marking my limits of permissible behavior as a leader. They provide a clear demarcation for what I expect from others as well as myself. While these values guide me in the administration of complex organizations, such as an urban school district, there have been times when I have found that just doing the right thing can appear to be an overly simplistic answer to multifarious problems.

Consider the following two problematic cases and how they were resolved.

PROBLEM NO. 1: A new fiscal methodology was being developed to allocate school district funds equitably in a formula based on individual student characteristics. In other wards, money would follow students regardless of where they attended school in the district. As you might expect with equity issues, parents responded in the character of those who "have" and those who "have not."

Some vehemently opposed this new formula claiming it was "robbing Peter to pay Paul." Others strongly argued that the current system had shortchanged their school communities for decades.

As superintendent, I found myself in the middle of a right-versus-right situation. In conflict were my first and second core beliefs. Both sets of parents held the interests of their children at the heart of their arguments and their realities.

As a leader, I had an imperative to close the gap between the differing points of view and convince both sets of parents that the new funding formula about to be designed would be equitable and in their best interests.

THE RESOLUTION: I convened a 50-member task force, which included parents representing both sides. The committee spent months mulling over the financial data to determine student fiscal weights and base funding amounts that would encompass student and school diversity. In the end, reality shifted for both sets of parents, leading them to common ground. The new reality and argument for the entire school district was to assert that more money was needed to supplement the school district's budget because there simply wasn't enough money to provide all students with a high-quality education.

PROBLEM NO. 2: A set of schools had been underperforming for many years. The district supported these schools with extra resources, additional professional development, as well as new school leadership. However, student achievement remained stagnant. Finally, a small delegation of parents, community activists and a consent decree court monitor demanded the district take more drastic action to improve academic achievement in these schools.

As superintendent, I was certainly aware of the lackluster achievement data and the questionable quality of the instructional programs in these underperforming schools. I also knew that transformational change that included moving school staff would spark a feud with the union that could potentially jeopardize my job and result in a forced departure. The stakes were high for the students and for me.

THE RESOLUTION: I asked myself one question: "What would I want the superintendent to do if my own children attended one of those schools?" The answer was crystal clear. I had to make dramatic change.

Initially, parents, school staff and community members toured outstanding schools in similar neighborhoods in other cities so they could see great teaching and learning. Next. we drew up a list of common characteristics that would be embedded in the new instructional programs.

Lastly, we conceived the concept of the first three "Dream Schools." We hired new staff. However, subsequent push-back from the union about the requirement to have all staff reapply for their jobs resulted in a firestorm that engulfed my administration for months. I resigned a year later.

Principled Acts

Was it worth it? A simple yes or no answer will not suffice. The decision to move forward with Dream Schools was a defining moment for me as a superintendent. The choice tested the strength of my commitment to give to other people's children what I would want for my own.

When all was said and done. I had to live with the outcome. In the end, I resolved the dilemma for the benefit of other people's children with my own children in mind. Although I was at peace with the outcome, the decision was a likely catalyst to events leading up to my departure from the school district.

No one ever said that being a leader would be easy. To know the right thing is far easier than to act on it. Without apology, I believe my core values are the bedrock of my professional practice as a superintendent and a decision maker.

Still, when critical episodes arise in my work, the unforgettable wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King and one important principle give me direction, purpose and moral courage: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Arlene Ackerman, the Christian A. Johnson professor and director of the Urban Education Leaders Program and the Superintendents Leadership Institute at Columbia University's Teachers College, will become chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Public Schools this summer. E-mail: [e-mail]

Right Versus Right: Resolving Our Toughest Dilemmas

Ellen's story, as outlined in the accompanying article, presented her with two opposing moral arguments: It was right to support her colleague and right to build her relationship with her board of education. Such right-versus-right dilemmas tend to fall into four broad patterns, or paradigms. Three are relevant here:

* INDIVIDUAL VS. COMMUNITY. It was right for Ellen to expend significant energy defending one individual. It also was right to work closely with the board to bring changes benefiting the whole community.

* TRUTH VS. LOYALTY. Ellen had strong obligations regarding truth-telling to the board. But she also had overriding loyalties to the safety of the schoolchildren, especially if her colleague really was guilty.

* SHORT TERM VS. LONG TERM. By not speaking up, Ellen could keep peace with the board for the moment, while risking a long-term lawsuit over wrongful termination. Or she could point out the long-term danger, though perhaps at the risk of losing her efficacy--or her job.

The fourth paradigm, justice vs. mercy, is less applicable here because arguments for mercy (compassion for her colleague) and for justice (finding truth through due process) line up on the same side.

Moral Approaches

With the arguments identified on both sides, it becomes easier to apply three resolution principles drawn from the long history of moral philosophy.

* The ends-based principle of utilitarianism--do whatever produces the best consequences for the greatest number--might argue for putting energy into communitywide issues rather than into single cases.

* The rule-based principle associated with Immanuel Kant--do whatever establishes a pattern everyone ought to follow, regardless of consequences--might support a fight for justice regardless of the cost, hoping others will do the same.

* The care-based principle of the Golden Rule--do to others whatever you would have them do to you--probably argues for helping the colleague, although if the "others" were school board members, you would want to support them.

This process helps frame and demystify tough dilemmas. In the end, however, Ellen still faces one of humanity's toughest challenges--mustering the moral courage to think hard and take action when values are put to the test.

SOURCE: Rushworth M. Kidder, How Good People Make Tough Choices. Copyright [c] 2004 Institute for Global Ethics[R]. All rights reserved.

Rushworth Kidder is founder and president of the Institute for Global Ethics[R] in Rockland, Maine. E-mail: rush.kidder@globalethics. org. Copyright [c] Institute for Global Ethics[R]. All rights reserved. Research for this article was supported by the John Templeton Foundation as part of the Schools of Integrity project.