NSBA President: A salute to our state association presidents

By George H. McShan

04/05/05 -- During my year as president of NSBA, our message was focused on collaboration -- partnership, not partisanship.

This past year has been challenging and rewarding. As I reflect on this year and the opportunity I have had to work with school board members and executive directors of state associations across the nation, I want to express how grateful I am to have had this wonderful experience. The NSBA Board of Directors and NSBA staff, led by Executive Director Anne Bryant, have made my presidency a joyful labor of love and a dream of a lifetime.

In my final column as your president, I would like to take this opportunity to salute and pay tribute to all the state association presidents. As a former president of the Texas Association of School Boards, I have an understanding of and can relate to the diligent work that state association presidents do in making a difference for the quality of education for all students in their states.

But you don’t stop there; you continue to be strong advocates on behalf of public education at the national level. An example of your unwavering commitment is your leadership in navigating the rough seas of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Your efforts are beginning to pay dividends as indicated by the growing interest of members of Congress and the U.S. Department of Education in the NSBA-sponsored bill, appropriately named the No Child Left Behind Improvement Act of 2005. You have made i´ clear that it is imperative for Congress and policymakers to understand that they must keep the promise of NCLB as intended when it was enacted with bipartisan support in 2002.

Center for Public Education

Accountability is the responsibility of all stakeholders, and you have been the catalysts and key players in leading the way in telling the true story of public education.

NSBA’s newly created Center for Public Education will be a source of reliable, valid information that will guide education policies and issues.

The Center for Public Education emerged in response to state association leaders who said we need balanced, validated research information about public education. The center was designed to provide the tools for collaboration and credible data that will drive policy decisions for elected officials, policymakers, and the media.

Thanks to your vision, this new initiative will have the potential to evolve in shaping the future of public education as well as the future of our democratic society.

Stronger state ties

Several years ago, NSBA embarked on improving communication practices among state associations through board liaison relationships. The focal point of this initiative involved the state association presidents collaborating with the executive directors of our state associations.

Efforts to strengthen communications with state associations was a high priority during my presidency.

I am grateful to the state association presidents and executive directors for inviting me to speak on behalf of NSBA at your state conferences. I traveled to about 25 states, where I addressed the importance of collaboration and stressed the significance of getting the public to value and invest in public education, which will ultimately ensure the preservation of our democratic society.

I cannot begin to thank all of the presidents for their excellent leadership and the strong programming at your state conferences.

Brown v. Board

The 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education was symbolic during my year as your president. If you would indulge me, I would like to share a brief experience that I had at the Virginia School Boards Association (VSBA) 2004 annual conference. I was part of a panel, along with VSBA Executive Director Frank Barham and moderator Anne Bryant.

Following the landmark Supreme Court ruling, the Prince Edward County, Va., school district closed for five years (1963-1968) to avoid integration, and black children who lived in that community literally did not have a school to attend. Barham, who was an assistant superintendent in Prince Edward County, played a pivotal role in reopening the public schools.

Perhaps very few people know about Barham’s historic role. He is a courageous, passionate, and caring individual -- a positive reflection of what our state executive directors stand for regarding public education.

Additionally, Barbara Haywood, 2004 VSBA president, did an extraordinary job in leading the Virginia association and addressing issues on equity and excellence in educating all children in that great state.

NSBA regional hosts

I want to especially thank the presidents of the host states of the five NSBA regional meetings held during the past year. NSBA Associate Executive Director Richard “Dick” Anderson, a former executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association, was instrumental in providing the vision and leadership in the programming at these regional meetings.

The agendas of these meetings addressed best practices in collaboration. State association presidents and executive directors presented innovative strategies and credible success stories that can serve as models to be replicated in other states.

Each region had outstanding presentations, and I applaud you for your leadership. The presentations provided real-world examples of the “good to great” principles put forth by author Jim Collins, a keynote speaker at the NSBA Annual Conference last year.

Establishing a collaborative relationship with partners served as a blueprint for data-gathering models that work effectively in the public and private sectors.

I would like to recognize the the states from each region that gave presentations at the five regional meetings: Alaska, Arizona, California, and Oregon from the Pacific Region; Colorado, Kansas, and South Dakota from the Western Region; Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas from the Southern Region; Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin from the Central Region; and Delaware, Maine, and New Jersey from the Northeast Region.

Better communications

In our efforts to improve communications within the NSBA Federation, we used this year’s NSBA Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., to address issues in collaboration among state association presidents and executive directors, as well as the NSBA Board of Directors and senior staff. We had a positive dialogue centering on ways to improve liaison relations.

The participants were organized into groups with peer facilitators, recorders, and presenters. This was truly an engagement of ideas that focused on improving and strengthening communications practices.