Tag Archives: New Mexico

Eagle Rock PDC Lends an Experienced Hand at TEDxABQ Education

We have been deeply engaged in public education reform in Albuquerque, N.M., since 2007. In particular, Eagle Rock has been working with Tony Monfiletto since his tenure as principal of Amy Biehl High School and now as executive director of the New Mexico Center for School Leadership (NMCSL).

NMCSL is an incubator for local charter schools that serve communities in greatest need. In apparent contradiction to this long and healthy relationship, Albuquerque and New Mexico in general are well known for distrusting solutions imposed by outsiders. In fact, Gov. Lew Wallace — the former territorial governor — famously claimed in the late 1870s that, “All calculations based on experiences elsewhere fail in New Mexico.”

Fortunately, Eagle Rock’s facilitative processes are effective at surfacing local wisdom to solve local problems. We have a clear advantage as an outsider, because we demonstrate over time that we come to nurture and foster the best local thinking rather than impose a turnkey framework.

We have supported schools in Vermont and Iowa to foster competency-based systems, facilitated professional development in Detroit to enhance project-based learning, and launched Mid-Atlantic critical friends groups for Big Picture Learning principals to convene and learn from their collective experiences. In all cases, the center of our work is to identify what is most important to the local educators and systematically support them in what they care about. (To learn more about this approach and the thinking behind it, please read my April 22, 2013 blog post, Experience With Professional Development Influences Eagle Rock’s Approach.)

As a result of our ongoing work in New Mexico, I was invited to attend TEDxABQ Education held on Friday, March 27, 2015, at the African American Performing Arts Center in Albuquerque, where 17 educators offered up visions of reform rooted in their experience in that central New Mexico community. Presentations ranged from Continue reading…

New Metrics Initiative Taking Shape in New Mexico

The New Metrics Initiative in New Mexico was developed in partnership with Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, the McCune Portfolio and The Center for School Leadership with the goal of creating a “high quality school performance framework” as an innovative means of assessing schools.

This framework was created by a group of educators who are committed to ensuring student success, both in and outside the classroom.

The schools within the New Metric Initiative often work with students from tough situations — some have some discontinued schooling and/or are grade levels behind — which led to the creation of a New Metrics tool.

The initiative is the direct result of the challenge that confronts many schools in troubled districts, and that challenge is funding. While funds might easily reach recognized schools that show major transformations in districts that struggle with high attrition rates and poor test scores, that progress seldom is made clear in standardized testing.

Our staff recently had its second meeting with our partners and the six schools that are part of the New Metrics Initiative (Health Leadership, ACE Leadership, Amy Biehl High School, South Valley Academy, Native American Community Academy, Albuquerque Sign Language Academy). We created four key pillars to guide us as we achieve this transformative work: Continue reading…