Education Department Vision and Mission

Our Vision Statement

We believe that true excellence in education requires a commitment to equity and social justice.
Thus, we strive to prepare creative, culturally competent, critically reflective graduates who
possess deep knowledge in their fields of study and work collaboratively to achieve high quality
education for all.

Our Mission Statement

Grounded in the rich traditions of the liberal arts and social sciences, and in keeping with the
Ithaca College mission statement, the Department of Education prepares students to take
responsibility for citizenship and service in the global community. This preparation takes place
in several ways. The Department seeks to develop future teachers who are not only well-
educated in their disciplines, but are also culturally responsive, caring, and knowledgeable in
their interactions with students and their families. The Department also reaches out to the larger
Ithaca College student body through courses and programs designed to equip them with the
necessary skills for well-informed, critically reflective, participatory citizenship and service in
their neighborhood schools and communities. In addition, faculty and students in the
Department of Education value, support, and engage in collaboration, discussion, and dialogue
with a variety of local and regional community partners in order to be of assistance in addressing
educational issues of concern and importance to them. In these ways, knowledge, competence,
and service come together in our students to nurture a lifelong commitment to the democratic
quest for excellence and equity in our schools and society.
Eric Sheninger: 5 Leadership Problems

Eric Sheninger

What are the most pressing leadership problems facing today’s education leaders? Eric
Sheninger is a Senior Fellow with The International Center for Leadership in Education at
Scholastic Achievement Partners, as well as the K12 Director of Technology and Innovation for
the Spotswood School District in New Jersey. He works with school leaders and educators across
the globe on digital leadership and learning strategies. Sheninger helps education leaders find a
natural complement to the work they’re already doing, to allow more enhanced outcomes
through the assistance of technology. Eric Sheninger believes it all boils down to what you do
better, working smarter not harder, and moving schools forward to create relevant, meaningful,
applicable institutions of learning that students not only appreciate, but want to be a part of as
well. Connect Learning Today had the privilege of talking with Sheninger for a candid and
insightful leadership interview.

Eric Sheninger’s Universal Problems for Leaders: In his own words:

Leadership is laden with problems and issues, many of which are out of the control of school
leaders. I remember as a building-level leader, I was so frustrated by the things that I could not
control. Those things that we cannot control pose the biggest problems for us in establishing a
shared vision, to create and implement a strategic plan, and really create a culture of teaching and
learning that works for students, as opposed to one that routinely works well just for the adults.

1. The number one universal problem across the world right now, not just here in the
United States, but across the world, is misguided efforts in education reform. There are a lot
of politicians and special interest groups that have no business influencing what goes on in
schools. Many have not worked in a school, nor have set foot in a school in recent memory.
There has been a connection, through testing organizations, with Common Core and others,
though, where now a majority of a school year is being allocated to standardized testing.
Compound that with all the other reforms, such as tenure reform, evaluation reform, along with
all these acronyms and mandates.

What has happened is that reform has created an influx of directives and mandates placed on
school leaders that focus more on management as opposed to true instructional leadership. And
that becomes a problem, because leaders are not able to have the type of impact that they would
like to have on building a better school culture, coaching, informal meetings with teachers, or
interactions with students, because of the amounts of paperwork that needs to be completed.
Additionally, the amounts of monitoring needed to ensure that all these mandates and directives
are put in place, and are adhered to, can be overwhelming.

ALSO READ: Promethean Launches ‘Best in ClassFlow’ Lesson-Building Competition

2. The second major universal problem for leaders is micromanagement. This can be
especially true at the building level, where principals can be routinely micromanaged by the
central office, and sometimes boards of education. Education is notorious for having all these
levels of bureaucracy—directing and mandating. It has become such a top down approach to
leadership. It’s a problem for leaders, because they don’t have the autonomy, support, or the
courage to do the work that needs to be done. There’s all this red tape that has developed. I think
that many leaders are either afraid, or just don’t want to go through the hassle of going down the
path less traveled to implement innovative ideas, because they are so over-burdened by the
micromanagement pervasive in virtually every school system.

3. The third problem for leaders in education is an excuse not to move forward. The number
one excuse used by leaders is time. “I don’t have time. It’s another thing I have to do.” That time
excuse really holds our schools and leaders back. I believe that time becomes an issue with many
leaders, because there’s more of a focus on management than actual leadership. I think that in
order to overcome that problem, leaders need to look at how they allocate their time, and become
better at delegating the managerial tasks to assistants, who can do that work. Then leaders can do
what they’re hired to do—lead, inspire, take people to where they need to be—model, and
become a cheerleader to inspire.

Leaders shouldn’t focus on the mountains of paperwork, or use the time excuse to be an inhibitor
for change. It’s easy for everyone to say, “I don’t have the time.” We all have the same 24 hours
a day, so we have to find time to do things, if not, other excuses happen. Leaders need to make a
concerted effort to say they’re going to do this, instead of that. If you say, you’re going to focus
an amount of your day being more present in classrooms, conducting one more observation, and
make that time and schedule it out—beforehand—then the excuses go away—for the most part.
Of course, you could always make an excuse, not to use the time you’ve set aside, but it really
comes down to making the time, rather than finding the time.
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4. The fourth problem for school leaders is technology. The evolution of technology has been
so fast and furious that it has caught the majority of leaders off guard. Some turned a blind eye,
hoping that it would pass, and kept schools isolated, silos of information. What’s happened is
that leaders, who didn’t embrace technology, have become irrelevant, and in turn, have sustained
systems that have long outlived their usefulness. The problem is that leaders have not seen, or
stayed abreast of changes in technology. The result is a method of conformity that keeps schools
structured the same way they were one hundred years ago. In a sense, schools no longer prepare
students for the world in which they live, and where they need to be successful. School has
become irrelevant. Schools aren’t prepared for the real world because of the issues leaders have
had with finding the value in how technology could be harnessed to do better what leaders,
educators, and students already do—to complement the work they’re already doing.

School leaders, today, can’t look at technology as a problem. It is not, and will never be a silver
bullet for education, but it’s more about how school leaders effectively utilize technology to
improve professional practice, how they empower their staff to integrate technology with
purpose, and allow students to create artifacts of learning to demonstrate conceptual mastery. It
even extends down to how leaders, especially with technology, have to give up control, trust
kids, honor voice, while empowering choice, to allow students to use real world tools to do real
world meaningful work. So, where technology has been seen as a problem, it can now, possibly
be, the greatest catalyst to deeper, more relevant learning that will truly prepare students for a
world, where we don’t know what the jobs will be a year from now—five years from now—and
give them the skill sets they truly need to be successful.

5. My fifth, universal leadership problem is shrinking budgets. For the past few years we’ve
seen budgets get smaller, with zero-based increases. Leaders want to move forward, they want to
make technology purchases, they’ve articulated a vision and a rationale for how technology will
be implemented with purpose to enhance and support learning, but it all comes down to what’s in
the budget to support those purchases. More often than not, leaders give up, and say, “We just
don’t have the money.” That’s what they tell teachers. Or, that’s what central office tells building
level leaders. We need to look at solutions, instead of excuses when it comes to all these
problems facing leaders. When it comes to budgets, leaders need to critically analyze what
money is being spent on now, and reallocate funds to make sure they really are maximizing the
impact of the monies they do have. With a little creativity, and critical analysis, we can stop
buying the notebooks, pencils, paper, pens, and all the other stuff that schools buy every year,
because that’s the way its always been done, and figure out how we can reallocate and reposition
money to purchase elements and resources that our schools desperately need.