Rethinking Accountability in Education with Brian Creasman: Local Solutions for Lasting Impact

Dr. Brian Creasman

Superintendent and author, Flemming County Schools 

Quotes of the Podcast: 

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” — Robert Frost.

Introduction of Guest BIO – 

Brian K. Creasman, Ed.D., currently serves as Superintendent of Fleming County Schools in Kentucky, a position he has held since 2014. As the recipient of the 2020 Kentucky Superintendent of the Year award, Dr. Creasman proudly proclaims on his social media accounts that he has "the best job in Kentucky," reflecting his deep passion for education and leadership. 

Dr. Creasman brings a diverse and extensive background in education, spanning rural, suburban, and urban settings. Throughout his career, he has served in various roles, including assistant superintendent, high school and middle school principal, assistant principal, instructional technologist, and classroom teacher. In addition to his administrative responsibilities, Dr. Creasman is a respected author, contributing to several notable publications: - "The Leader Within: Understanding and Empowering Teacher Leaders" - "Growing Leaders Within: A Process toward Teacher Leadership" - "Can Every School Succeed? Bending Constructs to Transform an American Icon" - "ConnectED Leaders: Network and Amplify Your Superintendency" - "Maximum Impact: Boards of Education and Superintendents Communicating as a Team" - "Prioritizing Health and Well-being: Self-care As a Leadership Strategy for School Leaders" 

Dr. Creasman is frequently sought after to contribute his expertise to articles, books, and blogs within the field of education. His weekly blog, "Measures of Quality," is widely read by educators, principals, practitioners, researchers, and educational leaders worldwide. This blog is dedicated to exploring next-generation accountability models, specifically local accountability, demonstrating his commitment to advancing education through innovative and effective practices.

Interview

Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators.

• 30,000 Ft. View – Why so we, as a society invest in education?
• What drew you to education?
• Your journey in Local Accountability
• What are the biggest challenges to you?
• What would you like decision makers to know?”

Podcast/ website/ book shoutouts

Author of multiple books, including “Can Every School Succeed?” Author page

Measures of Quality LinkedIn Newsletter

Transcript

Liza Holland [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Education Perspectives. I am your host, Liza Holland. This is a podcast that explores the role of education in our society from a variety of lenses. Education needs to evolve to meet the needs of today and the future. Solving such huge issues requires understanding. Join me as we begin to explore the many perspectives of education. Brian Creisman, Ed. Currently serves as the Superintendent of Fleming County Schools in Kentucky, a position he has held since 2014.

Liza Holland [00:00:38]:
As the recipient of the 2020 Kentucky Superintendent of the Year Award, Dr. Kreisman proudly proclaims on all his social media accounts that he has the best job in Kentucky. Reflecting his deep passion for education and leadership, Dr. Kriseman brings a diverse and extensive background in education, spanning rural, suburban and urban settings. Throughout his career, he has served in various roles including assistant superintendent, high school and middle school principal, assistant principal, instructional technologist, and classroom teacher. In addition to his administrative responsibilities, Dr. Kreisman is a respected author, contributing to Several notable publications. Dr.

Liza Holland [00:01:21]:
Kreisman is frequently sought after to contribute his expertise to articles, books and blogs within the field of education. His weekly blog, Measures of Quality is widely read by educators, principals, practitioners, researchers and educational leaders worldwide. This blog is dedicated to exploring next generation accountability models, specifically local accountability, demonstrating his commitment to advancing education through innovative and effective practices. Dr. Brian Kreisman, we are so delighted to have you on Education Perspectives. Thanks for being with us today.

Brian Creasman [00:01:57]:
No, thank you Liza for having me.

Liza Holland [00:01:59]:
I would love to kick you off with our big question I ask every guest and that is from a 30,000 foot view. Why do you think that we as a society invest in education?

Brian Creasman [00:02:11]:
Really it's to try to, I think from a 30,000ft, it's really to better humanity, right? That's the goal. And then all the other the perspectives and politics enter the thing and it gets a little skewed. But I always think, you know, especially with public education, I think it's the greatest equalizer in history and unfortunately that sometimes gets attacked and it gets more attacked as years go on. But I think it's always, it's to, you know, advance humanity better at humanity at some point.

Liza Holland [00:02:48]:
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Great answer. So tell us a little bit about yourself. What drew you to education?

Brian Creasman [00:02:54]:
Well, honestly, when I started, I said I would never become a teacher. And then when I became a teacher, I said I'd never be an administrator. When I became a high school principal, I said I'll never go to the central office, right? But I tell this story, my mom said you need to become an educator. You get your summers off. I Think that's the only time my mom's ever lied to me. I've been in this 24 years and I have yet to have my summers off. But I really, you know, got into it really, like working with people, and I've just really. That fire has never really vanquished on me.

Brian Creasman [00:03:34]:
I mean, I just love every day, like, I get up at 3 o' clock every morning. I cannot wait to get to work.

Liza Holland [00:03:39]:
Oh, bless your heart. Goodness.

Brian Creasman [00:03:42]:
I know. I mean, it's just I have the. I'm very blessed. I have the best job in Kentucky and, you know, I have. I don't think I've really worked in 24 years because I really love what I do. Even on the. On the worst day, I still think, wow, I'm still very blessed. You know, I'm an educator and I just like working with people, solving problems, trying to figure out, you know, how to get learning across to students new ways.

Liza Holland [00:04:13]:
So I hope.

Brian Creasman [00:04:13]:
I hope I never retire. I tell people I hope I never retire. I think I've got another 30 years, you know, and I can't imagine being retired and I can't imagine doing anything else.

Liza Holland [00:04:25]:
Well, I just love that lifelong learning focus that you've got. And you have really paved a trail and blazed a new trail, as it were, in the field of local accountability here in Kentucky. Tell us a little bit about that journey.

Brian Creasman [00:04:39]:
Yeah. So we started our journey with local accountability. I take everyone back to 2017, when we started our portrait of a learner work. Now, if you'd asked me back in 2017 what local accountability was, I would have had to ask for clarification. What are you talking about? But it's really moved us into a situation where coming right out of COVID teachers were really asking, you know, if we're pushing these durable skills, these competencies, and that it's not about a test score, then we've got to change the accountability model. And here in Kentucky, when they started the local laboratories of learning, which we call L3 here, it just opened the door. Because part of that work with local laboratories of learning was to really reimagine education and with that, reimagine assessments and accountability. And I tell Dr.

Brian Creasman [00:05:33]:
Young, Dr. Lou Young, and Dr. Glass, I talked to him still, you know, they opened the door. We just took a bulldozer through it because, you know, it was just the perfect timing. We were really looking for a way to really strengthen our approach around portrait of a learner. Our portrait of a learner is behind me. And Eliza, one of the things that we tell people here in Fleming County. Yeah, we have a beautiful portrait of a learner.

Brian Creasman [00:05:59]:
However, we bring it off the walls into the classroom. So here students have to demonstrate these competencies starting in kindergarten, going all the way through 12th grade. A student cannot graduate Fleming County High School unless they have demonstrated those competencies. And they have to have a digital portfolio. We look at that, we score it. I mean it's really a big deal here. Ironically, last night at our October board meeting, we had a fourth grader present to the board about her website, BPI website. We that's our digital portfolio.

Brian Creasman [00:06:34]:
We call our portrait of a Learner Bridge Performance Indicators. We're the covered bridge capital of Kentucky. So it's just, you know, bridge from the past to the future and all of those things. So we really started 2017, but really speed to it in 2021. And we just, we've been iterating since 2021. You learn a lot around this work daily. At first people thought we were crazy for iterating like we did every year. But now you hear that word a lot with the work around local accountability because no one's an expert in this.

Brian Creasman [00:07:12]:
We're all learning this. But it's really awesome work. You really get to public education should be local. Right? We should have never said that Washington can hold us accountable better than local people can in our local communities. And I think we really with that loss of that proximity to really that community, this local accountability really goes at restoring transparency, restoring that trust, restoring that reciprocal accountability around education and really says, hey, we're going to create this community that's really focused on learning and making sure our students are prepared for the after high school, Liza really goes at the no single data points, it's multiple data points and it's a holistic that child approach, that student approach that we're really trying to say can the student demonstrate whether it's either on a test or whether it's performance based. So it's a great opportunity to really readjust the approach in public education. And the more we keep at it, I think we stand a better chance of doing that and really taking learning back to where it should have been. And that's really improving student experience and outcomes.

Brian Creasman [00:08:36]:
You know, with that hope that that kid comes back to our community and that cycle goes, starts all over again.

Liza Holland [00:08:44]:
Oh, I am so excited about this work, especially because I really believe that you get what you measure for. And so this intensive focus on you've got to get an A, you've got to get an A. You've got to do well on this test has really done us a disservice. And so I think about people going, oh well, we increased our test scores and you're like, okay, that's great. But is that really what we want for students to have? Yes. Elements of academics are absolutely important, but so many of these portrait skills are what allow you to facilitate being a part of society as you graduate and they're a lot harder to measure. So I'm glad to hear that you're iterating and you're testing ways to get it done and building on progress as you move along.

Brian Creasman [00:09:40]:
Yeah, it is not easy. It's messy and we learn, you know, a multiple choice test is very easy to score.

Liza Holland [00:09:48]:
Yeah.

Brian Creasman [00:09:48]:
These performance space, you gotta have rubrics, you gotta have proficiency scales, however you want to measure that. And you've got to train, you've got to get people re acclimated to something that's not, you know, we've really not emphasized in public education for 40 years. But Liza, back in, I think it was March, I wrote one of my blogs about the piano and I give this analogy where for the past 40 years we've really, what we've really done is we've taught students how to play the piano with only sheet music. What local accountability does is they allow us to bring not only the sheet music, but we're also going to bring the piano if that's what our goal is to make sure we have piano players. We need a piano. So our job, I think in public education is yes, you will never hear me say, or probably any other superintendent say that reading math and writing and science isn't important. But what we're saying, those of us that's working with this local accountability, this next generation accountability model is that's one data point at the end of the year typically. But what about can this kid apply any of those skills, that knowledge to real world? And I think it's really interesting, you know, with the nation at risk back in 1984, you know, we were back in this space race with China to get back to the moon or to Mars.

Brian Creasman [00:11:16]:
And it'll be interesting. We're going to really test this because back in the 60s it wasn't about a test score, it was really about those skills and it got us to the moon. And so now we've just got a lot of kids that's really focused on abcd. Is that how's that going to pan out when we're really competing to get back in to the moon or to Mars. And I have a feeling people are going to say they need those skills. They don't necessarily need to know how to answer A, B, C or D. Can they apply this? So this, I think it's a really a time to really think, hey, this is a great opportunity to really challenge a 40 year status quo.

Liza Holland [00:12:02]:
Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about how you initially reached out to your community and your business community and how are they now integrating into this new system? Are you looking at like career connected learning and that sort of thing, or how's that going?

Brian Creasman [00:12:19]:
Yeah, we did this a little backwards, but I don't think there's a right way to this. So back in the fall of 2021, we actually started with students.

Liza Holland [00:12:29]:
Great. Honestly, that's fabulous.

Brian Creasman [00:12:32]:
Yeah. We wanted to know, like most models, they'll go straight to the community.

Liza Holland [00:12:36]:
Right.

Brian Creasman [00:12:37]:
What we wanted to know was what are those metrics that really matter to you all students? Because we do a lot of work here in Fleming county around Gallups research about engagement. So if we can increase engagement, we know performance follows. Right. I mean it's just. And so we really focused on that. But now we have, this is year two. We have a local accountability advisory council made up community made up of parents, made up of teachers, made up of administrators. But we also bring students to the table with us because that's really who we're trying to really target.

Brian Creasman [00:13:13]:
So they've got to have a voice in this. But I'll tell you the best thing, that's really, I think it's really come full circle with our community. So back in 2017, when we launched our portrait of a learner, it took several years to do this. Liza. But now with our co op experience, we've got a very robust. We've got at the high school, we've got something called enterprising education. So all of our career and technical programs have an enterprising component. So we've got a school store, we've got a school bank member of FDIC that we partner with our local bank.

Brian Creasman [00:13:50]:
Here we have a Panther Bistro that's open to the public where culinary students really work and learn the culinary who want to go on to be a restaurant owner or whatever. But there's all these others. But our co op experience, Liza, what happened was, so now we've got 70 businesses that take our seniors. They do not hire students for the co op unless they look at the student's digital portfolio and they meet the expectation. So they have to show that they can communicate, they can problem solve, they can be creative and innovative. They have this service heart because they have to demonstrate so much service throughout the year. And then they also have to have those skills to be lifelong learners, which we call growth and achievement. So now the kids, the students really understand how important this digital portfolio is, the BPI website, because these kids, I mean, some of them are getting paid really good money.

Brian Creasman [00:14:57]:
So it, you know, it makes them think, okay, this is important to me. But in the flip side of that, we benefit from this because we were producing kids, graduates that have the work ethic, that's got those durable skills, that pays off, that strengthens our community.

Liza Holland [00:15:15]:
Oh, that's exciting. That's really exciting. And I'd love to dig in just a little deeper with you on the students because I really feel that my experience is telling me that we need to shift how we approach students. And it sounds like you're well on your way to doing that because we need to build lifelong learners. For a very long time, school was the end. You know, people are like, okay, I was in this learning mode. Now I'm working, going into work mode. But the pace of change in our entire society is such that that's not good enough anymore.

Liza Holland [00:15:50]:
It really needs to feed their innate curiosity and maybe position teachers a little more like a coach as opposed to that sage on the stage model where they know everything and. And it's just all being talked at as opposed to with. Tell me a little bit about what your thought process is with the students because it sounds like you're well on your way there.

Brian Creasman [00:16:11]:
Yeah. So we take student voice really serious here in Fleming County. So all of our schools have some level, mostly medium to high level of student voice, where students are actively engaged in decision making, summing co creation of learning. We're trying to improve that. But Liza, it is. And I'm not the only superintendent who's heard this. I won't be the last. But when you're sitting on stage, when a graduate, when the VAL or SAL is giving their speech and you're sitting on stage and they talk about how they wish people would have known them for their name and for their skills and not by a test score that should send chills down.

Brian Creasman [00:16:56]:
Everyone's back there because that all they're wanting is kids want to come to school to learn. They do not. They honestly I've not seen one kindergartner who enters kindergarten. And when you talk to them about testing in third grader, they get excited. I've not heard that I've not seen it, will not see it either. But they do enter school really eager, really. You know, they think it's the best thing since sliced bread. And then we start doing the status quo stuff, we start measuring them and comparing them.

Brian Creasman [00:17:32]:
But really, if we can make learning look, there's always going to be those benchmarks, those standards, those expectations like reading, math and writing that's in science, it's always going to be there. But that doesn't mean that we can't make learning about them. So one of the things with our local accountability model is we provide, we really focus on compelling evidence. So for, you know, if you have one academic standard, we're looking for five pieces of evidence that says, hey, you've met grade level expectations in that. But one of those pieces of compelling evidence is it's got to be a performance based activity or a real world experience. And we really try to allow students to demonstrate their readiness through skills or talents that they want to show. For instance, like artists, they may be drawing diagrams, welders, they may be showing you how to do geometric measures through welds. I mean, it's just we're saying, look, grades are important.

Brian Creasman [00:18:38]:
I'm not saying they're not, but it's more important that you're confronted with a situation and you can access your knowledge and your skills, your experiences, your passions and overcome that problem or that real world situation. And when they are allowed to really show themselves and they're more engaged, they're more out to be, their probably going to perform a whole lot better. But I will give you an example of this and I, you may have heard me because anywhere I talk in Kentucky I give this example. So back in 2019, we had a group of senior welders who would not miss a period a day of welding class. But Liza, the following period, it was senior English and it was like maybe two or three would show up. They were going to fail their senior year because they wouldn't pretty much, they were going to be absent, they're going to be, you know, true wins. And so what we did was we went and a welding teacher and our senior English teacher got together and Liza, they pulled out every, all the literature from your typical English literature and they pulled in. And if you look at Kentucky academic standards for 11th and 12th grade for English, they don't mention a particular text or a novel or literature.

Liza Holland [00:20:06]:
Right.

Brian Creasman [00:20:06]:
So it's just, you know, the skills that they want all 11th and 12th graders to learn. Here in Kentucky we brought the Ocean 10 manual in which is a Lexile of 1300. So if you looked at the kids act or at that time, K prep scores, you would have thought, these kids are illiterate, they can't read. But it's a funny mystery to me that they can read an OSHA 10 manual, which has got a 1300 Lexile. They got their OSHA 10 certification, and they passed senior English while the senior English teacher became a certified forklift driver.

Liza Holland [00:20:44]:
That's fabulous.

Brian Creasman [00:20:46]:
I love that they didn't miss English another day.

Liza Holland [00:20:49]:
You know, you make it relevant. It's answering that lifelong question, you know, student question of why do we need to know this? Why are we doing this? And finding good, relevant, connected reasons can make all the difference for a student. That's phenomenal.

Brian Creasman [00:21:06]:
Yeah. So here in Kentucky, obviously, everyone's heard about this term vibrant learning. I mean, we talk about it all the time. So here in Fleming, there's three requirements that we say. That's got to be right there at the foundation, the threshold of vibrant learning. There's got to be some degree of student agency. There's got to be a degree of interdisciplinary connection, that life doesn't happen in silos. So why should learning? And then that contextual learning where, you know, you ask any kid, any student, even previous students like me, when we ask the teacher, why are we doing this? That typically what they're going to say is, well, it's an academic standard or you just need it for life, where we.

Brian Creasman [00:21:53]:
Where we don't help the kid. But with vibrant learning, there's that certain degree we have to say, you know, we're doing this because of X, Y and Z. And we really try to make it relevant to what they may be experiencing now. So I was with a teacher yesterday, and she was working on one of these performance assessments and, and in math, and one of the requirements was the student had to access, like, one of their apps that they really like to use, like a YouTube or I forget all the others. But they understood that, right? They, hey, I get it now, you know, and so that's what we've got to do. I think we just, we focus so much on. On one thing in public education. We've really lost the true purpose of education.

Brian Creasman [00:22:47]:
And that is really that connection from the learning experience to the learner. And we've really overlooked that and lost it in translation, if you will.

Liza Holland [00:22:57]:
Oh, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. And, you know, and you have a lot of competing interests nowadays, right?

Brian Creasman [00:23:04]:
I mean, that's right.

Liza Holland [00:23:06]:
To have students walk out and go I could have learned that in five minutes in a YouTube video. You know, you're not quite up to snuff for these kids. And unfortunately, I have heard kids say that kind of a thing, but this is a huge, huge paradigm shift for schools. Right. Tell us a little bit about the challenges that you faced in looking to implement this. I think the accountability is a huge factor because, again, all your administrators and your teachers and everything, they're going to rise to the level of what they're held accountable for. But this is very different. And so how are you navigating that?

Brian Creasman [00:23:47]:
Yeah. So, you know, you have. In public education, you know, you have a problem. When Kentucky, the Department of Education here in Kentucky, did a lot of those town halls last year, over the year, they went to each region of Kentucky. And, you know, we knew we had a problem when we had teachers who would stand up and say, please give us a state assessment to make my course relevant. I mean, it's sort of like, you know, it's just. It makes you stop and think, okay, where did we go wrong with this? Yeah, this is. And I use this analogy all the time.

Brian Creasman [00:24:28]:
We are moving inches here, but those inches are seismic, and it's transformative. And I think you. I don't know if you can move faster than inches, Liza, to be honest with you, because we are really having to really reprogram this. We've got to get teachers to believe in what we're. We're saying that, you know, we. Honestly, I have not looked at a state report card since 2019. When people ask me, what about the report card, I always start talking to them about the local accountability report card. And teachers have.

Brian Creasman [00:25:04]:
I've got to make sure that teachers see that. That I am more focused on what kids are doing in the classroom and what they can do with their portfolio, where learning is over time, growth is over time, and it's not about these single data points, but we are constantly having to talk to teachers, you know, help them work through problems here. You know, the amount of professional learning is just. I mean, it's massive. Right? I mean, it's just constantly. You know, you will find yourself, look in a hole, looking at an abyss, and somehow you've got to figure out how to get back out of it and keep moving.

Liza Holland [00:25:46]:
Yeah.

Brian Creasman [00:25:47]:
I mean, it's just a lot of trial and error, but I think that really speaks volumes to the Kentucky State Board, the Kentucky Department of Education, and also the Fleming County Board of Education, where they want us to innovate. And one of the things that the state board really communicated early was, we want you to innovate. We want you to take risk, and we've got your back. And that for those L3 districts, because I think they really understood that what we were getting ready to try to tackle is it's a huge paradigm shift, you know, and there's. I don't know if there's. There's not a roadmap to where we're trying to go. I think you just go and you take your detour when you need to, and you get back on the freeway.

Liza Holland [00:26:33]:
Well, and I think that that's something that's really important for all people listening to understand is that we have to give educators grace during this type of time frame. We've got a lot of things in the media right now about people being outraged about the expenses of unprofessional development. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, people, that is one of the most important things for us to invest in is that these teachers who are teaching our next generations are able to learn and understand. I mean, obviously you hear tons of stories about PD and one's not important versus another, whatever. But the reality is, we are asking our teachers, and even, I mean, our teacher prep courses need to realize that they are preparing for an entirely different world of teaching in order to be able to keep pace with change in what society needs. And we need to be lifelong learners as well, right?

Brian Creasman [00:27:30]:
Yeah. The good thing is we're very fortunate. We are about 20 minutes from Morehead State University.

Liza Holland [00:27:37]:
Oh, perfect.

Brian Creasman [00:27:37]:
And we've got a great relationship with the University of Kentucky. They're only about 45 minutes away. But you can go into one of our world history classes out at the high school, and you'll see four student teachers. Liza. Because Dr. Littoral is. I mean, he has taken this vibrant learning to a whole different level. But the College of Education at Morehead realizes the shift that's happening, that they're going to have to prepare those future teachers to be able to transition seamlessly into the classroom as much as possible.

Brian Creasman [00:28:10]:
And it can't be, hey, we're going to give you a script you just can read. No, I mean, that's not. I mean, it is. If this goes the way we all hope it does. Right?

Liza Holland [00:28:23]:
Yeah.

Brian Creasman [00:28:23]:
It's just as huge. I tell people, you know, I wasn't alive when they did integration of schools. I obviously was superintendent during COVID those two things there. And also, I guess another shift was actually when they started bringing on, you know, the standardized assessments early in the early 90s. It exploded in 2001, 2002, but it's that big. And just think how much money we put towards training teachers how to teach to the test.

Liza Holland [00:28:57]:
Oh, my God. Yeah.

Brian Creasman [00:28:58]:
And I think this. We'll spend more money on reprogramming. Not reprogramming, deprogramming.

Liza Holland [00:29:06]:
Absolutely.

Brian Creasman [00:29:07]:
To get them to. And, you know, it's much harder to design these assessments and design these learning experiences. So it's. And it's always, I tell people, honestly, if it was cheaper to do performance assessments, we would do performance assessments. I mean, that's just the politics of the. Of what we're dealing with here. They don't switch to performance assessments because it is very costly and it takes a lot of time.

Liza Holland [00:29:35]:
And we need to be giving our teachers more time and not micromanaging them to where they need to feel empowered themselves to be able to live up to all this new stuff.

Brian Creasman [00:29:44]:
That's right. Well, and I think, again, I think it's a great time. We're living. AI is coming in. Teachers have more. Even with the free AI program, they have access to more resources than any other time in public education. Within milliseconds, they can have more info than a teacher who planned for six months 10 years ago. I mean, it's just.

Brian Creasman [00:30:12]:
It's unbelievable what's happening.

Liza Holland [00:30:14]:
And even that, you know, it's. It's training to accept instead of be fearful of it. I mean, it's a really long. It's a real. It's quite a curve. And making sure that your districts aren't blocking the access to these tools, all these different types of pieces. Gosh.

Brian Creasman [00:30:30]:
Yeah. Well, and here's another reason why. I think it's just maybe the stars are aligning here that, you know, back in the early 90s, back in 2001, when all this testing exploded with no Child Left behind, schools really didn't have the capability, the resources, the technology to really probably do accountability with fidelity. That's not the case today.

Liza Holland [00:30:58]:
Exactly. It's one of those silver linings of COVID in a way.

Brian Creasman [00:31:01]:
And it's not that. That's right. And it's not that expensive to do, you know, now, some districts obviously will spend thousands of dollars on a dashboard, but you don't have to do that. I mean, we are on a shoestring budget, and we did that on. Well, two reasons. One, we are on a shoestring budget. But two, we did not. We been very transparent about our journey so that other districts can see that, you know, that small District out in western Kentucky can do this if we can do it.

Brian Creasman [00:31:32]:
And they don't have to run into the same problems we have because we're charting that path. And we're very. I mean, we'll tell you the good, the bad and the ugly about this process, but I think this. One of the things I really stress to people who I talk to is in Kentucky, we've got to grow this capacity very quickly. Yeah, we've got capacity, but right now it's sort of disjointed. It's not connected. We've got to somehow figure out how to get this welded together, get the capacity into all corners of Kentucky. So it's just.

Brian Creasman [00:32:07]:
It's just better to be transparent. So districts are more willing. Are more, you know. Yeah. Willing to step up and say, hey, let's just watch what's going on so we can learn from them.

Liza Holland [00:32:18]:
Well, and I have to give a shout out to your LinkedIn newsletter because measures of quality. I actually linked it in the show notes because I learn every time that you post a new newsletter. So thank you so very much for that because it's really been a fascinating journey.

Brian Creasman [00:32:32]:
Yeah, well, one of the things I tell people I write to get things out of my head, you know, it helps me think about, you know, what next steps we need to do. Things that we've encountered, but things that we need to do, we have to do it this way in 2025. And look, I'm all for accountability. This is not an anti testing movement. We test more now than we. We just think, like I told the Kentucky legislature, I just think we test better than you guys do.

Liza Holland [00:33:03]:
Yeah.

Brian Creasman [00:33:04]:
And we test more often so we can address the intervention or the acceleration opportunity then and not wait six months later when everybody's forgot, okay, I'm in a different grade or I'm graduated from high school.

Liza Holland [00:33:18]:
The results happen past the point of being effective for the journey of learning. Absolutely.

Brian Creasman [00:33:24]:
That's right. There is a level of. There has to be a high degree of proximity to this that you test, you get the results. You either provide the acceleration, their intervention. And that's how we really address these, you know, mtss. This is how we address that. And the other thing is just, you know, obviously this is my soapbox, but we have a chronic absenteeism issue. Not here in Fleming, not only in Kentucky, nationwide.

Brian Creasman [00:33:54]:
And I think if we could just make learning more engaging, we'd solve a lot of this. We don't need more programs. We just need to look at the learning that's taking place and is it relevant to kids in 2025? And I would venture to say that's our problem. It's not that we don't have truant officers anymore. It's that we've really made learning about one thing. And it's not about learning. It's about a test score.

Liza Holland [00:34:23]:
You know, it goes back to your. The kindergartners are so excited about coming to school. We need to find that joy and that enjoyment of learning and try to. I think our system unfortunately has, you know, has created people. They're fearful. Right. You know, I don't want to be wrong. And it's really hard to be curious and grow and learn and all that kind of stuff in that type of an environment.

Brian Creasman [00:34:48]:
So, yeah, look, I see amazing. Not just here in Fleming, but across Kentucky and across the nation, there are some phenomenal teachers that bright lights everywhere. Yeah, they're phenomenal. And they're still within this confine of what we're doing. Just think if we had a little bit bigger corral for them. Just think what they could do and still hold. Look, I am all about hold us accountable. But what we're holding us accountable for right now, it is a product of 1984, a nation at risk.

Brian Creasman [00:35:25]:
We're almost 50 years.

Liza Holland [00:35:27]:
Yeah, it's the same type of a thing and only exacerbated. And if you look at the employer's part of things, the top skills that they want are not reading and writing. They are all of these durable skills that are applicable and problem solving and critical thinking and all that kind of a thing.

Brian Creasman [00:35:45]:
So look, so the Pritchard committee last fall released this huge report, and they interviewed and they surveyed. I think it was either 300 or 600 companies and businesses in Kentucky from Paducah to Pikeville, from Covington to Corbin and everyone in between. And the number one skill those employers were looking for, now you're talking to Toyota, you're talking to a GM down there at the Corvette placing Bowling Green. They're looking for durable skills.

Liza Holland [00:36:18]:
Yep. Every single one of them. And that also perfectly mirrors you look at the World Economic Forum. That's a global list. And they're almost equal. They're so close.

Brian Creasman [00:36:31]:
That's right. But Liza, we're not held accountable for those.

Liza Holland [00:36:35]:
And that's the whole point of this incredible discussion. That brings us right back to why we're here. That is awesome.

Brian Creasman [00:36:41]:
That's right. And that's with local accountability. We can go right at that because we've got that. We're More flexible, more adaptable that we can look. If you look at all of the portraits of a learner here in Kentucky, we use different terminology. Some may call it collaboration, we call it teamwork, but 95% of them all say the same thing. Yeah, we can still. There's still going to be some variance between districts in this, but districts can really hold ourselves accountable for those.

Brian Creasman [00:37:12]:
But they've got to come off the wall.

Liza Holland [00:37:14]:
Yes.

Brian Creasman [00:37:14]:
Have a beautiful poster, but if you're not, all you're after is a beautiful poster. Go get one for Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox on it. It does about that much good.

Liza Holland [00:37:24]:
Yep. Oh, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Lord, I have so many more questions for you, but we are running up against time. So let me, let me just close with this. What would you like for decision makers to know? And you can define decision makers. Maybe it's the upcoming legislative session that's gonna really focus on this local accountability. Boy, we want it to happen. Yeah, you've given a lot of good suggestions, but what would you like for decision makers in the education space to know?

Brian Creasman [00:37:55]:
Yeah, this isn't about lowering accountability. We're after the same thing, making sure that we have students, our future commonwealth, just as strong, if not stronger in the future as it is today. All we're saying is we can do it a little bit better at the local level and we can still hold ourselves accountable because it involves the community. Right now, the community is really not involved in this. It is so far removed from the John Q. Public, the only time they look at it is that one sentence in the Lexington Herald or somewhere, that one story, and then they forget about it. But with local accountability, it is every day. You know, we're meeting with their local accountability advisory councils.

Brian Creasman [00:38:44]:
They're popping up all over Kentucky. That's who we should be accountable to. And we can build this reciprocal accountability that's so much stronger than this national model that we know has not worked.

Liza Holland [00:38:59]:
Exactly.

Brian Creasman [00:39:00]:
And we can do it better and cheaper.

Liza Holland [00:39:02]:
I love that. Absolutely. And I will just throw out there too. And this is my opinion, but we as a society, going back to that 30,000 foot view, it's not just the educators in the education system that are accountable for this. It is incumbent upon all of us to be developing these skills in our young people outside of school time to be able to support what's happening in the classrooms. But this is an our problem. It's not a school problem. It is a society's problem.

Liza Holland [00:39:33]:
And you know that old adage, it Takes a Village I think is really, really powerful and we need to get back to that.

Brian Creasman [00:39:39]:
Yeah, it'll always be powerful because it's true.

Liza Holland [00:39:43]:
There you go. Truth matters.

Brian Creasman [00:39:44]:
There you go.

Liza Holland [00:39:45]:
Truth matters. Well, Brian, thank you so much. What a great, engaging conversation and congratulations on all the great work that you're doing. And please, listeners, check out the show notes because we'll have. I'm going to go ahead and link that Pritchard Committee study as well there. But also you are a co author of multiple books and so if this conversation has jazzed you, lots of additional resources to be able to dig in a little more deeply. So thank you so very much for your time. All right.

Brian Creasman [00:40:17]:
Thanks, Liza.

Liza Holland [00:40:19]:
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