Dr. Melvin J. Brown was announced as the next superintendent of Montgomery Public Schools by a unanimous vote of the Montgomery County Board of Education (MCBOE) on April 8, 2022. He previously served as the Superintendent and Chief Executive Officer of the Reynoldsburg City Schools District in Ohio.
Dr. Michael Conner
Good morning, good evening and good afternoon from wherever you are. I hope all is well. First off, happy Black History Month. And in celebrating Black History Month, this is an episode that’s a part of the Black Excellence series on Voices for Excellence. And I am your host, Dr. Michael Connor, CEO and founder of the Agile Evolutionary Group. And I am happy to have and yes, this is a subjective statement that I’m going to say, the best, the best superintendent in the United States. And the reason why I say that is because I love him, because we are both a part of the greatest fraternity in the world, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., 1906. And to have, my brother, my colleague, my friend, a person I look up to personally, specifically when I was going through the trajectory of becoming a superintendent, this was the individual that I looked to for strategies, for specific techniques, more importantly, how to be able to organize a coherent, a coherent teaching and learning system that focuses on ALL. So I am happy, I am eternally happy to introduce Dr. Melvin Brown, the proud Superintendent of Montgomery Public Schools in Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. Brown, how are you? Happy Black History Month. How’s everything, my brother?
Dr. Melvin Brown
Well, thank you so much. I’m really honored and privileged to have an opportunity to have a conversation, thrilled to be at the table and humbled by the whole experience. Thrilled to have January behind us.
Dr. Michael Conner
We are in Nev-ruary, as I call it. It never ends. And now we’re moving into February. But January, it just seemed like– my birthday was on the 29th. And it felt like January 39th because it’s just been ongoing, a long month. But as we continue to go on, that means that, Dr. Brown, you’re doing the real work because if it feels like we’re making slow in the days and the evenings, that means that we’re really thinking about how we can provide equitable learning environments for all. So it is just absolutely an honor to have you on the show. But before we start, Dr. Brown, a mutual friend that we have of ours, Dr. Tracy Davis… I took this from her. And I know last month you were a special guest at the IEI, I believe Aspiring Superintendents Cohort. And we know Dr. Tracy Davis, who is doing a great job in that development leadership role. But I got this question from her. And the question is right, when you’re with aspiring superintendents or existing executive leaders that are bouncing off ideas to be able to enhance their teaching and learning organization, what’s your equity song? When a song comes on or a thought of a song for you as you enter a room. And I know it’s going to be great because you’re an alpha man, but what is that song that defines Melvin Brown? I mean, Dr. Brown, you are everywhere in the country. You speak everywhere. People, leaders are coming to Montgomery, Alabama to see your work in place. But when they first engage with you in person, what is that equity song that describes you?
Dr. Melvin Brown
Oh, that’s a great question. Obviously, in the space called Equity, which is the work we should all be doing, all kids to get opportunity. We know the word has been hijacked a bit over the course of the last, I don’t know, two or three years and has become something that some folks in our communities don’t necessarily accept or want to be part of. So what I typically try to do is turn the conversation around and make them tell me which kids they don’t want me to educate and write their names down on a piece of paper. So I know at least I know where they’re coming from, which tends to shift the conversation. So as far as a song is concerned, I can come with one that’s a little older and one that’s a little bit newer, although for me, because I’m old, it’s still old too. I could go back to the Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron because much of the work that we’re doing in the space of equity isn’t about the plans you put out or the huge pronouncements you make, it’s simply about doing the work and making sure all kids have those opportunities and it doesn’t have to become something where people can say he’s taken from this group to give to that group. That’s not what equity is about. So we’re having real conversations. Sometimes you have to just do the work under the radar to make it happen. So that work itself isn’t always going to be put on front street where everybody can look at the plan and pick it apart. And then at the same time, I think about the environment in which we work, where we have so many different voices coming at us and so many different ways, much of it negative, much of it divisive, much of it untrue. I have to go back to my brothers from Public Enemy and hearken back to Fight the Power to be unapologetic about how I handle those situations. When folks are in situations where they want to disparage the work or denigrate certain groups of students or say that we’re taking from one group to give to another, I’m going to be very confrontational as well. And having to have that information put out there in real ways. I recall a conversation I had back in Ohio with a parent who asked me if we were doing that CRT stuff, and I said, Well, before we get into this conversation, tell me what we’re talking about. What is that? And the parent couldn’t tell you. No. You get crickets and I said, okay, great. Well, let’s talk about the actual work we do. In terms of working for all kids. That is what we’re supposed to do and that’s why we’re here. So if me giving kids an authentic view of what the world is and how they’re supposed to approach it and how we make them able to survive it, then if that’s what you want to call it, then sure, that’s what it is. But we know that’s not the definition. So let me give you the real definition. And I think it changed a lot of conversations in my previous district where we didn’t have to confront some of the nonsense that was out there simply because we were honest about the approach.
Dr. Michael Conner
Yeah, and you know, when… the two songs that you described, the second one, Public Enemy – Fight the Power… When I think about Fight the Power, right and kind of creating this corollary relationship with the work that goes hand in hand… Because the words of Chuck D and and Flava Flav, wow, you’re going back. You going back in the day with that. But it is interesting that you bring up CRT. Because there was a statement that was made last month when Governer DeSantis removed the Advanced Placement Course for African-American studies. And one of the resonating points that was highlighted was he said that there was undertones of CRT. And I went back, you know me, a critical researcher. I went back and looked at that document. And what I read was individuals or I should say, a curriculum that highlights African-Americans in a positive way that. Conversations like that don’t normally happen in schools. So I don’t know where this indoctrination is coming from with regards of an African-American history course, which now falls under that label of critical race theory. When I think of CRT, I think of culturally responsive of teaching. That’s what should be– The question should be now what type of CRT practices, culturally responsive practices, culturally responsive pedagogical practices are embedded in our classrooms to ensure that we’re all. So hopefully, Dr. Brown, we can be able to start to change that narrative of CRT from critical race theory to culturally responsive teaching.
Dr. Melvin Brown
Yeah, even addressing the term CRT or critical race theory in the way that it’s actually meant and giving the real definition. It’s simply talking about the intersect– the historical intersection of race and the legal system, and the implications for our country. It’s as simple as that, but yet it’s been hijacked and bastardized into something that it’s not. And then, we as K-12 folks have been accused of teaching curriculum based on that, which is the furthest thing from the truth. So my concern, my issue with those types of statements is that if you’re going to have those conversations, be real, be truthful and be authentic about them. Don’t frame some conversation or some lie into something and make other people think it’s real. One other thing he said was that that particular course had no educational value, which is incredibly insulting. When I look at AP European history being accepted or AP American history being accepted or AP world history being accepted, it’s extremely insulting and thus the Chuck D in me comes out.
Dr. Michael Conner
Absolutely. I mean, when you say African-Americans don’t bring any significance or contributions into the schools, that’s just like saying African-Americans within our schools don’t bring any type of contributions. And that goes back to our kids that we focus in on that, too. But let’s just move on with that because we can spend the whole episode talking about that. But we have to start moving away and continuing to educate people about what critical race theory really is, because once we start politicizing the nature and the beast of the education ecosystem, guess what? We are never going to reach that level of loss. So we got leaders like you to continue to push it. Dr. Brown, I’m telling you, we’ve got a strong coalition to be able to move this, but my next question, and this is around your work, and I tell you, Dr. Brown, it’s extraordinary how you improved operational and structural conditions in the various executive leadership roles and capacities that you have. Presently, right now you are the superintendent of Montgomery Public Schools. And if I’m an aspiring superintendent or let’s say I’m 3, 4, 10, 15, 20 years in as a superintendent, because if we adopt this continuous learning aspect of it, or this growth mindset that Carol Dweck talks about, you know, we’re always growing no matter what year we are in our executive role. But in this time of the AC stage of education, the first typical year since 2018-2019, how do we as an education entity in totality accelerate change right when various predictive models are suggesting catastrophic outcomes for Generation Alpha and Generation Z in education that make up 50%, 50% of the black and brown population in public education right now? So what can we do to accelerate this change? I mean, we got notions or variables of critical race theory that’s holding us back from really accelerating. But as leaders, you as a strategic leader, how do you accelerate that change?
Dr. Melvin Brown
Well, I think when COVID… when we were impacted by COVID, we had an intersection of two different things that took place. Obviously, we were raised in the beginning of the accountability movement, where standardized tests became how you measured schools. And I think we were in a space as educators where we were constantly preparing kids to pass tests. We weren’t necessarily teaching pedagogy, we weren’t teaching in a way that learnings stick. We gave them opportunities to learn facts and then expected them to regurgitate those facts on a piece of paper. And then for many of our kids, that “learning” went out the window because it didn’t have an opportunity to be applied and didn’t stick. Now we bring in COVID, which revealed so many stark disparities across all of our communities. It made us pay attention to things that I think inherently we knew but they were easy to not pay attention to simply because they weren’t quantifiable. Now we have data that shows all those disparities that have existed for so long and we’re playing catch up. So using the convergence of those two pieces and understanding that when we change what schools look like, how they operate, how they give kids senses of belonging and senses of connectedness, when adults truly forge partnerships and relationships with kids where they get to know the kids specifically and personally. And now kids come to school and they have that trust, that adult that he or she can go to to share any and everything under the sun when they’re having one of those days. We look at it from that standpoint and we change educational models so that kids now can learn content and apply in real life context and understanding how they have an impact on the world, not just their classroom. I think that gives us an opportunity to change what education looks like and at the same time make kids better equipped to even pass those standardized tests that we still have around. If we are just simply having this notion that we’re going to improve our test scores, but we don’t do anything to do to change that except teach more content more heavily and expect kids to gravitate toward it. We’re going to make a heavy mistake that’s going to impact the next generation of students. So we have an opportunity to really change things. Being here in Montgomery, this is only my eighth month here. It’s been phenomenal to be able to watch how new and different conversations have brought about new and different practices. And it’s rewarding to kind of see the beginnings of that and how it’s starting to bubble up through our district. I can’t wait until we have this conversation that’s three years from now, and we will see the impact of what equity in education and opportunity for kids and changing classroom conditions in classroom cultures, how that impacts what academic performance looks like. The other big thing that was highlighted throughout it is the whole economic disparity in our communities here. In Montgomery we are close to 100% reduced lunch. Poverty is an issue by any means and like any other inner city, and how we address that has to look different than some suburbs. And that’s okay. That’s what our kids need. And knowing that that’s the fact, we also then have to find ways to engage parents in conversations about school and about learning and about finance and literacy and those types of things. So we can also work with them to help break cycles of generational power. My goal, my thrust, my passion, if you will, is to pursue breaking generational poverty as the product of generational poverty. It’s my response– I feel it’s my responsibility to help change that. I was fortunate in that my mom pushed me as much as she possibly could throughout my life to to aspire to new and different things. Although she had never seen those things. We were extremely poor, being raised in a single parent household with little to no income on public assistance, living in a trailer with no running water. Those were real things for me, so I know what our kids confront. But because of that, I also know what our kids can achieve. Because I’m not special by any means whatsoever. My kids, our students can do anything they want if they prepare their minds and we put them in spaces where they can prepare themselves to be successful. So I want our kids to have that type of attitude that it doesn’t matter my circumstances, my current circumstances, I can overcome, I can achieve, and I can go any and everywhere I want to go. I just have to be willing to give up, perhaps a little bit more than a student in the city next door to me. It may look different. My journey may be very varied, but I can make it. And I want kids to understand that it is not about test scores.
Dr. Michael Conner
Exactly, exactly. And you know, Dr. Brown, one thing I want to highlight. And you… in that answer I mean, you were just– four or five, I like to say, not just major themes, but major themes that our listeners can take back into their own individual practice. But there was one thing that you highlighted, which is around, actually two, but around standardized assessments. And a mutual friend of ours, Richard Carranza, would always say that assessments are… or we use screens in the summer to keep bugs out of our house, but education uses screens, i.e. benchmarks, benchmark assessments, formative assessments or standardized assessments to keep kids out, to keep kids from gaining the access and opportunity that you highlighted and how COVID played such a huge player within the change of education. And I think that now being the first year in the AC stage of education first typical year since ‘18-’19, I always say that we have this time to be permissionless. We have this time to be iterative, we have this time for experimentation, to be able to create a new model because it shouldn’t look the same for every kid. And you highlighted that and somebody that did experience generational poverty that did experience, coming from a single family house, absolutely. You can make it. But I think that now, you really highlight a sub variant that I’m really underscoring now within my corporation, which is moving away from achievement to talking about ability of students. And when we talk about the ability of students, the acumen and the potential of students are highlighted, where now the screens are eliminated, where we can ensure that access and opportunity are for all. But absolutely, and having this space to be successful, creating that I think is going to be an arduous task because we’re still fighting up against the political norms that we see.However, we still have to be that much more urgent with our practices to ensure we’re creating those spaces. But you started to talk about your work in Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery Public Schools. And Dr. Brown, I want to highlight one thing that I’ve been saying across the country is that we should, at 17,000 districts, should be looking at their district improvement plans or their strategic operating plans because it was probably completed before or even at the tail beginning of COVID. Now, as you highlighted in your last statement was it can’t be the same. It has to be different in your journey. It doesn’t matter how you get to the endpoint, but your journey can’t look the same. That is creating a flexible emergent model. We see that in our economic demand. I always used to do comparisons between Netflix and a blockbuster. Blockbuster going out of business because Netflix was the emergent that came in to take down the incumbent. But we see this now where the incumbent has been, I like to say, concretized in education and when you challenge the status quo, it pushes back even harder. But we’re starting to see these changes. And you said in three years you want to see this in Montgomery Public schools. And a lot of people follow you. They want to see your work. We know that you’ve been only eight months in, congratulations frat. This is… When I heard you got Alabama, I was really, really excited for you. But you started to highlight and I like to use big abstractions. And the participant and you always break it down to this linear level, this granular level of simplifying it. But your change management process that you’re doing right now to close opportunity learning gaps in Montgomery is being emulated by a lot across the country. I know that because I see that. But I’m fond of your work because you and I share this mutual love around early literacy. And I want to say this outlier because we could be as far as we can on Voices for excellence. You don’t see many African-American men talking about the science of reading and foundational standards and really aligning routines and instructional practices within the MTS model. That doesn’t happen. But of course, you’re going to have Dr. Brown, and I want to underscore that real quick for you, because what I love about Dr. Brown’s previous capacity was his ability, or what we saw with the achievement levels, his ability to design a system to exponentially raise K-2 literacy scores for Black and Brown students, specifically. What was just astonishing is that the students that are transitioned from pre-K to kindergarten readiness scores, which was just ridiculous. Ridiculous. But tell me how you lead that in the AC stage of education. What does that look like now, Dr. Brown, when we talk about strategies to provide leaders to create true K-2 literacy systems across the education sector in the AC stage of education?
Dr. Melvin Brown
I think as educators, or early childhood educators, we have a pretty good understanding of how to convey concepts to kids so they can learn to read and then, of course, read to learn. So those foundational pieces are in. But I think there’s so much missing, and particularly in communities like mine here in Montgomery, we want to make sure kids have that type of opportunity from cradle to four years old. They have to be able to engage in literacy practices that some might think are nontraditional. Some families have been doing this for generations. I know I did it with my kids. Something very, very simple. I read to my kids when they were still in the womb. Kids have to be able to hear words. They have to be able to understand the necessity of reading and why it’s so, so important. We get them early as possible. We hold this sense of reading and love for reading. That becomes something that changes their entire lives. So exposing them to prep literature as early as possible, but working with their families who may or may not understand those concepts and giving them resources to tap into some of the things we’re looking at to do far more here in Montgomery is to make sure our families are engaged in those types of conversations about what happens at home. Putting books in front of kids so they see them on a regular basis, making sure kids have books of their own, that they can say are theirs and they love and they can actually see as part of how they develop as a person. Speaking on my own experience, I had no opportunities as a kid to go travel and see and do different things. So how did I go? I went through books and I went through movies. If I wanted to aspire to things, I saw it in a book and I figured read this and that’s something I may want to do. So by the time I became a high school student when I grew up, I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to be somewhere between Scott Fitzgerald and James Bond. That’s what I wanted to be. The reason I was able to do that is through books and movies. So in books, you can go anywhere in the world and experience an experience that you want to. But part of what… and I’m going to divert the conversation just a little bit and talk about literacy, the movement to restrict kids from being able to access certain types of literature. Those are the types of restrictive practices that don’t lend themselves to giving kids a love of reading. Let kids read what they want to read. The problem we’ve had in many respects in education is we want them to read these books that we have. Well maybe our kids aren’t interested in those books because those books aren’t relatable so that their experience is very different and they can’t see themselves in what they’re reading then they’re not going to be interested in. So we have to be different about how the hell that happens. Our kids have to be able to see themselves, but their early literacy component is crucial to how we close gaps, how we get kids to achieve, how we get kids to the level of expectation that we want them to have across the board and having access for all kids to be successful. So I know how important it is. Far too often in school districts we are in a position where we have to remediate or catch up students in upper middle school and high school. When we have invested those resources on the other end of the continuum, when they’re coming in the doors, we’d be in a far better place by the time they’re freshmen… freshmen, sophomore juniors and seniors. So that importance is crucial to me and understanding how we develop the science of reading in our classrooms so our kids understand those processes, but also how we engage our parents in those venues as well.
Dr. Michael Conner
Thank you for that, Dr. Brown. And again, underscoring your statement, Generation Z and Generation Alpha, 50%, black and brown, we have to, as educators, it’s our, like to say, moral and education imperative that we have books where students are represented. Where students see themselves, where we see gender inequities being dismantled strategically, where now we see a woman that’s sitting at the head of the table, where we see now a black and brown character being the hero. We need to start seeing that because, again, it draws engagement. We talked about that. Strategic compliance versus engagement. I can tell you this, Dr. Brown, from my experience in the K-12 sector, and even in college, strategic compliance, so I could be able to get the grade and get to where I am, that’s where I was. It was only, I would say probably roughly 5%-15% of my total education. I was engaged. And when was I engaged? When I had teachers that looked like me, when I had black or brown teachers that can relate to the black and brown struggles that we have. So like I said, 5%-15% out of this holistic educational experience. We can’t emulate the same for our students right now. But I’m looking at my notes and you talk about oral language development, phonological awareness within the MTSS model. I love that. But more importantly, you said conversations with parents. And when we talk about conversation with parents, there was a study I can’t remember, but I can’t remember it. But the biggest difference of this acquisition of standard “English” is that there are more conversational discussions that are happening at home with affluent families which ultimately introduces new vocabulary and context for families. But when we talk about parents that are living in poverty, it’s more directives with very limited rich vocabulary used in context. So when you talk about that cradle with the four and really ensuring that parents are having deep discussions with their children, building that vocabulary in context, I really like what you’re doing in Montgomery with regards to that. But next question. I want to kind of under score that question around the science of reading and this whole aspect of the MTSS model. But I want to go much more broadly and for level setting purposes. I want to reference one of our oldies but goodies, Dr. Brown. Highphets work, right? Highphets, I should say. I always mess his name up, please forgive me everybody, but this is regarding adaptive leadership and a famous quote from that book – “Leadership for change demands inspiration and perspiration.” We know too much about that, Dr. Brown. Cultural change is slow. It is slow. You’re turning the ship midway right in the ocean. But adaptive leadership requires that persistency, that you and I always talk about. And it also requires an inordinate amount of perspiration, specifically that we have to do the heavy lift for all these– heavy lift as executive leaders. But in your own words, Dr. Brown, how do you define this type of leadership as a black or brown leader, knowing the outcome of this work, physical, mental, and it could be an outcome of forced resignation or termination?
Dr. Melvin Brown
Yeah, it’s tricky. I know that when we’re doing this work, we came into these spaces for reasons. We wanted to benefit kids. At least that’s what I know when we came into this space. So knowing that there are sacrifices you have to make. There are certain times conversations you might have to make as well, that sometimes need to be nuanced, that have to be strategic. I try to live my work life… everything is strategic. And you purposely put yourself in places where you can have conversations about the things that need to be taking place and you compel people to come to the table and you can’t force them. You can only compel. And if you are in a space where you show them… you’re able to inspire them to understand the why of what we do, then you can have them put in the hard work of preparation for it. And for me, it’s always about, and you said this earlier, being a moral imperative. It’s both a personal and moral imperative for me to allow kids to learn to be productive citizens in our world and understand that this is not just about them, it’s about others as well. Empathy is paramount in all the work I try to do. I want our kids to get to grasp that concept, to realize they have an opportunity to impact the world in a positive way. And if they’re only looking into it through their own lens, they’re never going to actually see the benefit of what their potential could be. So it’s incredibly important, given what we have in our curriculum and our contemporary times, that we start to be, that we begin to see things through the eyes. We can think back to the violence we see in our communities. We can talk about the separation between– or the erasure, if you will, of the middle class, the separation between the haves and the have nots. Our kids are going to have to fix that. Becayse, unfortunately, our generation as a whole was very self-driven. We were always looking for ways to get ahead ourselves. Accomplishing and arriving is when you can get ahead and bring others with. And I want our kids to truly understand that and realize that in our communities, our similarities are far greater than our differences. And it doesn’t matter what differences we have. If we can pull every one up, everyone benefits and think about something as simple as of let’s use racism as an example. This is a quick example. Obviously, obviously, from a moral standpoint, racism is terrible. Well, let’s think about it just for making out in economic terms economically, it doesn’t make any sense because it causes you not. It causes you to lose money. It causes you to lose capacity. You lose talent. You lose opportunities. So it doesn’t make any sense. But yet we have so much of it that’s pervasive throughout our communities that we’re having to fight this battle. I want our kids to understand they have an opportunity to change them. They have an opportunity to say everybody is welcome at the table. Everybody can be a part of the solution. And from school, through education, self-improvement, through community improvement, we can make all of that go away. We can work together to make that happen. So, you know, I’m just inspiring people to understand that that’s important. And then putting in the sweat equity to make that happen on a regular basis. That’s the bottom line about the work. And for me, that’s why I do what I do. It’s exhausting. It’s frustrating. It’s sometimes disappointing. And then you have a light that pops and something happens and you’re like, okay, that’s why I do this. And you start the cycle all over again. I was able to watch our students at PTW High School for the Performing Arts Friday night perform their showcase. Amazing talent, that if we had not reached those kids in certain ways, we may not ever have been able to tap into that talent and they wouldn’t be able to display their talent for work. So giving kids those opportunities to be successful in the ways that they want to be successful was so important in this process. I’ve always said I want kids to have a really hard decision to make when they leave high school. If every kid has to make this hard decision upon graduation, we’ve done our job. They can choose to go to school, they can choose to work, they can choose to go in the military, or they can choose to start a business. If every kid has to make a choice from all four of those, that means we’ve done our job. Unfortunately, in the way we’ve been designed, many of our kids don’t have much choice. They’re forced into it, they have to make a forced choice. That may not be what they truly want to do.
Dr. Michael Conner
Yeah, and when you think about that empathy and sweat equity. And choices that underpins specifically a transformation, a reimagination of education in totality. When you lead with empathy, that means you are leading with the student voice and the constituent voice in mind. And it’s weird. It’s not weird, but it is weird because when we talk about empathy, it’s the first element of design thinking. Any type of entrepreneur or any type of progressive business leader or even a very, very forward thinking organization always underpin design thinking because you’re not designing for the bureaucrats, you’re designing for your population, you’re most important customer, which is your students and your families. But we don’t see that enough. We don’t see that grounded approach where our students want representation in the curriculum. But we develop policies that are the antithesis of that. So we have to really now move towards that empathy model where it’s going to be a lot of sweat equity for our leaders and for us. But I want to get down to, I want to… I really want to expand on this. Because I think it’s really critically important, specifically when we talk about organizational effectiveness and organizational efficacy, we have to eliminate racism. I mean, you said it economically. It hurts us. We lose money, we lose talent. Let’s even look at this from the context of systemic racism within our systems in order for us to reach organizational effectiveness and organizational efficacy. Dr. Brown, I know that this is going to be a hard question, but I really want you to focus on this because I think our viewers need to understand how to create a… or how to move towards or eliminate racism in a system, or system that’s obsolete of racism. We’re now just like… we see how economically racism can hold us down from the standpoint of money, people, talent. Let’s think about this in the context of systemic racism and the traditional education model where it’s holding down not only access and opportunity, but in totality organizational effectiveness and efficacy. How do we move towards that grounding of innovation, excellence and equity for students?
Dr. Melvin Brown
I think for one, we have to redesign our curriculum so that it is inclusive and making sure kids can see themselves, no matter their backgrounds, they can see themselves and what they’re learning and things they’re participating in. But I think in terms of what it looks like in the classroom, we need kids to be able to work together to learn things, to learn things from each other. And we don’t keep the divergent opinions apart, unfortunately, in our current society. If you and I agree on something, then we’re on the same team. But you disagree with me and all of a sudden we don’t like each other. And I got to go to this other team. I think that’s the most insane thing we could possibly have done. When we don’t have divergent opinions that haven’t had the opportunity to actually talk and find out why those differences occur. Finding out is where there is common ground. Because among all of us, there’s common ground no matter what our ideology might be. If we understand each other better, we know each other better, we’re going to want to treat each other better. That’s just human nature. We’re talking about something as simple as community policing, what we do in communities. When that happens and our police force knows our community, we tend to work better together. It’s just that’s the way that has to happen. So our kids have to have those opportunities in classrooms. They also have to understand to accept difference while those differences are there. And I still believe a similarity is greater, but we have to acknowledge those differences and say it’s okay that you’re different. It’s okay that your experience is different. I remember as a kid growing up the way I did and being as poor as I was and having to go to school, it was a stigma where I felt I had to hide that, and I had… you suffer from imposter syndrome where you have to go into spaces and be somebody that you’re really not because you don’t know you’re you. Those pieces aren’t going to be accepted. We’ve got to teach that out of our kids. We learn that behavior. They’re not innately born with that behavior. So when different kids come to the table and work together to solve problems, you’re going to find out, oh, this kid’s different from me. But you know what? She’s brilliant at this. He helped our team do this. And when we’re solving problems together that impact the world, our kids are going to be greater for it. It’s a really hard question to answer, because then you have to look at the adults, and that we as adults have not been taught in that way. And so shaking off those past experiences and that past way of learning is difficult for many adults. I’d like to… I’m old, I call myself old, but I’m hoping that I have a young heart and that I’m willing to change and I’m willing to understand that I don’t have to like or agree with everything. That’s not why we live. The idea is we can agree to disagree, and we can disagree without being disagreeable. That’s very easy to do. So no matter what we might disagree on, I guarantee there going to be things we have in common. And if those are going to be the things that make us better and we solve problems through those pieces, then that’s what we should we should it. Unfortunately, our our media… our money is made on divisiveness, unfortunately. And it’s very disconcerting. And I’m hoping that our next generation students are going to be able to change their voice.
Dr. Michael Conner
Absolutely. And, Dr. Brown, one thing I just want to highlight is this whole context of imposter syndrome, and I think that the way that any current education model is designed from a structural and systems standpoint, I think that a lot of our students of color have to adapt and, I should say adopt a new aura to them when they go in the classroom, which they shouldn’t lose their identity. And when I think about imposter syndrome, I think of code switching. I think of when we think about… when I was in school and actually when I’m around you, Dr. Brown, when a person… we’re two different people. Because I can tell you this, everybody, when Dr. Brown and I are together, we’re not talking like this. So now you’re actually seeing us code switch to the mainstream. And for us to be able to deliver this because I mean, obviously we are who we are but why do kids or students have to lose their identity to order to be accepted into mainstream? And I was just here last month. I was in California for the CALSA Mid Year Advance conference, and I attended a session and it was around lifting women voices in education. And right now, I learned this stark data from the CALSA Mid Advance conference, is that only 4%, 4% of superintendents are black and brown women of color. And they have to, in order for them to get the job, they have to develop an imposter syndrome. And it was just a compelling conversation because I was one of the only two men that were in the room, but I wanted to be able to advance my equity stance and my equity delivery in the context for gender equity. I fought for more, advocated for more women superintendents within the past month, a mutual friend of ours, Dr. Barbara Mullen, a sister of mine, I call her my sister, just got Rush Henrietta in New York, I’m very proud of that. But we need more of that and we need to move away from this imposter syndrome, because that’s where I think the systemic racism exists within the system. Yeah, go ahead, Dr. Brown. I know you want to say something.
Dr. Melvin Brown
That’s the beauty of being in these roles because we truly have an opportunity. The question is, do we seize it? I’ve tried throughout my career to lift women voices because I want them to be in the party just like I am. And honestly, in many respects, they’re much smarter than I am. I think about my chief of staff here in Montgomery. She was my H.R. director when I was in Ohio. She came down here with me to Montgomery as the chief of staff. And my goal for her is to be a superintendent in 3 years. It would be very easy for me to say no, Jamie, I want you to continue to stay with me forever if she does a job so well. But that’s also on my part. It’s my job to help open doors for some folks, open some doors for me. It’s my responsibility to give back and do it for others. And I think we all should have that notion in mind when we’re talking about cultivating in this space. We know there’s a shortage of superintendents and great educators throughout our country. How do we cultivate the new ones to come through and do the work if someone’s going to have to do it for our next generation of kids, I know she’s going to be ready to do that. And I’m really, really proud of that effort. There are other people within our organizations that have been in organizations over the years, and I want to see them thrive and do well and selfishly, the better they do, the better I do. And I think if we’re able to look at it from that standpoint, that you’re not only benefiting them, you’re also benefiting yourself and your organization. It’s much easier to move that needle. I’m happy to assist someone who truly wants to go into this role, who then understands what this role entails, because not everybody can build on their days. I don’t think I can do that. It is challenging and we have to accept that. But we also have to make sure we prepare others to step in.
Dr. Michael Conner
Absolutely. When I tell you, being a superintendent, you know this Dr. Brown, it is one of the most challenging, taxing jobs ever. I mean, I can infer because I remember my 13, 14 hour nights and then waking up in the morning and worried about, am I going to have to call a school because of snow? You know, those are… the balance of those things. But when you talk about I’m going to reference a coach that’s in your great state, that’s in your great state right now. Nick Saban. You want to be the Nick Saban, your offensive coordinator here. He’s not supposed to be there more than a year or two because I want him to become a coach. Same thing with Bill Belichick. You want to be able to develop your assistants where you know you want them to go on. Because now where we look at leadership is if your assistants help or somebody is there, obviously if they don’t want to move forward with that into the executive role. But, if they’re there for four or five, six years, what I’m looking at, I’m like, okay, how come they’re not moving? I like to see that cycle. That means, hey, I got a deep, deep, deep, deep bench that was developing for the executive role because we do need more leaders out there. I think I just heard it was a it was a glaring stat I was last month. Dr. Alex Marrero, he told me that there were 29 superintendent openings in Massachusetts, 29. But last question, Dr. Brown, I know you got a lot of time. We could talk forever, but I’m only going to limit you to three words now. We know for a man that that’s very, very small, very, very hard. But I’m to tell you this, everybody breaks the rule. We… three plus, two or three sentences here. Then you got three times 300. Then you got people that had just been okay, I’m just going to give you a full ten minute answer when I was only supposed to take three words. So I don’t expect you to follow the rules on this, but I’m just going to limit it. I’m gonna say, hey, it’s three words and that’s it. But what three words, Dr. Brown, do you want today’s audience to leave with regarding urgency and leadership? And I want to add a word in there, urgency, leadership and change. How do you want our listeners or our participants today to start leading the coalition of change, where we are evaluating, implementing and executing for a system of law?
Dr. Melvin Brown
Wow. Three words, that is tough… three words. But I’ll probably have to give it some context. The three words I would say would be survival of humanity. If we don’t move differently in educational spaces and get our kids prepared for a world that’s very different from the one that we walked into as 18 year olds a long, long, long, long, long time ago. Our cells, the survival of our humanity is at stake. Violence, disrespect, lack of empathy, all of those things are signs of, in my opinion, are signs, And I’m no clinician or by any stretch. But to me, those are signs of the the denigration of humanity. And if we don’t take care of humanity and demonstrate respect and empathy for humanity, our whole society falls apart and we end up being some type of sci fi movie, which I don’t want to live in that space. I don’t want my granddaughter to feel and be in those types of spaces. I think we have a responsibility to the world to make it better. And so the moral imperative is education needs to happen for the survival of humanity.
Dr. Michael Conner
Absolutely. And Dr. Brown, I want to personally thank you for being on Voices for Excellence, the Black Excellence series. Will you be at AASA?
Dr. Melvin Brown
Absolutely will.
Dr. Michael Conner
Alright, so you’ll be at AASA and this will be aired, I will be at TABSE. So I have a keynote panel at TABSE. But if anybody that is going to be attending AASA this year in San Antonio, please go seek out Dr. Brown and ask your specific questions to Dr. Brown. Because the reason I say that is that he is approachable. You just walk up to him. You might not even know, but if you have a question for him, he is not going to turn his back. He is not going to turn away from you. He is going to address it specifically and come up with the hard questions. Because he is one of the one of the talents that I look to, I still reach out to specifically regarding questions, approaches, methodology, typology of different practices to be able to change the world for kids. So Dr. Melvin, my fraternity brother that I love. Good to see you, brother. Glad to have you on Voices for Excellence.
Dr. Melvin Brown
Thank you so much.
Dr. Michael Conner
Thank you. And to our participants today, again, Happy Black History Month. Keep on celebrating and onward and upward. Take care everybody.
