Interview with Michael Bugenski from Michigan North Central Association - NCA
Announcer: Welcome to Inside Michigan Education, a weekly show featuring interviews with community leaders, school administrators, school business officials, and individuals who are passionate about the future of Michigan Education. Now, here is your host for Inside Michigan Education, Rob Huisingh.
Rob Huisingh: Welcome to Inside Michigan Education. This week we are joined in the Foxbright Podcast studio by Michael Bugenski. Michael is the Director of the Michigan NCA, that is the North Central Accreditation. Now, welcome Michael, it is a pleasure to have you on our show.
Michael Bugenski: Thank you, Rob.
Rob Huisingh: Michael, I was hoping that you take just a few minutes here to tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you come to be associated with the North Central Accreditation in Michigan.
Michael Bugenski: After a career as a teacher and a school administrator and working for an intermediate School District in the area of consulting and leadership development, I became very interested in the concept and idea of accreditation. I have served on several teams and worked as a consultant in the area of school improvement, school development, continuous improvement and when this position came open, I was really happy to become an applicant, become successful in obtaining that position.
Rob Huisingh: So, how long have you been with the organization?
Michael Bugenski: It is going to be six years now.
Rob Huisingh: What, for those of our listeners, some of the listeners are very familiar with NCA, some may not be as, and so, what is accreditation?
Michael Bugenski: Accreditation has, it goes back to 1895 when the North Central Association was actually founded at the University of Michigan and the idea of Accreditation was a quality assurance process which validated and verified that a school met certain standards and was preparing students at that time adequately for college and university.
Of course, a lot has changed since 1895 in the whole era of schooling where we are now mostly concerned about all students succeeding, just like No Child Left Behind. We have always believed that no student, no learner should be left behind and we are most interested in improving learning for all and schools, by meeting standards of being involved in continuous improvement validate and verify that they are meeting standards and moving ahead.
Rob Huisingh: Now, this process of Accreditation is, there are certain benefits that you can associate with it. What are those benefits?
Michael Bugenski: Well, we think some of the major benefits is to be able to express to stakeholders, community, parents that our schools are moving ahead, that they are indeed meeting standards and improving learning for all students and using what we call multiple measures of that, of not just student achievement but how the school organization is functioning and of course, student achievement is very important.
Everyone is most interested in that but we know that there are other indicators of organizational success, how a system runs, how a building runs and we understand also that all of the functions of a school are important, transportation, food service, all of those things are certainly, the curriculum is the thing we focus mostly on, curriculum and instruction but also professional development and training for staff are an important aspect of meeting quality standards.
Rob Huisingh: Now, with a background in the manufacturing industry, I am familiar with ISO-9000 and other forms of certification, this is all having to do with continuous improvement and monitoring and progress, is that correct?
Michael Bugenski: Yes, in fact, when we look at systems like Baldrige and we look at ISO-9000, Six Sigma, all the quality movements that I think have been generated in the last 25 or 30 years, our standards are pretty parallel. In fact, when people look at our standards they say things like, "This looks a little bit like Baldrige."
Of course, Malcolm Baldrige's process and work process is really based on how well an external team would come into an organization and look at it, sort of go through the motions of looking at all aspects of the operation and the big benefit we think to the quality assurance process is that, an organization gets some feedback on how they can improve.
One of my favorite books is a book written by Jim Collins called 'Good to Great.' Collins makes the assertion that any organization can call itself a good organization. Now, the question is how do you get to the next level? How do you continuously and constantly improve because I think it was Vincent Lombardi, who said at one time, "If you are not getting better, you stop being good" and you have to constantly look at your results and ask yourself, "Can we improve?" We might be good but we the question is how do we get to the next level? What does it take to become a great organization?
Rob Huisingh: Ultimately, how do you quantify the benefits to students?
Michael Bugenski: The benefits to students we think are a continuously improving program and if a school or a School District that is not satisfied with where it is currently at or how it measures up and constantly asking itself how do we improve instruction for all students, how do we instruction for all students, how do we make sure that no student is left behind. That is probably the ultimate benefit. We think the idea that every student needs to succeed is one, that even before the legislation of No Child Left Behind at the Federal level, we believed it very strongly.
Rob Huisingh: How do schools earn Accreditation?
Michael Bugenski: There are basically, three steps to Accreditation. The first step is to take a look at the seven standards and the standards are look at various aspects of a school operation, we start with leadership and governance.
We look at curriculum, the instructional program, the assessment program which is more than just testing, we look at how we use results, how we look at how students are doing and not just students, but how the school is operating and we look at those results and they need to be measurable. We need to be able to look at those and ask ourselves where are we and how are we improving.
Also, there is communication with stakeholders, with parents, with community and the whole idea of meeting those standards then is followed by a continuous improvement process where we are continually analyzing how we do and finally, once every five years, third part is to look closely at what we call a quality assurance review where we have external people come in, peer educators come in, experts who look at how the school is doing and give the school feedback.
What is most important in the feedback process is that schools understand what it is they are doing well, so they can build on that and also what they can do to improve.
Rob Huisingh: In the Accreditation process, once a school achieves NCA Accreditation, how long does that last?
Michael Bugenski: It is a five year term. Schools and districts are asked to two years after the visit to reply to or update, do an updated report on how they are doing with the recommendations that the review team gives them. As we said, this quality assurance review takes place once every five years but the improvement process and meeting standards never ends.
It is a continuous process and so when the visiting team, the quality assurance review team makes a series of recommendations and usually, the average report will give a school three to four recommendations. We ask the school to give an updated report two years after the visit has completed and to continue working and get read for the next visit.
Rob Huisingh: So, Accreditation is not so much an end result as a commitment to a process?
Michael Bugenski: It is not what schools are standing; it is how they are moving. I think, it is probably the best way to describe Accreditation. It is not something, it is not an event. It is a process, it is a process of being vigilant about constantly improving and asking ourselves how are we doing.
Rob Huisingh: North Central Accreditation, I understand that the State Government and Federal Government have different forms of Accreditation which are required. The NCA Accreditation is voluntary.
Michael Bugenski: The NCA Accreditation is voluntary that is correct. We currently have a partnership with the state of Michigan where North Central Schools who meet you standards, basically, we have a very simple agreement with the State and the State accepts that report is evidence that the school is meeting Michigan standards as well.
Rob Huisingh: Now, some people would say that schools are being asked to make a bunch of changes, they are being asked to change the way they are going about the process of curriculum and education and as we change you expectations, that also has to change what we are measuring, doesn't it? How does that influence Accreditation?
Michael Bugenski: It is a, what you are describing is a moving target so to speak. The No Child Left Behind legislation talks about schools making adequate yearly progress every year and they have a measuring stick for that. We are suggesting that is one part of the evidence, one part of the documentation that a school says because all of those aspects are addressed in the seven standards that we have, but you are absolutely right about that.
It is a changing world, we have a more diverse student population than ever before, you whole country is changing demographically. Students are very mobile within you society and the skills that the workplace demands are changing as well. I will give you an example of that, a number of the surveys that have been done of employers would suggest that the number one skill that a person needs to bring to a job or an occupation is the ability to work as a team member.
Being on time is important, showing up is important, but it is a skill that sometimes is best addressed in a curriculum and instructional design with something like cooperative learning in the classroom. But it is a large, it is moving target in that, it is a new skill that sometimes schools have not traditionally addressed.
Rob Huisingh: Now, when you look to schools in Michigan, how many schools in Michigan are currently in the process of Accreditation or currently Accrediting?
Michael Bugenski: Currently, 1600 of our schools or just about half of the schools in Michigan are accredited by North Central currently.
Rob Huisingh: This is viewed as a positive factor for the community at large?
Michael Bugenski: I do know that in our office we get calls on numerous occasions from parents wanting to know and understand what the differences are between what the State does and what we do and also, we get calls from employers a well. North Central Accreditation is best known as a regional and international form of Accreditation.
So, employers look at it and companies look at it from an economic development standpoint. One of the major concerns that employers have is that when they locate in an area or a region that there is an educated populous that form a workforce and so we get call about that all the time and since our standards are recognized internationally, most employers and companies understand what that means. In this global society that we currently have, it is becoming more important.
Rob Huisingh: Michael as you have worked with and looked at schools in Michigan, what is one of the hardest things for them to look at or to achieve, to get into the mode of Accreditation?
Michael Bugenski: When we look at how we deliver instruction, how we teach the different intelligences that says that - today's student is different than you or I were when we went to school and kids learn differently. The influence of technology in a technology smart society has impacted the classroom greatly.
So, it is a major challenge in terms of being able to teach all children because of the different learning styles that are there today. In addition to that, 20 and 30 years ago, if kids that not succeed there was a place for them to go. As we have noted Michigan a lot of Midwest States have lost a great many manufacturing jobs and so those jobs just are not there anymore.
So, if students don't succeed in school, they do not develop the problem solving skills, the team building skills, all of those skills. That is the major challenges to be be able not just to teach kids how to read and write when we know that the three R's are very basic. We all have to learn them through, but there are other times, there are some other 'R's like relationship building and team building and some other skills that schools are now being challenged to be able to teach all kids and incidentally, some of those skills are hard to measure in a standardized test.
Rob Huisingh: Yes. Is there, as a school, let's assume that there is a school out there listening to us that have said, "We have not been North Central Accredited, but this might be a good idea for us," what is the first step for them aside from giving you guys a call?
Michael Bugenski: Well, they can obviously, do an application and when a school makes application, we do an on site visit to assist them in developing the kinds of skills they will need to meet the standards. We introduce them to the standards and a school will do a, what we call a self-readiness assessment to see where they stand relative. Our office then also assists them in with what we call a technical assistance and helping them meet those standards and developing a, what we call a school improvement process, continuous improvement.
So, we work with the school individually in the candidacy stage what we call, is what we refer to it as and then, well, probably, with a new school, I suggest that they have a quality assurance review within the first two to three years and they will be fully accredited.
Rob Huisingh: So, it does that the full process takes a couple of years to progress?
Michael Bugenski: It does take a little while to get people to understand how the standards work and how to do that review process.
Rob Huisingh: Well, Michael, I want to thank you for taking the time for being with us today and for talking about the process of Accreditation and sharing your knowledge with us in about the process for NCA.
If you would like to contact Michael, he can be reached by telephone at (866) 642-4622; again that telephone number is (866) 642-4622. You can also learn more about NCA online and their domain name is www.ncamichigan.org. Again, that URL is www.ncamichigan.org. Until next week, this is Rob Huisingh with Inside Michigan Education.
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