Sue Swaim: Leading NMSA from Its Own Early Adolescence to Maturity

Interviewed by Tom Erb

On the occasion of her impending retirement, I had the privilege to sit with Sue Swaim as she reflected on her 14 years as National Middle School Association's longest-serving executive director. What follows is a summary of that discussion.

In addition to reflecting on her personal experiences leading NMSA, Sue turned most of her attention to the role of NMSA as it has developed over the past 14 years and as she foresees its journey into the immediate future. Looking back to the reality in 1993, "NMSA, as an association, had gone through a lot." From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, NMSA was "going through its own early adolescence." (To review the development of NMSA from its founding through the beginning of Sue's tenure, see National Middle School Association, 1998.)

Since the summer of 1993, Sue Swaim has presided over the association's maturation into adulthood. In June of that year, asked to be interim executive director for a year, Sue Swaim began her stewardship of NMSA. She divided her goals for the association into two categories: external and internal. Externally, she sought to reach out to foundations, other associations with similar interests, businesses for possible partnerships, and policymakers and lawmakers at both the state and federal level. She sought to raise the visibility of NMSA beyond its own members to build a network that would allow NMSA to become an important player in the creation of policy regarding the education of young adolescents. Internally, Sue sought to increase the membership and the employed staff so that services to middle level educators could be greatly expanded. She wanted the vision for these services and the policy for their execution to be set by association members through its committees, task forces, and board of trustees. In her words, "Growing up [beyond adolescence] is hard work."

To keep focused on her most important task, Sue always asks herself, "If I do this, is it best for kids?" "NMSA is people focused in general and young adolescent focused in particular. While I am very interested in K–12 education as a whole, NMSA's goal is to make clear that middle school is no longer a 'missing link' in the K–12 chain but a 'crucial link.' We keep taking this message to an ever broadening audience of parents, policy makers, community leaders, other educators, higher education, and so forth."

"When I took the job, I made some promises to myself: to make sure that I loved the job as much on my last day as on the first day and to leave the executive directorship when all was going well for the association—when it was 'healthy' and 'vibrant.' I think I have fulfilled these promises." She still loves her job and especially the people she works with. She lists among the internal accomplishments of the association (a) continued membership growth, at a time when other education associations have leveled off or declined; (b) stable finances; and (c) a professional staff now numbering 32 in headquarters plus six publication editors located around the country. The association's work has been expanded in professional development, publications have grown in numbers and distribution, and advocacy for research and best practices in middle level education has grown. Another aspect of development is in the area of online services to members. "Fourteen years ago we were concerned about the fax machine working." Currently, there are tens of thousands of Web site hits each month to access a wide variety of topics. Sue feels that in the future, keeping up with technological advances will need to be a major focus for the association. In the past 14 years, programs, outreach, and partnerships have all grown. "Our members expect quality in all of these areas. NMSA's name means thoughtful endorsement of what is good for young adolescents; it is important to keep this reputation."

To give an idea of how policymakers have come to trust NMSA on matters related to middle level education, the contacts made with Sue the week of her interview provide insight. On Monday, February 12, she received a call from a deputy education commissioner in a southern state, in her position for only four months, who needed information on middle level certification requirements to prepare a response for a state legislator. On Wednesday, February 14, she fielded a call from an associate dean of education at a Texas university who was preparing to challenge a legislative initiate to eliminate middle grades certification. During our interview, a professor of middle level education in yet a third state called to coordinate preparation of a document to shift the focus from highly qualified teachers to "highly effective" teachers and administrators for the current policy debate related to the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. In addition, Sue had been invited to address the National Conference of State Legislatures on Saturday, February 17 on the topic of middle school education. These types of contacts were not happening in 1993. Sue concluded, "NMSA's visibility has been raised among policymakers. We are recognized for caring about what we stand for: the quality education and well-being of young adolescents."

Changing Status of the Association

For 14 years Sue Swaim's tenure has provided a continuous, consistent voice for young adolescent education. Because of her longevity in the executive directorship, NMSA has had time to build relationships and partnerships so that Sue is able to pass on a much more sophisticated network for the next executive director to nurture.

The association has grown not only in visibility and advocacy, but also in its delivery of professional development. Sue listed dozens of initiatives that the association has undertaken in the past 14 years.

• School Improvement Tool Kit
• Success in the Middle: A Policymaker's Guide to Achieving a Quality Middle Level Education (2006)
• Seven Position Statements (issued from 1994 to 2006)
• This We Believe: Developmentally Responsive Middle Level Schools (1995)
• This We Believe and Now We Must Act (2001)
• This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adolescents (2003)
• Research and Resources in Support of This We Believe (2003)
• This We Believe in Action (with DVD) (2005)
• Professional Development Kits (with DVDs)
• Continued growth in annual conference structure to address currency in the field
• Annual Middle Level Essentials Conferences
• Middle Level Teacher Education Symposia (held in odd numbered years)
• Month of the Young Adolescent (held each October since 1997)
• Annual Middle Level Leadership Institutes
• Award-winning Web site at www.nmsa.org
• Middle Ground magazine
• Moving Research in Middle Level Education online
• Middle School Journal now ties each article to This We Believe concepts

According to Sue, This We Believe is now a living, working document, focusing NMSA's work on improving young adolescent education. "NMSA is the visible, logical place to come to learn about middle school education."

Re-emphasizing that NMSA is a very people-focused organization, Sue says the two things she will miss the most are "working with the professional staff on a daily basis and having the opportunity to work not only with the headquarters staff but with board of trustees and committee members to brainstorm about what action to take." She loves to see "nuggets of an idea come to life." Most of the initiatives listed above resulted from this process of brainstorming and group problem solving. Sue claims that working in NMSA headquarters is not a nine-to-five job, as NMSA is an association with a mission that the staff buys into and supports. Headquarters operates like an extended family that celebrates family events such as births, engagements, and birthdays.

As executive director, Sue relished her involvement in NMSA where she was "always experiencing a learning curve." It has been "exciting" as "every day has been different." For these 14 years, both Sue, as a person, and NMSA, as an organization, "have been in the process of becoming."

The uniqueness of NMSA
Upon reflection, Sue identified three things she thinks add up to making NMSA a unique organization among educational associations. First, NMSA focuses solely on the education and well- being of young adolescents. Over the years, it has not strayed into other causes. Second, it brings together a diverse membership around this focus on young adolescent education. Teachers, principals, parents, counselors, college professors, and education department officials all convene under the NMSA banner. Sue points out, "Special interest groups have not developed within NMSA due to the belief that we must all work together if we are going to successfully address the needs of young adolescents." For example, there is no middle level math teachers unit, no middle level principals unit, no middle level counselors unit and so forth. Third, NMSA conferences are different than other education conferences. They have more energy, provide for more eager networking, and reinforce a palpable pride in being a middle level educator. NMSA annual conferences create an atmosphere that resembles a revival or Chautauqua experience. Just this year, a participant at the Nashville conference wrote: "The conference was 'life changing' for me personally." For her, the conference had expanded awareness of all of the support that is available for young adolescent education. Another example, after experiencing a New England League of Middle Schools Conference where she heard about NMSA, a state department official from Massachusetts went to the NMSA Annual Conference in Nashville and reported that the "quality," "excitement," and "positive atmosphere" of the Nashville conference was "incredible."

Name changing and grade configuration changing are not enough
Turning to the wider picture, Sue made several observations about the changing forces that influence the education of young adolescents. In the early 1970s, the move was made to change the name from "junior high school" to "middle school" to force a reconceptualization of the kind of school that should exist to meet the needs of young adolescent learners. With earlier maturity of youngsters, grade configuration change from 7–9 to 6–8 was also an issue. While relatively rapid success was achieved on the naming and grade configuration issues, it was harder to see growth in the implementation of the middle school concept. However, spurred by Turning Points in 1989, a decade and a half of research in the 1990s and into the 21st century disclosed that when the name and grade configuration are consistent with the comprehensive implementation of the middle school philosophy, then improved learning outcomes tend to occur for young adolescents.

Sue thinks that those school districts that changed names and grade configurations without implementing and sustaining comprehensive middle school reforms have given middle schools a bad name in the early 21st century. According to Sue, some observers have even concluded, in spite of the evidence to the contrary, that middle schools do not work. An important challenge for those concerned about the education of young adolescents today is to cut through the jargon and rhetoric to articulate clearly the middle school concept and how to move toward its implementation in a comprehensive manner.

Fortunately, Sue believes that NMSA is not alone in the endeavor. It has been joined not only by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, with its Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century (1989) and Turning Points 2000, but also by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, with its Agenda for Excellence at the Middle Level in the mid-1980s and Breaking Ranks in the Middle (2006). A number of education organizations, researchers, practitioners, and foundations with a common interest and commitment to reforming middle grades education have coalesced into the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform, whose position statement reflects beliefs consistent with NMSA's various This We Believe documents. Sue is adamant: "We know what needs to be done, and it cannot be a tinkering around the edges that deals mainly with grade levels, school names, or even assigning teachers to teams without support or any clear idea about how teams can function to change school cultures."

First priority
Fortunately, according to Sue Swaim, National Middle School Association is positioned to get to the hard work that needs to be done. First among these priorities is renewed focus on middle level curriculum and instruction. "We must not forget that many new folks have entered the field of middle level education without a historical background on the development of the movement and, in a number of states, without the benefit of preservice middle level teacher preparation. The association needs to foster more comprehensive thought about middle school basics. Not only should middle level teacher education be expanded, but also middle level administrator education needs to become a priority." Beyond these efforts, middle level educators need to seek answers to these questions: What do the terms relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory mean when applied to curriculum? And, how do middle level educators make these happen for students?

Sue points out that recent efforts to deal with these issues include the DVD accompanying This We Believe in Action, which shows viewers how middle level educators are implementing curriculum with these characteristics. In addition, beginning with the January 2006 issue, Middle School Journal has connected all of its articles discussing implementation of the middle school concept to specific This We Believe principles.

A second priority
A second priority for the association is to support the enactment of appropriate assessments—both of student achievement and of faithful implementation of the middle school concept. On the student side, Sue contends NMSA's focus should be not be so much on the sorting function associated with the current craze for standardized tests but more on the important function of informing instruction. On the school level, educators, with NMSA's leadership, need to more adequately determine how to measure the middle school concept in action. However, we have a good basis from which to work, as we have several middle grades reform models that have been tried and been found to be so far successful.

A third priority
A third priority for the association is to continue to expand its advocacy efforts. It cannot accomplish the goal of improving young adolescent education by working in a vacuum. Federal, state, and district policies do affect the association's ability to help schools implement the middle level concept. In addition, budget cuts can have a profound impact on the implementation of quality education programs. These negative impacts can be especially devastating on those middle level best practices that were not well implemented in the first place. For example, where interdisciplinary teaming has not been used effectively, it is particularly vulnerable to being eliminated when the budgetary ax falls. What is ironic about this is that, at a time when some districts are eliminating interdisciplinary teaming at the middle level as an expendable extravagance, it is being more and more advocated and implemented as a means of improving education at the high school level.

At the state level, Sue thinks that NMSA must continue its commitment to middle grades licensure. "As an education profession, we are very clear about the need for specialized pre-K primary licensure. We are clear about specialized licensure for high school teaching. But we still tolerate having teachers at the middle level who are not prepared for teaching young adolescents."

At the federal level, "there has been a focus on literacy policy for grades one through three. Then it has stalled out for later grades." We need to work for a literacy policy dealing with the needs of older students. There are 20 million young adolescents in school at the most critical time in their lives. Sue asserts, "These youngsters are not glorified elementary kids, nor shorter high school kids."

Sue points out that when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was first drafted, there was no mention at all of the middle grades. The adopted document never did address middle level teacher qualifications. Putting a blind eye toward the middle grades leads to overlooking critical situations that have a profound impact on the education of youth. For example, a Johns Hopkins study found that there are clear indicators in sixth grade that identify students with high potential for dropping out of school. The optimal time for intervening to prevent dropouts is in the middle grades. Sue contends, "This alone is a good reason not to skip over the middle grades in the push to reform high schools."

Challenges for the Future of Middle Grades Education

As the first decade of the 21st century rolls to an end, Sue articulated her thoughts on several challenges that face NMSA as the field's leading association dedicated to improving the education and well-being of young adolescents. The pre-eminent challenge is advocating for the tripartite role of middle level education in an era when federal policy places all of the weight on one leg of the tripod (i.e., standardized test scores in a limited number of subjects)—a precariously narrow leg, at that. In an age when scores on tests of basic skills is the only game being pushed by federal policymakers, the association must advocate for academic growth and achievement that Sue believes includes a broader range of skills and dispositions than those that can be easily measured. In addition, Sue would add to the academic role of middle schools that of fostering the personal growth and development of young adolescents. One part of this second role reinforces the academic role. If young adolescents are to grow academically, instruction needs to be developmentally appropriate. The third role is to promote the equitable distribution of academic and personal growth across racial, ethnic, and exceptionality groups.

How do educators accomplish this tripartite role? Sue believes, relationships with learners and among learners are critical; we must pay attention to relationships. As the quip goes, "I don't care what you know until I know that you care!" All young adolescents need both much caring and direct attention. Many students do not get all they need at home. This is not an issue of social class: the children of the well-to-do may be often raised by nurses and nannies; children of the middle class can be shortchanged by the increasing work demands of their parents; while the children of low-income families may be left alone, as parents have two or three jobs often involving the swing or night shifts. Consequently, for all students, the place to be academically and socially grounded is the school they attend.

Another critical aspect of this tripartite advocacy is dealing with the inadequacies of NCLB and working to ameliorate its negative consequences. By focusing on students' scores on tests of basic skills—English/reading, mathematics, and science—the NCLB Act has had the effect of narrowing the curriculum for all learners, especially for young adolescents. While basic skills are certainly important, they do not represent all of the skills that students need to learn to be contributors to increasingly global societies. Sue proposes that NCLB needs a parallel track that addresses such questions as, "What does an educated person in a global society need to know and be able to do?" "Do we need more workers for repetitive jobs or workers who can apply innovation, problem solving, creativity, and collaboration to their jobs?

The narrowness of the focus of NCLB is driven, in part, by being limited to that which is easily measured on a mass scale. A critical issue revolves around this observation reputed to have hung on a sign in Albert Einstein's office at Princeton University: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." In addition to the basics, we need to be concerned about relationships and relevancy, neither of which is easily tested. "By focusing on basic test scores, we are in danger of legislating out the door innovation, problem solving, creativity, collaboration, and personal ownership of learning. Learning is more than scoring on a test." Sue Swaim concludes that this is a message that NMSA needs to convey to the 2008 Presidential candidates so that the next leader of the nation can more fully understand the several roles of middle school education in the continuum that prepares tomorrow's citizens.

Other challenges
In addition to these overriding challenges, there are several instrumental, subordinate challenges that need to be met to successfully confront the primary challenge. Sue sees the first of these as staying viable to those new people entering the field of middle level education. We are about to experience an accelerating turnover rate of people in all aspects of middle level education, from people in partner organizations throughout the network to teachers and principals in the schools. Since NMSA, itself, has a middle age membership, the association must be concerned about building the next generation of leaders, both at the school and district level and at the association level.

The second challenge grows directly out of the first. A certain tension will exist between moving current more experienced and knowledgeable members forward while bringing new members along into the field. Sue cautions about a divide that may grow between the "digital immigrants," older members new to the technological age and "digital natives," younger folks who have grown up with the fruits of the technological age. Realizing that our society is at the very beginnings of advanced technology use, how should NMSA respond to this while keeping focused on the education of young adolescents? This second challenge leads into the third. In our advocacy efforts, how does NMSA balance effective use of technology with maintaining personal, face-to-face contact? This challenge confronts the association in its advocacy efforts at both the state level and the federal level.

A fourth challenge will be to keep abreast of the professional development needs of middle level educators. There are three aspects to this challenge: knowing the important issues, being current with appropriate content, and providing accessible and efficient delivery methods. Fifth, beyond professional development needs directly associated with the classroom, Sue asks what the association must do to stay responsive not only to its individual and institutional members, but also to its affiliate organizations. What makes this fifth task so challenging is that each member, each school, and each affiliate organization is going through its own growth cycle. Since all people and organizations are always in the process of becoming, we must figure out how to support growth at all stages. Sue recalled, as the principal of the middle school of the University of Northern Colorado Lab School, in spite of successes educating and nurturing young adolescents, every year she had to explain to staff and parents why the faculty did things as they did. Since NMSA is often dealing with people who are new to young adolescents and their educational needs, it is important to reinforce the point that last year's focus was not just a flash in the pan, but rather an enduring mission about which we should still be excited.

Balancing statistical success with significant success
Carrying out the mission of NMSA requires both statistical and significant success. Returning to the issue of measuring success by quantitative versus other means, Sue reiterated that she does value quantitative information. It forms part of a complete system of assessment, whether looking at student progress or the success of NMSA itself. Quantitative measures of success—10,500 Nashville conference participants; 32,000 individual and institutional members; and 182,714 educators served by NMSA membership—are important underpinnings for the more important, "significant" measures of success. It took the revenue generated by these quantitative measures of success to fund Success in the Middle and other initiatives that are the right thing to do, although they do not make money. In addition to Success in the Middle, NMSA's research summaries are distributed free to any interested party. The association will only endorse such services and products that are good for young adolescents. Its continued advocacy for middle grades teacher education is pursued for the good of the cause, not because it is a revenue producer. The association, as the voice for young adolescents in our society, requires statistical success to enable its significant success—doing the right thing. Part of what makes NMSA unique is its focus on significant success—not on what revenue an action will generate, nor on what is popular, but on carrying out a clear commitment to young adolescents.

One of the association's goals in the next three to four years will need to be assessing the impact of Success in the Middle, which came out in May 2006. "To be successful, NMSA will need to take a look at the policy work that is developing at the district, state, and federal levels to see what has been accomplished (or not) compared to our initial recommendations. One of the things about Success in the Middle is that we addressed and made recommendations on all three levels around five common goals. While each level has its own unique approach to policy, somehow they must realize there is a relationship across the board. For example, it does no good if federal policy is written that has no chance of implementation at the state level. When NMSA reviews Success in the Middle, it will need to look across all those levels to assess its impact and work that will still need to be done." Like This We Believe, Success in the Middle is a living document that must remain responsive and current.

In closing, during the last 14 of its 37 years of existence, NMSA has grown under Sue Swaim's leadership into a mature organization, unique among associations for its focused, three-sided (academics, personal growth, social equity) commitment to improving the education of all young adolescents in this country and abroad. Sue's contributions to NMSA and the field of middle level education will be felt for many years to come.

Reference

National Middle School Association. (1998). Because we believed: A quarter-century of service to young adolescents. Columbus, OH: Author.