"It's all about student learning; whether as a K–12 student, an undergrad, a grad student or a faculty member. It's all about learning and that's what I really enjoy about my work at ISU." — Joe Pacha, assistant professor, Educational Administration and Foundations
(January 11, 2007) Joe Pacha's career has come full circle, if you will, and learning has been at the center of it. After 35 years working in K–12 education, he is now teaching teachers how to become administrators. Beginning this semester, he is also taking on administrative duties as he assumes the position of assistant chairperson in the Department of Educational Administration and Foundations.
His career began 38 years ago in Bettendorf, Iowa, as a teacher of middle school children and a coach of middle and high school basketball, football and track teams. After obtaining a master's degree in guidance and counseling, an administrator interviewing him for a counseling position recognized that guidance counseling may not be the best fit for Pacha and suggested that he consider school administration. Pacha says that this experience became the turning point in his career as he went back to school and obtained certification as a principal.
Shortly after receiving his certificate, he became principal in a neighborhood school in the heart of Burlington, Iowa to 400 middle school students and about 500 ninth graders. As a brand new administrator, he says he learned a lot very fast about how to be a principal with the help of two assistants. Within a span of three years, due to declining enrollment and a slumping economy, the school closed and he was transferred to a high school with approximately 1,900 students.
During his tenure as high school principal, Pacha commuted on the weekends to join a cohort group of doctoral students at Drake University. After finishing his doctorate, he was offered a position in the central office of his school district as the assistant superintendent. He then moved to become superintendent in Monticello, Iowa in a district of 1,300 students. He finished his K-12 career by taking a new superintendent position in Marion, Iowa.
In all, Pacha accumulated 35 years of experience in K–12 education before he accepted a position in 2003 with Illinois State University. As a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Foundations, Pacha teaches master's level courses, helping prepare teachers who want to be administrators, principals, and superintendents.
Pacha is most excited by the opportunity to work with the master's degree candidates and help them understand the whole idea that as the instructional leader, their number one job is student learning. He states, "While it sounds cliché, it is a concept that is so often forgotten. It all boils down to student learning. If administrators don't understand that and keep that in the forefront of their decision-making process, then they aren't doing their job." He goes on to say, "My number one job is to help them make sure that student learning is the priority of the building, every teacher, and every person that works there to make sure that everyone is aligned in making that happen." He states that while that is easily said, it is more difficult to make it happen. He challenges his students to understand themselves, their values, and their beliefs about learning, people, children, and the world. He makes his classroom a learning laboratory. Drawing on his years of experience and the theories being presented throughout the course, he brings real life situations for the students to work through so that they can apply what they have learned.
Pacha is also involved in several projects outside of the classroom. The first is personal research, sponsored by a University Research Grant, on the effectiveness and the impact on his graduate students of a process he designed called "Reflection for Understanding." "Reflection for Understanding" is a tool used to gain insight into his students' understanding of their own learning. After every class, his students are required to email Pacha their reflections of the class and its impact upon their learning. He developed the framework based on Wiggins and McTighe's "Six Facets of Understanding." His goal is to make his students work on content recall by using a sandwich process: read the material prior to class, apply it in class to fabricated situations, and reflect on it afterwards. So far, he is excited by the positive feedback. He finds that the process is helping to create better relationships with his students. Also, by reading the reflections, he can gauge what his students garner during class so that if additional conversation is needed, it can take place before moving on to a new concept.
Pacha is also involved in the Illinois Elementary and Middle School Best Practice Study through the Center for the Study of Education Policy. The study, which is part of a larger national research study through National Center for Educational Accountability and Just for the Kids, identified key practices of consistently higher performing schools in a variety of policy contexts. The researchers hope that the best practices will then be replicated by other schools to improve their educational processes. The researchers have visited over 30 schools in the state and have included their findings in a paper entitled, "The P-12 Educational Administration Best Practices Improvement Spiral Model" which was published in Unbridled Spirit: Best Practices in Educational Administration; The 2006 NCPEA Yearbook.
Pacha's newest research project with the Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development and the Center for the Study of Educational Policy deals with rural school closures and their impact on the communities. Through a three-year, half-million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the team will define potential antecedents, or predictors, that will assist communities in anticipating potential school closings or consolidations. They will also create tools to help school and community officials anticipate and plan for the impact of closures or consolidation.
Joe Pacha says it's all about learning, but his life also reflects that belief. Even as his career completed a full circle, it begins another loop as he uses his experience to help prepare future administrators, his commitment to learning to effect educational policy, and his skills as an administrator to be assistant chair in the Department of Educational Administration and Foundations. This loop, like the last, is centered around learning and will no doubt impact the educational system for years to come.
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