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Financial Defense Wins Championships. The Redwood City School District conducted a wide search for a new head coach to improve.
Defensive Coaches Win Championship
This has never been truer than this year. Super Bowl 60 is one of those rare Super Bowls where two defense-oriented head coaches are in charge. In fact, this might be only the second time ever in the last 60 games.
It’s actually more common that two head coaches named “Mike” are going against each other.
Both Super Bowl coaches this year are coming from outstanding defensive coaching trees. Both have worked for proven winners. Mike Macdonald has worked in Baltimore and under John Harbaugh. Mike Vrabel was molded in The Patriot Way.
How NFL Teams get better fast?
Every year, NFL teams that miss the playoffs are firing their head coaches. These winless coaches are often replaced by less-experienced assistant coaches from winning teams. The hope is that those less-experienced assistant coaches took some notes while working for the winning team and under a winning head coach. The coaching tree becomes the hope.
In other industries, this kind of copying from the best could lead to long, drawn-out legal fights about copyright infringement. Sports in general, and the NFL in particular, do not see copying good principles as a negative. Instead, when winning head coaches share the secrets of their success, it benefits everyone in the system.
“A rising Tide lifts all the Boats.”
[President John F. Kennedy]
Even in non-winning years, the 49ers organization is so highly regarded that they keep losing coordinators and assistants at every level; everyone wants to copy their methods and organizational excellence. This wasn’t always the case; this started with coach Bill Walsh.
Commitment to Financial Excellence
After former 49ers coach Bill Walsh built a winning team in San Francisco, he wrote his book “Finding The Winning Edge” in 1998 – it’s kind of the football bible now. But while the book is rooted in football, its principles have been used by successful organizations to teach and improve their general organizational leadership at all levels. It has been said that even the US military has been using it.
“The book [Finding The Winning Edge] lays out Walsh’s organizational and coaching philosophy, explaining how to transform a struggling team into a consistently excellent operation.” [Publisher]
Redwood City School District (RCSD) does not seem to have a book like this. This district has been in the doldrums for over 30 years. They are the Cleveland Browns or New York Jets of education – bloated teams more associated with mismanagement than with organizational excellence.
RCSD’s “old ownership” is mostly gone, and the longtime head coach is retiring. That gives them the best chance to change course and get better quickly by diving into a winning talent pool and hiring people who arrive with a book and a plan.
The search should always start by finding assistants from top school districts. Did RCSD find that person in Dr. Christian Rubalcaba?
Offense sells Tickets – Defense Wins Championships
Christian Rubalcaba’s coaching tree leads to three school districts:
- San José Unified School District (SJUSD)
- Franklin-McKinley School District (FMSD)
- San Mateo Foster City School District (SMFCSD)
In Part One, we looked at how these districts fared in terms of educational outcomes. We explored whether education is an area in which these districts show excellence.
And the quick answer is a resounding NO. The California Reading Coalition has RCSD ranked at a low 162, while FMSD (170), SJUSD (227), and SMFCSD (279) rank even lower.
Good “Finance” wins Championships
The head coaches of all four districts have been telling their fans that they could do so much better if they were not so “underfunded” and “underserved”. Their defense has always been that, with a higher salary cap, they could finally compete.
Since neither RCSD, FMSD, SJUSD, nor SMFCSD is a real winner so far, we need to look at the true “education winners” in the California League. We need more data. And for that, we combine the Reading Rankings with data coming from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
Reading and Revenue Snapshot
| Reading Rank 2022 | School District | Reading Percentage | NCES Revenue per Student |
| 1 | Bonita Unified | 53% | $15,814 |
| 2 | Etiwanda Elementary | 51% | $15,901 |
| 3 | East Whittier City Elementary | 48% | $16,099 |
| 4 | Alta Loma Elementary | 47% | $15,616 |
| 162 | Redwood City Elementary (RCSD) | 23% | $25,163 |
| 170 | Franklin-McKinley Elementary (FMSD) | 22% | $23,199 |
| 227 | San Jose Unified (SJUSD) | 18% | $20,728 |
| 279 | San Mateo Foster City Elementary (SMFCSD) | 12% | $21,367 |
| 285 | Ravenswood City Elementary (RCSD) | 4% | $39,140 |
Looking at this table, it sure looks like funding is detrimental to education. The top four teams have significantly lower revenue than RCSD, FMSD, SJUSD, or SMFCSD. And yet all these well-funded districts sit at the bottom of the standings.
It almost looks like more funding gets in the way of good education. This is the full reverse of what all these head coaches of bad teams keep telling us. Just look at what would happen if these four districts really had the revenue Ravenswood City SD has.
“Funding and share of high-need students had very little correlation with results.” [CaReads.org]
So maybe the California Reading Coalition is right that management practices, district focus, and instructional coherence are what really decide the outcome.
“Only where there is a will there’s a way.”
[Zarathustra]
Conclusion
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
[Tim Notke]
FMSD, SJUSD, and SMFCSD don’t exactly look like organizations where you can pick up a lot of experience teaching. They don’t really seem to have found their winning edge. It does not look like Rubalcaba’s coaching tree focused a lot on categories like “Education” or “Financials”.
But maybe RCSD’s former head coach and his PR Team are right that this district has to care so much about “equity” that it takes away focus from “education” and “financials”. Maybe our four hapless head coaches are really excelling in the “Equity” department – they must have been good at something, right?
To be continued …
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.
