S2 EP15 School Boards and Education Advocacy: Insights from Tyler Murphy

PODCAST Season 2 EPISODE 15

Tyler Murphy

Chair of the Fayette County Board of Education

Quote of the Podcast: 

"Education is not preparation for life, but life itself." - John Dewey

Introduction of Guest BIO – 

Tyler Murphy serves as Chair of the Fayette County Board of Education. He is a National Board Certified Teacher at Boyle County High School, where he teaches AP U.S. Government, AP World History, and AP Human Geography. Murphy was first elected to the Board in 2018 and is the only current classroom educator on the Board. Murphy coaches Academic Team; serves on the Board of Directors for the National Education Association; and is active in advocacy advancing public education at various levels. He spends his summers as an Associate Campus Director with the Kentucky Governor's Scholars Program. Murphy graduated from Transylvania University in 2010 with a Bachelor's in Political Science and from Morehead State University with a Master of Arts in Teaching.

Interview

Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators

•  30,000 Ft. View – Why so we, as a society invest in education?
• What drew you to education?
• What inspired you to run for school board?
• How has your perspective evolved since taking on this role?
• Favorite memory in education?
• What are the biggest challenges to you?
• What would you like decision makers to know?

Podcast/book shoutouts

Book--Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson

Podcast--A Way with Words

Education Perspectives is edited by Shashank P athttps://www.fiverr.com/saiinovation?source=inbox

Intro and Outro by Dynamix Productions

Transcript

Liza Holland [00:00:02]:
Welcome to education perspectives. I am your host, Liza Holland. This is a podcast that explores the role of education in our society from a variety of lenses. Education needs to evolve to meet the needs of today and the future. Solving such huge issues requires understanding. Join me as we begin to explore the many perspectives of education.

Liza Holland [00:00:28]:
Tyler Murphy serves as chair of the Fayette County Board of Education. He is a national board certified teacher at Boyle County High School, where he teaches AP US Government, AP World History, and AP Human Geography. Murphy was first elected to the board in 2018 and is the only current classroom educator on the board. Murphy coaches academic team, serves on board of directors for the National Education Association, and is active in advocacy advancing public education at various levels. He spends his summers as an associate campus director with the Kentucky Governor Scholars Program. Murphy graduated from Transylvania University in University in 2010 with a bachelor's in political science and from Morehead State University with a master of arts in teaching. Well, Tyler Murphy, welcome to Education Perspectives.

Tyler Murphy [00:01:19]:
Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be on.

Liza Holland [00:01:21]:
Well, we are delighted to have you. I wanted to go ahead and kick you off with the same question that I ask everyone. From a 30,000 foot view, why do you think that we, as a society, should invest in education?

Tyler Murphy [00:01:35]:
Education is the great equalizer. And, you know, I often, turn to when I'm talking about education with anyone from colleagues to students to aspiring educators, I turn to the words of John Dewey, who certainly was ahead of his time in some regards, the reminder that education is not preparation for life, but education is life itself. We're constantly learning. As an educator, as a school board chair, I see myself as a life long learner. So the role of public schools and the role of public education is helping students hone and develop those enduring skills, critical thinking analysis, understanding and wanting to understand the world around them, fostering that curiosity that it so defines childhood and keeping that alive throughout, the learning journey and, equipping, kids to succeed not just in the here and now, but in whatever future that awaits them because that is a future that is impossible for us to predict. So what we do know is that those foundational skills, will endure no matter what the future brings.

Liza Holland [00:02:42]:
Absolutely. So what drew you first to education? Were you always wanting to be a teacher or

Tyler Murphy [00:02:48]:
No, I actually followed an unconventional route to teaching. I had my heart set. I was always interested in public service, government politics, that type of thing. And, I was kind of on the pre law track in undergrad, so I had fancied myself as going to law school and working in the policy or or legal field in some way, shape, or form, not necessarily in the classroom. It was actually my own education at Transylvania in here in Lexington that really made me reassess and think about it. It, again ignited or fanned the flames of that curiosity that I mentioned. And, I've always loved learning. I've always have been grateful for the teacher mentors in my life and on my educational journey.

Tyler Murphy [00:03:39]:
And that experience at Transy really allowed me to reorient and say, wait a minute, you know, this love of learning, this passion for learning, what can I do to help not only continue that passion, but help share it with others and help others think about the world in complex and different ways and, you know, explore their own curiosity about that world? And so during my years at Transy, that's when I thought about, you know what? Maybe education, a career in education is the right path for me. And so I took some time after undergrad to do some like long term subbing. I was fortunate to have an opportunity in my home district, to kind of get a taste for being in the classroom. And that's that allowed me to really set on, yeah, you know what? This is what I wanna do. And so I went back and got my master's degree in education.

Liza Holland [00:04:30]:
And I love it. I'm so glad. I think with that kind of foundation, I would have loved to have been in your, AP history and geography, human geography classes because that spurring the love of learning is just such a critical piece of what we're doing in education.

Tyler Murphy [00:04:47]:
Absolutely.

Liza Holland [00:04:48]:
So you decided to take things a step further, and you are teaching in a different district than you are now school board chair for Fayette County Public Schools. What inspired you to to kind of take that route?

Tyler Murphy [00:05:02]:
Well, I first ran for school board in 2018 and a lot of that, and as you, I'm sure we'll recall and many of your listeners will, 2018 was kind of the high watermark of very a lot of frustrations among educators and public school advocates, dealing with just some nastiness coming at us from Frankfurt and the former administration. And, just an all out, frankly, an all out assault on public education. And I had fought in the trenches as an educator and an advocate. I marched in Frankfort and beyond and pushing for, you know, meaningful investments in our public schools, elevating the educators who make that work possible. And so when the opportunity for the school board seat in my district where I live in in Lexington came open, I was like, you know, this is a chance for me because I I said education needs advocates at every level, and the school boards are the first line of defense. And as you know, the laws in Kentucky are such that if you are an active teacher on a, in a school district, you can't serve on the school board in that district. So we don't have a lot of educators or a lot of that perspective on the school board and or let alone in any decision making body, certainly the legislature. So I thought, you know, look, I'm uniquely positioned.

Tyler Murphy [00:06:20]:
I teach in one district. I live in another. Fayette County is the 2nd largest district, so it sets the tone in a lot of ways across the Commonwealth. So maybe this is a spot where I can take my advocacy to a different level. And so that's what motivated me initially to run. And thankfully, I was elected. And, you know, look, I'm the type of person that just likes to roll up my sleeves and do the work that needs to be done to get results. This is a game of inches.

Tyler Murphy [00:06:45]:
Oftentimes, when we're dealing with all kinds of things coming at us, making the slow and steady progress, especially in a district the size of Fayette County, you know, it's like president Obama said about turning an ocean liner around. Right? You you move a few degrees, and it may not feel like you're going very far, but but but at the end of the day, you're headed in a completely new direction. And so I was like, you know, this is I can lay low, avoid the political fray of the national environment, and just get the work done. And then, of course, boom, COVID hit 2 years about almost 2 years into my term, and then that propelled school boards front and center in the midst of the political, turmoil. So, but I I certainly don't don't regret the decision, and and it's difficult work, certainly, but no one's none of us sign up for it thinking that it's easy. We sign up for it because we're passionate about doing the right things for education and the students that we serve.

Liza Holland [00:07:42]:
So how has this role affected your perspective on education? One of the reasons I started this podcast was I kept running into people who had an interest in education, you know, the wide variety of stakeholders as it were. And so many saw it from a slightly different perspective. And tell me a little bit about how yours has evolved in taking on this additional role.

Tyler Murphy [00:08:07]:
I often tell people that being a teacher on the school board has made me both a better school board member and a better teacher because I'm able to see see perspectives in both roles. Right? So as a school board member, I can relate and connect with the perspective of those in the classroom. And then there's someone in the classroom in my own school. I can relate to the challenges and the thought process of administrators and district officials. And that's helpful, I think, in both regards. And what it reminded me too and and continues to remind me is that at the end of the day, I feel firmly that we all share the same goal, and that's doing what's best for the students that we serve. And when we're pointing fingers at each other, it doesn't it causes us to lose focus on that goal. And the only people that hurts are, again, are our students, and nor does it set a good example for them.

Tyler Murphy [00:09:03]:
It also reminds me one of the ways that it really impacted my perspective is it reminded me and like I said, reminds me in the present tense every single day of the huge impact our public schools have in every community. You know, the other dichotomy that I experience is not just a dichotomy of roles, but an economy of environments. You know, Fayette County, an an urban district, the 2nd largest in the state, 42,000 kids. And then Boyle County, which is one of the smaller districts, right? We have high schools in Fayette County that are larger than the entire student population in Boyle County. Right? So it's fascinating to see that perspective. And yet at the same time, despite those differences, there's a lot of similarities in that in both communities, the school is the the school district is the heart and soul, the core of those communities. They make a difference not just in educating kids, but in serving families, feeding kids, connecting them with health care, with our family resource and new service centers in both areas doing incredible work. And that's true all across Kentucky.

Tyler Murphy [00:10:15]:
The work of community partners, you know, it's cliche, but I say it all the time that it takes a village. My experience on the school board has shown me that time and time again. No one can do the work of public education alone. No school board member, no educator, no superintendent, no legislator, not any of us without coming together, making that happen.

Liza Holland [00:10:39]:
Boy, I agree with you wholeheartedly. So tell me a little bit about your perspective. I know we've talked about incremental change and and moving that huge ship a couple of degrees and whatnot, but if you had your druthers, what types of important changes in our education system would you like to see happen?

Tyler Murphy [00:10:58]:
That's a challenging question, but it's an important question. I think one is a change in priority too often in terms of what society prioritizes. Too often, public schools kind of fall into the background unless they're propelled to the front pages, so to speak. And we saw that during COVID. It's one of those things. I often joke about this, but it's really there's to every joke, there's an element of truth, right? The only time we hear from folks most often in my position is when people are unhappy. Very rarely is my inbox filled with emails from people saying you're doing an incredible job. And so it's almost like a no news is good news type of thing.

Tyler Murphy [00:11:39]:
But that really is not sustainable model if the only time we choose to tap in or to pay attention to or to be engaged with a system that's significant and as important and as impactful as a public school system is when there's a challenge or when we're dissatisfied. So we really need to get better as a society, and it's on all of us, as I said, to continually engage with our public schools, not assign them to a secondary role because, again, they're foundation. And yet polling after polling indicates and even just anecdotal evidence, when people walk into the voting booth, when people think about the causes that they support, when people engage in conversations with friends and neighbors, public schools are not exactly at the top of mind. You know, there's a mindset of people who say, well, look. My kids are graduated, or I don't have kids, or I've never had kids, or I never planned to have kids, so I don't need to worry about public schools. Well, you know, in our day to day interactions, I guarantee that anybody listening to this podcast today has interacted with someone who came through public schools or whose education in a public school made possible whatever service that that you may or may not have received today. That anyone the person who checks you out of the grocery store, the doctor that you saw on your recent medical visit, the technician at the pharmacy, the person administering your medications in an assisted living facility. I I'm sure that there's someone that went through a public education.

Tyler Murphy [00:13:12]:
And so that is the service that public education provides, not just in the past, not just today, but it's an investment in the future because, you know, those of us who are working hope to retire one day and the generation that's gonna succeed us, that they're coming up to the public school system now. And, that's it's the public schools that give society its sustenance, its life and its breath. And so if we disregard public education, then we disregard that continuity. So I know that's kind of a long way about it, But I would say we if I had a magic wand, I could just I would want to reorient everyone's perspective as a collective, as a society, to recognize the vital role that public schools play, not only when we're interacting with it or not only when we're angry with it and not only when we have kids going through it or we're going through it ourselves.

Liza Holland [00:14:07]:
I couldn't agree with you more. And I I really resonate with the, it takes a village cliche as you mentioned before, but it especially in our information economy that we have today, things are moving so fast. It really is incumbent upon all of us to try to help to shape young people to be able to meet those needs. And you're right. The proactive solutions oriented approach is definitely much more what we need to be getting into. So tell us about yourself. Do you have a favorite memory from your time in education?

Tyler Murphy [00:14:49]:
You know, I consider every moment an opportunity to learn something. So, you know, schooling, I loved school. I love not just K12, but even into higher ed and college. I don't know if I could point to a single, single moment that I enjoyed more than others. Just any chance I had to interact with peers, with teachers, and anytime I had a chance to learn something new or have my existing assumptions and, predilections challenged or pushed, you know, I often remind my students when we're talking about the current state of our political discourse, I did speech and debate at Transient in undergrad, and my partner and good friend was on the opposite side of the political spectrum for me. And we were debate partners, and we worked together. And actually, we it made us it made the partnership stronger that we came at things from different angles and different points of view, and that was healthy and productive. And, unfortunately, when I tell that to students today, that just seems like such an odd and almost impossible dynamic because they're familiar and used to an environment where political differences have devolved into personal vendettas and are defined by animosity and acrimony.

Tyler Murphy [00:16:12]:
And it need not be that way. And so any I'm grateful for the moments I had on my educational journey to be introduced into new ideas, new ways of thinking about the world, and not necessarily meaning that I would adopt and embrace those things, but that would allow me to assess my own understanding of things or my assumed understanding of things. And that look that no one has a monopoly on the right or wrong way of doing things. And I'm the type that my education, particularly at Transylvania, allowed me to be comfortable with nuance and recognizing that knowing and thinking about the conflicts does not necessarily weaken one's understanding of something or one's intellect. It actually strengthens them. Some of the greatest scientific in there are writings on this, you know, Carl Sagan comes to mind, right? That ignorance, actually some of the greatest scientific discoveries emerged out of ignorance out of not knowing, Not knowing something or recognizing conflict among and between ideas, that's where learning can actually happen and grow and strengthen. And so I'm grateful for an educational experience that helped me kind of think about those types of perspectives.

Liza Holland [00:17:28]:
You know, your attitude towards education just really resonates with me because I too am just this lifelong learner. School was a a great vehicle for me to be able to do that. So many kids these days just don't seem to have been inspired and infused with that love of learning. Any thoughts from a teacher perspective in particular about how you go about trying to, inspire your students to grab onto that level of learning?

Tyler Murphy [00:17:57]:
I think it's one of the dangers of getting too fixed into this assessment mindset, right, of, you know, an outcomes oriented or output rather oriented approach. Right? If we focus too much on output with specific standards and objectives and this, that and the other, then we lose sight of the more nuanced out outcomes that learning can be manifest in many different ways. You know, we talk about and I and look, as a policymaker, essentially, and I and an educator, I understand that that, you know, there's an expectation that, look. We have to know where our students are, know where they need to be, and then help them get there. But there are many ways of knowing that. And education, teaching is really, it's a profession, it's an art form, it's a calling. That's what teachers are trained to do. They are the experts in their field.

Tyler Murphy [00:18:54]:
I and part of my interactions with my students, the way I design lessons, it's pedagogy, right, of feeding off of our student and assessing them in that way without this rigid accountability model that when we talk about assessing, that's what most people think we mean. It's just some test or some standardized model. We know the reality is that there is no standardized child. So, you know, when we start slicing and dicing children and schools, you know, that we do that at our peril. One of my professors at Transy wrote an incredible article that I still keep a copy of. You know, and, and I look, I graduated 14 years ago from Transy, but I still keep this article and I pull it out every now and then, because I need the reminder. And she writes about the distinction between measured as a verb and measured as an adjective. And too often in our education framework, in the modern era especially, we're talking about measuring in the verb sense.

Tyler Murphy [00:20:02]:
Right? We're using these accountability models where when our approach really needs to be measured in the adjective sense, right, of being discerning, again, helping students see the nuance, allowing students the space and grace to explore things. And we run the risk, frankly, you know, and John going back to John Dewey, he writes about this. Curiosity is most alive and most ablaze in childhood, but it's also very fragile. And we do our students a disservice if through dogma and rigid structures, we actually put out the flame of curiosity in them. And so it's really about reorienting ourselves as educators to say, wait a minute, how can we actually fan that flame of curiosity and keep it alive? And sometimes we as adults, that flame has gone out in us. We've become jaded by the system. So there are times when we actually have we've been from learning from our students and taking back and watching and listening and helping them show us ways that we can reignite our own flames of curiosity that may have kind of fallen flat into adulthood. So, you know, I and I tell that to folks all the time.

Tyler Murphy [00:21:22]:
I learn as much, if not more, from my students as they learn from me.

Liza Holland [00:21:27]:
I love that. And I think that that also helps in that piece of taking charge of your own learning, you know, and being responsible for it. If you feel like you are seen and heard and that your teacher is learning from you, I mean, to me, that's a mark of a really good teacher, so kudos to you.

Tyler Murphy [00:21:46]:
I appreciate that.

Liza Holland [00:21:47]:
So, you know, we are working in a system that was built on past norms and kind of designed to bring out good compliant factory workers. What do you see as some of the biggest challenges to us changing how we do school to be able to better meet the needs of today?

Tyler Murphy [00:22:08]:
It's interesting. A statistic or a fact point that I often cite, and it's kind of disarming to some, is that today's, the kindergartners who will be starting school this fall will reach what we consider retirement age today in 2083. Wow. And if we think about if we just think about that timing, right, imagine in 1965, could they have ever imagined the world that we live in today in 2024? And so we've really got to remind ourselves as educators that we are preparing our students for a future that we cannot possibly imagine as you and I sit here and talk. So we can't delude ourselves into thinking that, you know, the latest and greatest technology is going to be relevant to our students 50 years hence. What is going to be relevant? Because we're, know, it's one it's one of the reasons I enjoy teaching history is because it's and I tell my students this and joke with my students about this is that it's humans make the same narrow sets of decisions, and it's just a cycle on repeats. Then most of them are bad. Some of them are good.

Tyler Murphy [00:23:19]:
But the scope of human decision making falls on a very narrow scale. The only thing that changes is the context. But I say that to say that the things that are going to be enduring are what we share in our common humanity, right? Of again, that critical thinking and analysis, that sense of wonder and curiosity that makes it possible to adapt and adjust to a changing world and hopefully use the advancements that are going to happen for the good of humanity, not the harm of humanity. And just developing fundamental skills of empathy and of being engaged citizens. Fayette County, we talk about our portrait of a graduate. And beyond talking about college and career readiness, beyond talking about academic preparedness, we also talk about that global citizenship piece and that civic engagement piece because we are the the the heart and soul of the democracy. Right? If we want to keep our democracy alive, we need an educated citizenry to carry that out and carry that promise into the future. So no matter what the world looks in 2083, we know that those things are going to be enduring.

Tyler Murphy [00:24:33]:
So I think that's what we've got to focus on as educators. Obviously, we got to act with the resources and the context and the opportunities that we have in the here and now and the things that we're able to help this, our students connect with, but with the understanding that we're ultimately teaching and modeling those enduring skills.

Liza Holland [00:24:55]:
Absolutely. But they are so much harder to measure, aren't they? It doesn't fit into our, our multiple choice test kind of system, and I worry a little that we're not measuring for what we really want anymore. And, so that's gonna be a brave new world of assessment, I guess.

Tyler Murphy [00:25:13]:
It is. And, you know, there is some there have been conversations around, you know, the fancy term is performance based assessments. There are efforts to try to reimagine the way we assess and even changes have happened since I started teaching. And which has also reminded me that, you know, we gotta take these assessments with a grain of salt because the reason why no one has stopped and think, well, maybe the reason why we have to constantly adjust the way we test our standardized assessment model is because maybe there's something wrong with the initial thought in the first place. Right? I'm hopeful that eventually we'll get there. We're at least moving in the right direction with some some shifts that have happened in the past several years. Nice.

Liza Holland [00:25:57]:
I noticed that you started a being a communications person at heart myself. You started the Murphy's Minute with, in conjunction with the school board, kinda recap that comes out. Tell us a little bit about what motivated you to do that because it's I think it's been a real benefit.

Tyler Murphy [00:26:14]:
Mainly that, you know, again, I'm a teacher at heart, so just educating folks. Right? I I want folks to understand how the school board works and operate and how school districts work and operate. And I know and I fully appreciate that, you know, most people don't want to go and sit through a board meeting. You know, it's they can be tedious. It doesn't have to be tedious. But, you know, it was interesting a comment I made to the superintendent when we onboarded him as we were coming out of COVID. I said, you know, post COVID, one of my goals is to make school board meetings boring. Because when school board meetings are boring, that just means we're just doing the work that needs to be done and there aren't any distractions from our focus on the kids.

Tyler Murphy [00:27:00]:
So the Murphy Minute came out of, look, how can we just kind of package neatly for in an accessible way folks who say, you know what? I'm curious about learning more about how this works or how's the budget produced? What does the school board even do? That's kind of how that was born. We get all kinds of messages. When I teach government, we talk about something called the Green Lantern theory of the presidency, which is this misconception among Americans that like the Green Lantern League, the presidency bestows someone with with all this power that if they just leaved it strongly enough, they could make it happen. And so I say that oftentimes people have that Green Lantern theory of school boards. Right? That they'll contact us about anything from, you know, what was being served at lunch that day to, you know, the color of paint on the lockers. And so it's about helping folks understand the different layers and levels because, you know, most people are just they've got they have their own jobs. They have to raise their kids. They have to you know, that in and of itself is enough work to then have to sort through this, hundreds of pages of budget or a school board agenda or what have you.

Tyler Murphy [00:28:13]:
So it was an an effort just to be a little bit more clear, transparent, and concise for folks on what the work we actually do is, how it impacts their life and their experience, and most importantly, how they can be involved and engaged to help support this process. Because I said as I said, the work of a district of any size, but especially the size of Fayette County, doesn't fall on the shoulders of just 5 people on a school board or a superintendent. It takes all of us, working together.

Liza Holland [00:28:42]:
Absolutely. Well, I personally have found it to be very engaging, and I loved how, as you said, it makes it more approachable for people in a short period of time to be involved. So you obviously don't get a lot of the kudos. You're doing a great job, but kudos. You're doing a great job.

Tyler Murphy [00:28:58]:
I appreciate that. And my favorite part of the Murphy Minute is we it's a kind of a reversal roles. A student interviews me during it. So I get to answer questions from students. And so that's always exciting.

Liza Holland [00:29:10]:
I love that. I love it all the way around. So good on you. Well, so this is my final question. You obviously have a couple of different perspectives to bring to this question, but what would you like for decision makers in education to know? And you can define decision makers however you'd like to define them.

Tyler Murphy [00:29:30]:
In my position, I would define positions both at the school district level and in the school level in the classroom. I would define decision makers as, as state and federal lawmakers, frankly, or state and federal actors or anybody outside of the quote unquote system is that this is not easy work. And it's those of us who are involved and invested in it don't see it really as work. We see it as a calling, a passion and a service. And we have to make this a priority at every single level. And there's only so much that an educator in the classroom or a school board in the community can do to make it a priority if we're not given the space and the resources to do that, to the extent that it needs to be done in our communities. There can be a lot of talk about those things. But, you know, I as I tell my students, especially when I'm trying to teach them about written responses, show don't tell me that that education is authority.

Tyler Murphy [00:30:35]:
Show me how you're making it a party. And we're fortunate in the state of Kentucky to have clear and explicit constitutional language affirmed in the Rose decision that makes public education a constitutionally protected right for every child, all 120 counties. The obligation, the Supreme Court said, to ensure that system of public schools falls on the legislature. Folks on the ground in our districts and schools are doing everything we can. But as I said, we can't do it alone. So when we talk about accountability, let's not just talk about accountability for students, for teachers and for schools. Let's talk about accountability for the decision makers who our state constitution says have the obligation to support our public schools. And same goes the federal level IDEA made a commitment in 1973 that 40%, special education funding would be provided by the federal government.

Tyler Murphy [00:31:37]:
That has barely cracked 10%. And so and districts are left to fill in the gap. So again, that would be my message is that show, don't tell. That let's just not, let's not just talk about the importance of education. Let's not just talk about accountability, but show a little bit of how are we making education important? How are we allowing decision makers and educators at the local levels to truly do the work that needs to be done with the resources we need to do it. Very, very well said. Thank you so much for being, for taking your valuable time to chat with me here this afternoon and, continue to

Liza Holland [00:32:18]:
do the great work that you are doing.

Tyler Murphy [00:32:20]:
Well, I appreciate you, and you keep doing the great work that you're doing because it's important that we have these conversations. And I want more people to be having them because that that's the only way that we're gonna get this work done and do it together is continue to have these important conversations.

Liza Holland [00:32:36]:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Education Perspectives. Feel free to share your thoughts on our Facebook page. Let us know which education perspectives you would like to hear or share. Please subscribe and share with your friends.