Two related stories this week touch on issues of school leadership and reform, in particular, who's in charge of setting school policy and who should be. In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) school district, Superintendent James Pughsley wants principals to have the flexibility and autonomy to run their schools as they see fit. Toward that end, he hopes to institute a new plan to draw stronger leaders to struggling schools by offering incentives - in the form of pay and increased autonomy - to take on these high-risk positions. According to the Charlotte Observer, the district would use "national headhunters and hefty signing and retention bonuses to recruit principals for high-poverty schools" and would give these new school leaders the flexibility to replace a "high percentage" of the staff, by firing ineffective teachers or transferring "decent teachers" who aren't succeeding in that type of school. In addition, the plan would offer incentives to teachers who choose to work in these schools. By contrast, in Rockford, Illinois, Superintendent Dennis Thompson seems hell-bent on consolidating power for himself, rather than affording successful principals the freedom to set policy for their schools. Specifically, he decided to transfer Tiffany Parker, the principal at an elementary school with a student body that is 80 percent nonwhite and 85 percent poor, because she dared use "direct instruction" and phonics instead of the district's mandated "balanced literacy" approach to teaching reading. Never mind that, on a reading test, Parker's third graders trailed only those third graders from a district school for the gifted, or that parents and students welcomed Parker's approach. According to Samuel Freedman, "instead of serving as beacons for what is possible, the school and its principal have been portrayed as impediments to progress." In fact, Thompson admits that "this is not a curriculum issue along with [Parker]. It is a leadership issue. Good leaders need to be good followers first." Read that sentence again and ask yourself: is this the thinking we want from the top of our school systems?
"A fight over reading instruction in a district weary of change," by Samuel Freedman, New York Times, February 2, 2005
"CMS chief's reform plan to be unveiled tonight," by Ann Doss Helms, Charlotte Observer, January 25, 2005 (registration required)