By Rob
Teaching is a flat profession. A teacher with 20 years of experience performs the same job as a teacher with two years of experience. Aside from moving into administration there isn’t a career ladder for teachers to climb. School systems may be hesitant to remove the best teachers from classrooms. Consequently, cultivating leadership from the ground up is a difficult task.
Why not cultivate leadership from the top down? Two-thirds of superintendents are hired from outside the district. Nationwide the average tenure for superintendents is just over five years. In urban districts it is under four years. This constant turn-over negatively impacts the continuity of reforms.
When a new superintendent arrives the cabinet, departments, and programs are often restructured. This creates a lot of work for school personnel. It may be done in the name of improving student learning but it is not about student learning; it is about change and reorganization. Given the rate of superintendent turn-over it is a task that is likely to be repeated soon.
Changes in leadership impact teachers. With new superintendents come changes in curriculum, programs, models of instruction and evaluation. In my ten years of teaching I’ve had three superintendents. Where we once focused on expanding access to Advanced Placement classes and participation in Lesson Study we now focus on Guided Language Acquisition Design and Professional Learning Communities. We’ve shifted from broadening all curricula to narrowing some and expanding math and literacy. We’ve replaced teacher designed tests with norm-referenced tests.
Whether these shifts in focus have been positive or negative depends on your perspective. Professional Learning Communities can be a powerful transformative tool. So too can Lesson Study. Japan’s practice of Lesson Study has been well established since the 1960’s. My district tried it for only six years. The constant shifting of focus, energy, and funding that comes with new “outside” leadership means many programs never reach their full potential.
When a new leader takes the helm I question if they were good a teacher. Do they have an appreciation for the complexities of managing classrooms? Will they take these complexities into consideration as they make decisions? If new superintendents are from outside the district these questions may not be answered. I’m less likely to have these concerns if I’ve had the chance to work beside them.
Suppose schools hire two-thirds of their superintendents from inside the district. There would be more opportunity to build a culture around a common vision. Wholesale changes to programs would be less likely. Shifts in focus may be more gradual and more targeted. Their initiatives may realize greater potentials.
I’m not a fan of many top-down reforms but I’d be happy to see schools cultivate leadership from the top.
Communities. We’ve shifted from broadening all curricula to narrowing some and expanding math and literacy. We’ve replaced teacher designed tests with norm-referenced tests.
Nancy, Rob and Mark – YES YES YES. It’s sad to me that this is probably totally supported by every person who works in schools full time, but no one else gets it.
Mark – I think you meant anyone who’s in schools less than 20 hours a week shouldn’t make policy – and I agree wholeheartedly. There are a lot of good, smart people who know how to work legislation to help schools, and who know how to work public relations and marketing strategies to help schools, but if you’re not in schools a lot, you should be deferring to those who are when you decide what happens in schools.
My district is like a classroom that can’t keep a substitute – a child who scares away mom or dad’s romantic interests – the children who can’t keep a nanny. We’ve had (I have to count now…) four superintendents in the eight years I’ve been here. Someone from Seattle, correct me if I’m wrong.
And you’re right – every time the cabinet changes, the tone changes, the approach to excellence changes. It’s hard to keep buying into it, and it’s hard to keep supporting whoever’s at the top because hey, he or she will probably be gone soon anyway.
A little continuity and a little development of good ideas would be nice. A little traction would be nice. I believe our current superintendent really does remember what it was like in the classroom, and has a good idea of what’s possible for teachers and still best for kids, but there’s no guarantee she’ll be around long enough to effect any change.
It’s a system that needs to change.
Rob you describe what has happened in my district. A new sup, from outside the state, swept into place three years ago, and completely restructured the district administration. I believe change is good, but not just for the sake of change. Our district lost a lot of excellent educators because of the reorganization, a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or so it appeared to many of us observing the changes.
I have put forth the idea also that our school boards often support these new superintendents (we heard a quote from one in our community that indicated he was excited about all of our changes) and they have no education background or inside knowledge of the workings of the classroom. But the school board is who hires the superintendent. Shouldn’t they also spend some time in the classrooms?
I’d also like to see a redefinition of what the Superintendent’s job even is. We have a main sup. and an Associate Sup. for Curriculum. I worry that the latter position implies that they should always be looking for that new and better fad rather than, as you suggest, cultivating a program by fostering time for it to come to fruition. I’d rather see the Sup. as a facilitator… divvy up budget money so teachers can investigate curriculum, instead of paying for fancy guest speakers, have the teachers teach each other (these sessions are hands down the best PD I’ve participated in, but they tend to happen almost on a subversive level when the staff stages a mutiny and says, “nope, we’re going to try it this way.” And mutiny is fun sometimes).
The industry of education, heck the whole country for that matter, lacks the patience necessary for real change to take root.
I think that no human being not present in a given school building fewer than 20 hours per week for half a school year should participate in any way in shaping the requirements, policy, curriculum, or direction of that given school. That includes a district’s own upper administration on up to the state and feds. At least that’s what I think this morning before my coffee has kicked in…