NEWS & NOTES

Leadership, May, 2001 by Gerald N. Tirozzi

"How is it possible to improve a school without recognizing and respecting the role of its leader? School improvement takes place where the students are, within the school building. Distant policy gurus, corporate and business leaders and various legislative bodies may promulgate educational policies and pontificate on their merits, but policies are meaningless without strong leadership to implement them in the school--the critical leverage point where teaching and learning happen."

--Gerald N. Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals and former assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education in the U.S. Department of Education, in Education Week.

Can central offices improve schools?

While many individual schools are making impressive gains in student achievement, there are few models available to duplicate success on a districtwide basis. But that may change, once an action research project being conducted by the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform is completed.

Researchers will focus on three cities with contrasting decentralization structures -- Milwaukee, Seattle and Chicago -- to determine what kind of district support matters to schools, what role district personnel should play in the change process and how district policies, practices and programs influence local school improvement efforts.

In the meantime, the organization offers 10 lessons for reinventing the central office, based on Chicago's reform efforts:

1. Don't wait until everything is in place to begin reinventing the central office. ("We have to wait until there's a new computer system or until everyone is trained.")

2. Assume people will need lots of training as you go along, but don't confuse training with good information.

3. Don't make rules with the weakest school, governance council or principal in mind.

4. Conflict is OK. Disagreements can make for better decisions as long as people are respectful.

5. Much can be learned from the experience of other districts, schools and parents; systems don't have to be identical to provide a valuable lesson.

6. If schools don't have control over funds or don't have adequate funds to control, you don't have site-based management.

7. Reducing the central office without changing it just means fewer people are doing the same things.

8. People whose jobs depend on the old system should not be in charge of the new system.

9. It takes time for people whose opinions have never been sought to have confidence in their own decisions.

10. The sky doesn't fall when you restructure the central office.

For more information about the Cross City Campaign for School Reform see www.crosscity.org.

JOB ENHANCEMENT FOR SUPERINTENDENTS

Superintendents across the country were asked about their job concerns by researchers at Fordham University. Following are the mean ratings of agreement, on a scale of 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree) with these statements:

4.43  Higher pay and benefits would be a strong incentive to candidates
      in considering a career as a superintendent.

4.42  Districts should consider giving current superintendents more help
      and support to ensure their well-being and job success.

4.19  Better perks (housing, car, more trips to professional meetings)
      could help to bring more candidates into the applicant pool.

4.08  Professional and state education organizations should do more to
      support, recognize and reward the accomplishments of
      superintendents.

3.93  Universities and other institutions should assist candidates in
      preparing for job growth and promotion through, for example,
      training and counseling.

3.39  Tenure for superintendents would bring more candidates into
      the applicant pool.

Source: "Career Crisis in the School Superintendency?" by
Bruce Cooper (2000), AASA publications.