Paul D. Houston

School Administrator, March, 1994

AASA's New Boss Has Bags Packed and Ready

Nine years and three superintendencies ago, Paul Houston ended a magazine interview by hinting he had "toyed with the idea of a career change, maybe becoming the chief executive officer of a corporation or an association."

Today, on the verge of assuming the executive director's chair at the American Association of School Administrators, he chuckles at his prescience. "I don't know what I had in mind," he says. "Blind luck."

Colleagues over the years put a different spin on Houston's modest claim. "He has the amazing ability to work with a variety of people, to make them empowered and part of a team ... to create and share a vision," believes Roger Pfeuffer, an assistant superintendent in Tucson, Ariz.

Houston, 49, has advanced steadily and purposefully through educational leadership ranks, having spent all but his first two years of professional life in administration. In the view of his current board president in Riverside, Calif., the question always has been "when we lose his leadership," rather than "if."

When he settles into AASA's 4th-floor corner office during the last week of March, he will bring to the organization powerful experiences in all manner of settings: from his upbringing in the hills of rural West Virginia, the halls of Harvard, and superintendencies in Princeton, N.J., Tucson, and Riverside.

He describes his new job as one where "I could use what I've spent a career building." The role will allow him to express his enthusiasm for policy advocacy, networking, public speaking, and writing. He sees the job as a bully pulpit to enlighten the critics of public education and create positive change.

Since becoming superintendent in Riverside in 1991, Houston has expounded at national forums on such themes as "What's Right with Schools," "The Critics Are Wrong," and "America's Search for a Scapegoat." He is co-author of a 1993 book, Exploding the Myths," and by this summer expects to publish a collection of his writings from the past decade.

He can be forceful when necessary. "I think it's telling that Secretary Alexander couldn't find time to come out and talk to AASA," he sounded off to the national press after the education secretary refused an invitation to address AASA's 1992 convention.

Houston intends to devote the next several years to raising the visibility of AASA to ensure its place as the nation's preeminent organization for school leadership. He wants to set a tone and an example for school administrators nationwide. He also expects to be a major player in the escalating national debate over how best to govern public schools.

At the same time, he hopes to reenergize AASA's headquarters staff of 65. "I tell people, 'I really believe in you. I believe you can do a great job.' That tends to create more pressure on people than my hammering them on the head. ... I want people to bring ideas up, to take risks."

Pfeuffer, who left a superintendency to join Houston's cabinet in Tucson, believes the association's staff ought to be "ecstatic" about the possibilities ahead. "They've got a leader who's got a philosophy that is tight on the ends and loose on the means," Pfeuffer noted. "He says, 'Don't worry about mistakes and how you get there, as long as you've got that polar star in your view."'

A 23-year member who earned AASA's Finis E. Engleman Scholarship for graduate study while at Harvard in 1972, Houston has attended all but one of the last 24 AASA national conventions. But he will enter the association's directorship from outside the elected ranks of the executive committee, a fact he cited during his pursuit of the post. He acknowledges he must learn much about the internal workings of the association.

Yet Houston believes he has a realistic sense of what awaits him, noting in his letter of application, "The next executive director must have a high tolerance for airplane food, lost luggage, and rubber chicken."

Asked recently whether he indeed had that quality, Houston backtracked. "I'm not sure about the rubber chicken."