One reason that Principals & Superintendents s*ck

[Moses]

Training programs for principals inadequate[/size]

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Most of the college-level programs that train public school principals award "the equivalent of Green Stamps," allowing them to trade in primarily useless credits for raises and promotions without giving them the practical training they need, says the president of Columbia University's Teachers College.

In a study released Monday, Arthur Levine says the graduate schools he studied range from "inadequate to appalling" and need a radical face lift.

"There's no such thing as a good school with a bad principal, and the way we're preparing them now isn't very good," says Levine, who wrote the report as an independent researcher. He suggests that colleges create "the equivalent of an MBA" for principals, using courses both from colleges of education and business.

He says business schools are good at training managers to change organizations and deal with personnel issues — a key to improving schools in a new era of accountability.

But in the past 15 years, he says, most schools that train principals have begun offering quick, easy degrees, watering down curricula, easing degree requirements and lowering admissions standards.

"Everybody benefits from the current system," he says, "except our children."

The report, funded by the Annenberg Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kaufmann Foundation, is the first in a series resulting from a four-year study of U.S. education schools. The next report, on teacher preparation, is due in September.

  TOP PROBLEMS
Irrelevant curriculum. Eighty-nine percent of alumni surveyed said they were not prepared to cope with classroom realities.

Low standards. Standardized test scores of students in leadership programs are among the lowest in academia.

Weak faculty. Just 6% of education faculty have been principals; just 2% superintendents.

Inadequate clinical instruction. Few programs set up mentoring relationships.

Inappropriate degrees. Too many degrees are in educational administration, often with no job relevance.

Poor research. Research is disconnected from practice.

Educators have long complained that education schools take in vast amounts of cash, but that colleges and universities often use it to fund unrelated programs such as scientific research.

Education schools are mainstays on most campuses, according to the U.S. Education Department. With 1,206 such programs, education accounts for one in 12 bachelor's degrees and one in four master's degrees.

In a written statement, three organizations of school principals and administrators said Levine's report confirms much of what they've been saying for years.

Arthur Wise, president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, agrees with Levine's analysis and most of his recommendations but says principal candidates are usually teachers with families and full-time classroom jobs. They're trying to earn advanced degrees at night or on weekends, but school districts "have made no investment through help with tuition, time off from work or offers of internships."

Susan Masterson, principal of Monroe Elementary School in Janesville, Wis., says mentoring programs are essential.

"Principals have to know so much more than they ever had to," she says. One big barrier to getting good principals: low pay. For many experienced teachers, the difference between their salary and that of a principal is "really minimal."

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[Moses]

Principal suspends boy and verbally abuses him for not answering WASL question

[Moses]

Poll Question Glens Falls Post Star

The Salem school board president indicted on a felony charge for allegedly shooting a dog will officiate at the high school's commencement in June.

Should someone being charged with a crime officiate over a high school graduation?

Yes. You're innocent until proven guilty.

No. It will mar the entire ceremony.

It depends on the severity of the crime the person is accused of.

I don't know.

— Poll Question
Glens Falls Post-Star
2005-05-31
www.poststar.com

[Moses]

This guy was selected by an APPOINTED BOARD. The state edunazis & their pol friends had taken away PG county's right to have an elected school board. Note the cronyism that permeates this crowd.

Hornsby Tenure Ends on Up Note -- His Leaving



While you were focused on Memorial Day weekend doings, the Prince George's County school board tried to slip a scandalburger onto the grill without anyone noticing. It won't be easy to scrub the smoke from this cynical maneuver.

In a classic Friday night display of cowardice, the superintendent of schools, Andre Hornsby, and the school board issued a statement announcing Hornsby's resignation because of "external distractions." The schools chief vanished to a remote vacation spot, reportedly in the Bahamas. The school board let it be known that it has little interest in taking on the task of finding a new head of the school system -- might as well wait a year and leave that job to the next board. Now everyone in the county gets to spend the final weeks of the school year sorting through the underlying messages of this sordid episode.

Bye-bye, Andre Hornsby! You did what any reasonable person would have expected you to do: After a career riddled with ethical lapses, you came here and delivered more of the same. As state Del. Jim Hubbard, education chairman of the county's delegation to Annapolis, told me last year: "There's a pattern here that goes back to his jobs in Yonkers [N.Y.] and Houston. All of this was foreseeable, even if it wasn't foreseen."

True enough. Hornsby jumped right into the cronyism racket upon his arrival in Prince George's in 2003. The superintendent didn't bother to tell anyone that he was living with Sienna Owens, a saleswoman for LeapFrog SchoolHouse, an educational software company that just happened to sell $1 million of its products to the Prince George's system after Hornsby came on board. The president of the software company stepped down in the scandal that followed that episode; law enforcement agencies are still sniffing around that set of transactions.

Prince George's gave a contract to a New York construction management company owned by the same guy who had been Hornsby's construction chief in Yonkers. Just a few months ago, the Prince George's system hired a consulting company run by the husband of a woman whom Hornsby had worked with in both Houston and New York.

Most recently, Hornsby considered hiring as his chief of staff a Houston schools administrator who had worked with him in Texas and who supervised three schools that were under investigation for cheating on state tests.

Despite Hornsby's consistent record of sketchy behavior, riding the ethical boundaries in a career-long game of How to Beat the System, the appointed school board in Prince George's hired him, arguing that his aggressive style was just what a troubled system needed.

Gee thanks, school board! The sun had barely set on Hornsby's resignation letter when board members let it be known that they'd rather ride out their remaining year than go through the superintendent sweepstakes one more time. They'll leave that job for their successors, an elected board. The Prince George's board has become a favorite plaything of Annapolis legislators, and so the school system ricochets from elected to appointed and back again while the superintendency remains a revolving door, test scores continue to stagnate, and parents keep fleeing the system in search of high standards, stability and security.

Good riddance, parents! You've been played for suckers by politicians, school board members and educators who believe you can be silenced by rhetoric about race. Since the 1980s, many of the country's big urban school systems have hired almost exclusively black and Hispanic superintendents in hopes of providing majority-minority student populations with leaders who will be role models for students and staff. Inspiring, effective leaders and cynical, corrupt figures exist in every ethnic group; Prince George's can hardly afford to limit its searches.

The joke's on you, students! As the latest superintendent slips away, happily pocketing a $125,000 severance payoff -- that's money right out of your classroom, kids -- you learn some lessons, too: Adults who do wrong get to vanish while admitting only that "unfortunate" questions were raised about "the propriety of certain operational issues." Try that next time you break a rule and see how far it gets you. Ask your social studies teacher how the Hornsby case fits into the behavioral code by which you and your friends must abide.

But look on the bright side: At least Hornsby's gone. Across the river in Alexandria, the drunk-driving superintendent, Rebecca Perry, is still in office, sitting on a nice raise and a vote of support from the school board. Remember kids, do as we say, not as we do.

— Marc Fisher
Washington Post
2005-05-31
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/30/AR2005053001074.html?nav=pq

[Moses]

A Lightning Rod Takes on California Schools


SAN DIEGO – Faced with the difficult task of reviving California's ailing education system, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has turned to perhaps the most controversial reformer in the state - a prosecutor-turned-schools -superintendent whose battles with parents and teachers have divided this city.

Critics say that Alan Bersin, one of several outsiders appointed to superintendent positions nationwide in the late 1990s, sapped morale by ignoring his employees and making teacher education a top priority. But supporters, including the local business community, applauded his efforts to bring radical change to one of the nation's largest school districts.

Now Mr. Bersin is heading to a much larger stage. As Mr. Schwarzenegger's education secretary, the Brooklyn native and former Harvard University football player will take on a bully pulpit in a capital roiled by the governor's new brand of politics.

Bersin "is probably going to make things even more lively than they have been," says Julian Betts, a professor of economics at the University of California at San Diego who specializes in education issues. "He will not be a wallflower in Sacramento."

Dictator or diplomat?

The new job will certainly test Bersin's diplomatic skills. He will be taking over an education reform agenda for the governor that is both ambitious and controversial.

In San Diego, Bersin didn't have a record of building harmony. Opposing sides warred over his reforms from the moment he took over the school district of more than 140,000 students in 1998.

At the outset, teachers complained about the appointment of a noneducator to the superintendent position. Bersin had been serving as US attorney for California's Southern District, a post he was appointed to in 1993 by Bill Clinton, an old Yale Law School buddy. Both Mr. Clinton and Bersin were Rhodes Scholars and attended Oxford University in Britain.

As Bersin's tenure began, union officials balked when he began hiring consultants to educate teachers about better ways to teach subjects like reading.

"He blamed teachers for any failure in student achievement and in the school," says Terry Pesta, president of the San Diego teachers union. "He came in and pretty much said that everything had to change, no one was doing it right. It was his way or the highway."

Bersin gained a reputation as a staunch advocate of change, unwilling to back down even as the local school board dissolved into acrimony over his reforms.

Still, he was hardly without support. Some observers agree that teachers need to be more willing to adopt new approaches to education.

"Professional development and teacher learning are absolutely crucial to the success of schools," says Paula Cordeiro, an education dean at the University of San Diego. "There's hardly a week goes by that I'm not reading a study about how to do a better job of teaching a kid from Korea how to speak English. But this is not an idea that's found in the majority of districts in the United States. They have a notion that once a person is prepared, they go into a district, they teach, that's the end."

She thinks his blunt style was a key reason teachers rebelled at his calls for more professional development. "But I honestly believe that no matter how carefully it had been packaged, there would have been great resistance," she adds. "It's a sea change for some people in my profession."

The merits of Bersin's reforms draw just as much debate as the way they were implemented. Mr. Pesta, the union chief, says that while some test scores rose during his tenure, others remain "abysmal." Mr. Betts, the economics professor, has a brighter view. "The growing consensus is that his reforms really did boost reading achievement in elementary schools. But it's less clear that there were similar gains elsewhere."

Bersin's critics eventually mustered a majority on the school board, and he will depart this year and start his new job in July. Until then, Jack O'Connell, a Democrat, remains in the elected position of state superintendent of public instruction.

Clash with teachers union

Bersin will face a huge swath of challenges, from pushing Schwarzenegger's agenda for reform to addressing the low test scores that have undermined the state's reputation as an education leader.

The California Teachers Association, a union representing some 295,000 teachers in the state, responded to the appointment by criticizing Bersin's record. It's also airing TV commercials criticizing Schwarzenegger.

"What's lacking now ... is a sense of trust and a sense of long-range planning," says Brian Stecher, a researcher with the Rand Corporation who studies education. "All sides have become distrustful of each other, and it makes it hard to negotiate and compromise."

In such an environment, Betts says both sides need to reach out. "It would be a shame if the minute Alan Bersin gets to Sacramento, he and the CTA start lobbing bombs at each other," he says. "They need to start working together at the outset."

— Randy Dotinga
Christian Science Monitor
2005-05-31
www.csmonitor.com/2005/0531/p03s01-uspo.html?s=hns