It Is About Time That The News Media Is Starting To Realize The Poor Quality Of The Principals

tonysam

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Sat Feb-06-10 01:54 PM
Original message

It Is About Time That The News Media Is Starting To Realize The Poor Quality Of The Principals

Edited on Sat Feb-06-10 02:11 PM by tonysam

Being Selected By Tweed And How It Hurts The Children

In the good old days for an educator to become a Principal it took many years of working their way up the ladder. First, the educator spent a minimum of ten years in the classroom, earning the respect of his or her peers. Then the educator spent a minimum of five years as an Assistant Principal, which included teaching one or two classes. Finally, the educator was offered a Principal position and while some principals might have had problems with their staff the vast majority of principals were respected by the staff due to their experience as a educator who rose through the ranks. However, than came the non-educators who came to dominate the upper levels of the DOE, lead by Chancellor Joel Klein who turned the New York City public school system upside down and not for the better.

Under the non-educator, Chancellor Joel Klein, we saw the formation of the "Leadership Academy". This program was a shortcut for people who had little or no experience in education to become a Principal, The problem was that these "newbie" principals have no classroom experience and had not worked in a school environment. The result has been a deterioration in principal quality. I previously, wrote about this here. It is these inexperienced "Leadership Academy" principals who have been told to run their school as they please that have caused the ATR crises and overcrowded "rubber rooms". However, the greatest problem is that these principals lack "common sense" as reported by Joanna Molloy of the New York Daily News and that brings me to the two dopey principals at JHS 190 and PS 52 who caused the City extreme embarrassment and ridicule. Remarkably, the Principal of JHS 190 actually defended her actions. Unbelievable! Even the DOE's mouthpiece, the New York Post had an editorial on these stupid principals. What will eventually happen to these principals? Probably nothing but a letter to their file. Yes, principals do get letters to their file. As for being reassigned to the "rubber room"? That's not happening.

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Oh how I wish for the days of yore when principals were actually once teachers who had taught for many, many years in the public education system and were just a few years from retirement (65--not 50--by the way) and who actually demonstrated a love for children and a deepseated passion for the profession of teaching.

Not anymore. Now we have principals who are barely out of college--and I mean traditional college age students--who teach only a couple of years if that before taking on a job which gives them absolute power over teachers. More often than not, they are people who can't teach, who don't know the law as it pertains to teachers' property rights, who don't know their asses from holes in the ground as in the case of my last principal who wrongfully fired me when she didn't one damned thing she was supposed to do by Nevada law or the union contract or FMLA.

Worst of all there is NO real accountability of principals. This is the real problem in public education, and it is the result of the simple fact principals are not closely supervised, and they need to be.