Editor’s note: This commentary is by Peter Berger, an English teacher at Weathersfield School, who writes “Poor Elijah’s Almanack.” The column appears in several publications, including the Times Argus, the Rutland Herald and the Stowe Reporter.
The nation just finished celebrating National Principals Month. In case you missed it, don’t feel bad. I’m not sure even my principal knew.
According to the two national principals associations’ less than modest joint press release, “the key to a great school is a great principal.” Echoing that sentiment, the reform-minded Learning First Alliance declared that public school leaders are “second only to classroom teachers in terms of in-school factors impacting student learning.”
This runner-up ranking rests on a fundamental fallacy. The most important in-school factor impacting student learning is neither the teacher nor the principal, but the student himself, his ability and his effort. Attached to each student are his parents, whose “impact,” though they’re not actually “in-school,” rightly and effectively dwarfs mine as his teacher. Reformers and policymakers are fond of leaving students and parents out of the “impact” equation. Blaming low achievement on employees, rather than placing responsibility on students and parents, is a far safer position for elected politicians and officials to take.
Recognizing that like every student, parent and teacher, every principal is an individual with an individual impact, for good or for bad, what can we observe in general about school administrators?
Before you get the wrong idea, I’ve been fortunate during my time in the classroom to work for and with three competent, reasonable principals. Each had learned from years of experience as a classroom teacher, and none of them forgot what it was like to work with real students in a real classroom. Each viewed our school’s teachers as colleagues whose opinions were welcome, valued, and considered. At the same time, there was never any doubt that each was the boss. I know this because I periodically disagreed with and was overruled by each of them. Each also understood that being the boss meant both helping teachers who needed guidance, and respecting the judgment of those who had proven themselves competent in their classrooms.
I know there are other principals like mine. However, I also know from observation and conversation over decades that my experience is not the common experience of many of my teacher colleagues in other schools.
Many administrators don’t bring years of teaching experience with them. Some flee the classroom after barely surviving the minimum required for an administrator’s license. Some have served strictly as special educators, and while that admirable work requires instructional skill and specialized knowledge, managing individual and small group special education settings is a different world from managing a classroom, never mind a school full of classrooms.
If you read between the lines, and sometimes simply read the lines themselves, you’ll find that to be an instructional leader, you have to lead your teachers in the right momentary direction so they all swear allegiance and “buy in” to the latest instructional fashion. If a principal doesn’t toe the party line, or either can’t or chooses not to compel his teachers to fall in, that principal isn’t an instructional leader.
Some aspire to the principal’s chair, and beyond, because they can make more money, which is not a bad thing, or because in education, becoming an administrator is the route to acquiring the power that comes from advancement in any business. This is rarely a healthy lust, especially in an enterprise dedicated to providing a service.
Others hope as administrators to have a broader, more profound effect on children’s education. Even this good intention can be problematic if your sense of mission blinds you to the practical realities of life in the classroom or to your own limitations as a master of all things educational.
I’ve met some mediocre teachers, but I’ve rarely met any who think they know everything. That’s because we spend our days dealing with children who routinely prove that we don’t. Administrators, on the other hand, spend most of their time with other administrators. They sometimes squabble, but when it comes to that season’s bandwagon theory, method, curriculum, or assessment, they reinforce each other’s temporary wisdom. They all endorsed No Child Left Behind, until they didn’t, and they’ll all promote the Common Core, until they don’t.
Woe betide any teacher, or administrator, who doesn’t believe what they do, at that particular moment.
If you’re wondering why schools and school districts seem to stagger from one initiative and grand scheme to another, bear in mind that the ranks of superintendents and other central office officials are typically filled by former principals. While I’ve known some capable superintendents, including two of my exemplary principals, that’s frequently not the way career advancement in public education works.
When they’re not managing the day-to-day business of running a school, 21st century principals are expected to serve as “instructional leaders.” In a perfect display of education reform’s incredible myopia, the National Association of Elementary School Principals actually describes the idea that principals should be the teacher-leaders of their schools as “a relatively new concept that emerged in the early 1980s.” This, of course, ignores the fact that principals for centuries have been and in some places still are known as “headmasters” because they’re the leaders of the other masters in their schools, also known as teachers.
The contemporary definition of “instructional leader” is predictably jargon-laden and virtually meaningless, resting on “core beliefs” and abstractions like “facilitative leadership” and “a culture of public practice and reflective practice.” In the name of school improvement, NAESP-designated experts wrestle with other crucial issues, like whether to call principals “instructional leaders” or “learning leaders.”
If you read between the lines, and sometimes simply read the lines themselves, you’ll find that to be an instructional leader, you have to lead your teachers in the right momentary direction so they all swear allegiance and “buy in” to the latest instructional fashion. If a principal doesn’t toe the party line, or either can’t or chooses not to compel his teachers to fall in, that principal isn’t an instructional leader.
I’d like to propose an alternate, more straightforward definition. An instructional leader is someone who knows how to teach and can help another teacher get better at it. If we had more principals like that, and the good ones we have were allowed more time and freedom to help and lead, our schools would be stronger.
Unfortunately, decisions about these things are made by upper level administrators who at best make visits to classrooms but never live in them.
It’s tough to recognize an instructional leader if you aren’t one yourself.
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