Columnist EducationNews.org
"Do it right the first time 100% on time all the time or hit the road!"
Who's talking and who does she think she's talking to?
Is she the owner of a diner barking out orders to her busboys who are forced, though not resigned, to heed and to heel because otherwise there may be no bread on their families' tables or roofs over their heads?
Or is it from the mouth of one of the unbred new breed of "CEO" cloned principals on whose uneasy head,by virtue of some unknown virtue, the DOE has tried to confer absolute power, including the pregogative to abuse against which only the UFT contract stands in potent defiance?
When a principal bullies his professional staff, is it indeed a sign that he has met the challenge of rising to make choices based on raw executive privilege? One of the few hard and fast rules of quality leadership is avoidance of the temptation to be a cad.
Whether a principal has a stone-aged or an enlightened mentality is not automatically a reflection of how much experience she's had or how (or whether) she's come up through the system. But no honorable character will turn bestial even if the DOE gives her its blessing to do so.
Principals who want progress for their schools and serenity for themselves will desire, if for no other reason than the self-serving, practical expedient of having a smooth-running school, an earned reputation for decency. Whether they are a new-age "CEO" or an old-fashioned garden-variety principal from the pre-"reform" days when collaboration and shared-decision- making were not only endorsed in attitude,but also codified in DOE regulations, they realize that positive human relations skills translate into greater productivity and loyalty in the workplace. What have theyto gain by succumbing to the false lure of being a brute, simply because the DOE gives them the green light?
Head games, power plays, and guilt trips are not in the playbook of any secure and worthy leader.
A strong principal will indeed run a "tight ship," but it is the "tightness" of her grip on facts and creative ideas, rather than her compression of the throats of her staff that leads to defining moments and finest hours of stewardship. After all, a school with 100 staff members with an average of 10 years of service, represents 1,000 years of aggregate inspiration and evolved teaching strategies. Given that recently appointed principals are, for the most part, much younger and far less experienced than frontline educators of any pre-Klein era, you'd think that every principal would welcome input from diffuse sources, especially since they would not sacrifice the coveted trappings of their Henry the Eighth-like authority. Instead, some principals ( one can argue over the percentage) seem to view themselves as a human antibody crusading against the infection embodied by a faculty that presumes it has something meaningful to contribute.
Although the DOE will practically always side with any principal in any skirmish with any educator on most school-related issues, even when their position would be unanimously found legally wrong and ethically reprehensible by a panel of a thousand attorneys ( ones that are not touched by the bristly brush of a relationship with Tweed ), the DOE substantially abandons its "CEO"s not only when these principals are besieged by crisis, but even when everyday situations, become a bit sticky.Most principals will admit this, although those in active service or with designs on a sweetheart retirement gig, feel the hardly exaggerated pressure to be accepted into a witness protection program as a buffer against the DOE's retaliation.
It is no secret. The Department of Education is a staunch fair weather friend. But when the clouds thicken and darken and there is a storm of events, even when caused solely by the DOE's mandated policies, it's as though the bedrock has shifted and the individual school discovers it is an island and is exposed to the harsh elements. And it's the principal who the DOE will scramble to sandbag, not the beach!
Another metaphor, this one more mixed than is the record of the chancellor's publicity office.
The DOE is a sprawling sheltering oak tree and its schools, particularly its principals, are its vital limbs for as long as here are no bitter frosts or howling winds to uproot it. Should a gale of bad publicity blow in the form of test scores or other inconvenient and often undeservingly embarassing statistics or incidents, that DOE "tree"sheds the school "limb" in the same way as some lizards(especially those that eat their offspring) break off their tails to escape a grim accounting.
In their hearts' core and in their minds' eye, nearly every principal realizes that they must depend on their staff, not the DOE, not only for vindication but for survival.
For this reason many principals are maturing beyond the temporary and illusory thrill of being an autocrat.
But there are still many principals who have bought into the "my way or the highway" fantasy. They think such recklessness is the new "safe." But my courting disaster they shall end up married to ruin.
Published August 29, 2008
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