What is an “empowered” school? Who are we “empowering”? Klein seems to want to “empower” schools by freeing principals of the “constraints” imposed by union contracts. Creating a system of autocratic leaders and subservient workers simply results in sullen workplaces and is antithetical to the goals of effective schools.
Leadership is defined not by words, but by deeds.
The leader of the Empowerment Schools initiative is Eric Nadelstern, the founding principal of The International High School at LaGuardia College. The teachers at International High School select and evaluate their peers. The manual “Personnel Practices for Peer Selection, Support, and Evaluation,” (last modified 6/16/03) describes the peer selection practice at the International High School,
…a faculty personnel committee responsible for the recruitment and selection of new applicants for faculty positions. The impact of this committee was powerful. The faculty began to look at the total needs of the school, to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the setting, and to analyze the backgrounds and experiences that make teachers successful…. When staffing is a shared activity, the entire faculty accepts responsibility … we are committed to helping them succeed.
The manual goes on the describe the peer evaluation philosophy espoused by the school community.
…members of the committee felt that the traditional evaluation procedure they had experienced in their many years of teaching was humiliating, intimidating, and punitive. Regardless of its purpose, traditional evaluation in school is viewed as destructive by some, mechanical by others and not something to be taken seriously by many. It is an authoritarian procedure, with little or no consideration for the needs and abilities of the teacher.
Are we moving toward the Klein or the Nadelstern view of “empowerment”?
Over three hundred schools, with many elementary and middle schools have chosen to participate in the initiative. School leaders, hopefully with faculty input, wrote a brief essay, were “accepted,” the principal signed a “performance agreement” and in a process resembling “speed dating” chose their network leader from an online biography.
The networks are made up of 20-25 schools, most networks are K-12 with schools scattered throughout the city (a few networks are made up of small high schools).
The network leaders do NOT supervise the network, they work for the network, no more regional superintendents, no more LIS.
The core of “empowerment” appears to be a new accountability system, that is in addition to the NCLB/State assessments.
Students will be tested five times a years (ECLAS in grades K-2, a new iteration of Princeton Review in grades 3-8 and a yet undefined system in high schools) with the prescriptions coming back to the school within days. Ideally schools will use the results of the tests to inform instruction.
Schools/Networks can design their own assessment systems, although the time frames are tight and it will be difficult.
The core of the system is a complex rating system. In addition to the NCLB system of annual yearly progress (AYP) schools will be “ranked” according to average student growth and receive a letter grade from “A” down to “F.” Yes, sounds like that college classroom when the prof marked “on a curve.”
If schools receive poor grades “interventions” can result in the removal of the principal or even the closing of the school.
Every teacher I’ve ever met wanted his/her kids to do well … turning factory model schools into true learning communities will enhance the lives of kids and teachers. Can the network teams provide the necessary supports? Will the threat of receiving a “D” or an “F” make folks work harder? or smarter?
The “glass half full” folk see, at long last, a movement toward granting school communities decision-making responsibility within their buildings, “empowering” staff and hopefully “empowering” kids.
The “glass half empty” folk see a back door to “rating” individual teachers by pupil achievement and creating a “pay for performance” system.
I am a perpetual optimist, I can show you my scars, hopefully the Eric’s of the world will prevail.
1 Comment:
1 Math_Teacher
· Aug 7, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Nadelstern’s description of hiring at Queens International sounds a lot like the way we do hiring. Our principal certainly retains a first-among-equals voice, but we all have our say, and those who care to express their beliefs are heard. Just as we show our students respect by holding them to high standards, we should do the same for our colleagues, and this starts at hiring.
(This is, in my opinion, a big reason for the results delivered by the “good charter schools”: they’re very careful to hire the best people. We’ve been able to do the same without being a charter. I wonder, though, if this is scalable — if we have to beat the bushes and receive 20-50 indications of interest for each person we ultimately hire, what will other schools do? Someone is hiring the people we find wanting.)
My big concern about “Empowerment” and specifically about the Progress Report (the A-F rating) is that a large part of it is based on performance relative to peer schools. What will this do to incentives for collaboration and collegiality, to the potential of schools that have “figured it out” to help other schools do better? It’s a pretty complex system, but I hope someone at the UFT is looking at the accountability structure in detail.
(One thing which I think *is* very good is that the new system looks explicitly at “value added”: student progress through time, rather than snapshots of student proficiency. I will have to be convinced about the specific measures, however.)
By the way, both official DoE documents and news coverage seem to scrupulously point out that “Empowerment” measures do not supersede provisions of existing contracts. While this may be Klein’s larger, hidden agenda, I think they’re being careful not to push it as part of the ES initiative.
For some background, see Clara Hemphill’s articles at Gotham Gazette:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/education/20060623/6/1891
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/education/20060727/6/1924
(A slightly longer version of the first is also at InsideSchools, which she heads, I believe:
http://www.insideschools.org/nv/NV_empowerment_schools_jun06.php)