Editorials

Showing the way

Nov 1, 2007 2:37 PM

Whatever else might be said about the re-re-re-organization of the school system — and educators have said plenty — one possibly good result is that the additional burden heaped on principals could help them understand how necessary it is that they forge a real collaboration with their staffs. In earlier times — there never were any good old days — dictates were handed down from above and autocratic administrators in schools found it easy to simply order people around. Now, principals will sink or swim without a central organization to take the heat. They must find a way to generate strong and willing support by their staff or their schools will flounder.

If this leads to educators in the schools being able to play a more meaningful role in which they truly have a voice, then that is all to the good.

It’s a funny thing with school administrators. All of them in our public schools were once teachers so you’d think that they would understand what it’s like to be in the trenches. But the gulf that divides educators from administrators is, unfortunately, often wide and for some who leap to the administration side that leap seems to cause instant amnesia. They begin to act toward teachers in the very ways that they deeply resented when they themselves were teachers. Why this is so and how to overcome this metamorphosis has always been an unsolvable mystery, but the latest school reorganization may force these principals and APs to try harder to find ways to empower and enthuse and work with their staffs.

It’s not as if such things are unheard of in the school system. Some administrators have been able to do this all along. What that kind of leadership does for the spirit in the schools and for the success of the students is exciting. We will be reporting on examples of such enthusiastic schoolwide collaboration in a series called “Schools that work,” which we will be starting soon. And at the Teacher Union Day festivities on Nov. 4, the UFT will present a brand- new School Partnership Award to a half-dozen chapter leaders and principals of schools that have set a high standard of collaboration.

It’s thrilling to hear about schools like that because they show how schools ought to be run and can be run. They should be the norm. Sadly they aren’t. But schools like these show the way and give us hope.