Leadership: Get Over Yourselves, Educators

Degreed educators don't "own" public education anymore, just like traditionally trained teachers don't own classrooms (and professional journalists don't own journalism, FWIW). Those times are gone.  It's not like the old way was uniformly better than the new way, either. That's why having a nontraditional superintendent with help from career educators isn't particularly new or objectionable.  GothamSchools describes how other cities have done the CEO /CAO thing  (A look at three other cities).  The Hechinger Report's Sarah Garland connects the curent debate to the underlying issues of experience vs. performance in the classroom (Experience necessary?). A 2001 Jay Mathews article in AASA's School Administration describes the trend's early beginnings (Chief Academic Officers). 

Comments

[Bernardo]

Get over yourself, Russo. Tell us please, who does "own" public education, if not the educators?

[Alexander Russo]

who owns public education, if not educators?
how about parents, taxpayers, students?

educators lost their monopoly over public education in large part by having done done such a mediocre job of educating kids.

[Peter]

This taxpayer hates the fact that the corporatists are sucking the life out of the taxpayer by corporatizing public schools. Just what we need more taxpayer $$$$ lining the pockets of corporate cronies.

Russo, perhaps Scholastic should suspend you ie: like msnbc did to Olberman for choosing sides.

Why don't you start reporting down the middle and with facts- Or have you already chosen the side and that's the team you've decided to play on?

[Alexander Russo]

i'm just as critical of the charter and reform folks as i am of educators -- it's an equal opportunity thing. check out some of my other posts and you'll see. i just don't agree that school districts have to be run by educators -- i understand the sentiment, and i may well be wrong (often am). but that's how i see this one from my little bloggy perch. being an educator doesn't make you any good at it, just like being a charter doesn't make it a good school.

[Kate]

I'm all for fresh blood, and Education does sometimes look like a stifling leadership clique to us outsiders. I've never quite understood why ALL the people in charge of education should be those who the current system worked BEST for, that is to say those who not only finished public school with good grades but went on to college and often went on extra college after that.

But it's a lot easier to shout about how poor the quality of education in general is in the US than it is to fix it. Lots of the problems can't be fixed by the educators themselves, whether they are professionally trained or not. Having 20% of kids living below the poverty level is a scandal in a country as rich as the US, and DUH, it has an impact on their ability to perform well in school.

I've voted with my feet and no longer live in America. I'm glad to visit, but I most certainly will not send my kids to school there.

[Tom]

I think the word "own" frames the argument poorly. No teacher thinks they should have complete control of public education. Teachers only ask for two things, two things that are seemingly too much to ask. Number one: That we have some voice in how we teach the students in our classroom (imagine a science teacher or art teacher who has their evaluation done by a principal with a business degree and you get the idea) and second, we want our education leaders to be knowledgable about pedagogy and not only business practices. Why is there even a debate about these two issues? And yet here you have a blogger who is supposedly somewhat critical of corporate reformers and even he can not completely support these two basic ideas. That is where the debate is now. It is depressing.

[Sue]

I am tired of not being treated as a professional. Just because you may know a few lousy educators does not make us all idiots. If you think business people running the educational system will be better, you are extremely wrong. If the people in charge do not know how students learn or how to teach, the mandates are worthless. Race to the Top and National Standards will ruin the educational system. Bureaucrats and people out of the classroom should not be making major decisions about curriculum. Ask a classroom teacher. As a frustrated, veteran teacher, I am beaten down by people making me teach in a box, filling out paperwork, and testing my students beyond what is reasonable. I am all for raising the standards. If teachers were allowed to do what they know best, the standards will be high; there will be success, and the educatonal system will be back on track to compete with other nations. Let us have some common sense and do what is best for the childresn, not the legislators, scores in the newspapers, or the State Ed. Dept.