Yesterday I posted on Facebook that I am retiring. I shared this blog in my post because, #1, in my experience it is true, but more importantly, I think public education in the United States needs to look very closely at who our building and district level administrators are, why they are in those positions, and what we are doing to ensure that they are highly trained leaders of human capital.
I’m not retiring because I hit my 30 years and 80 points, although that is true. I’m retiring because the last three years have taught me that public education isn’t a very kind place for teachers and teacher leaders anymore. This is true for a variety of reasons. Those largely out of our control include mandates at the national and state level and the increasing rhetorical war against public education that often places teachers (and therefore students) as either enemy or victim, and sometimes both simultaneously.
But there are areas very much in our control that can make sure that teachers receive the support and resources they need to do one of our nation’s most important jobs; educate our children. The most important is site and district level administrators.
I need to be really clear about my position on this. Assistant principals, principals, directors, and superintendents have vital and often incredibly difficult jobs in making sure our kids get educated. But there is no person in a school district who more directly impacts whether or not a student learns than the classroom teacher.
And this creates the potential problem: the individual with the most influence over whether or not we achieve our goal (educating kids) has the least power and control.
Which takes me back to administrators. In my career I have worked for fantastic administrators, both at the site and district level. For the last three years that hasn’t been the case, and is why I am opting to retire. This isn’t a personal vendetta, rather it has made me look really closely at what changed, and the answer is NOTHING.
Those years with fantastic administrators were pure luck. I happened upon administrators whose goal was to put students first. And doing so, they did their damndest to support classroom teachers. I also happened upon administrators whose goal was to move up the ladder, look good to their superiors, and earn that golden parachute—teachers and kids be damned—they are either asset or liability.
But whether or not a teacher works for an amazing boss or an ineffective one should not be left up to a roll of the dice. Unfortunately our current system does little to minimize the game of chance. The food chain works like this:
Teacher–>master’s in something (create your own raise)–>stay in the classroom.
Teacher–>master’s in administration (create your own raise)–>assistant principal (create a better raise)–>principal maybe get a doctorate (create a better raise) –>directorassistantsuperintendentsuperintendent (best raises).
The system rewards the people farthest away from making the biggest difference. Add on top of that after the promotion to administrator there is precious little support or professional development that actually helps administrators be…good administrators. And that’s when the top down accountability can become painful for those with their boots on the ground (i.e. teachers).
This isn’t earth shattering; the professional organizations have been writing about it for years. Under ESSA states and districts are now able to use Title II funding to develop administrators, which is great.
But my fundamental problem continues to be, how do we mitigate a structure that doesn’t work because of the structure itself. Perhaps that just gives ammo to those who support charter schools and vouchers—or even more so those at the state and federal level who appear to want to dismantle public education for good (often while lining their own wallets). Good luck with that.
I have been a public educator for 30 years. The teachers I have worked with are some of the most caring and committed people I will ever know. I am proud of that.
And we need to take care of them.
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