District invites corporate managers to become school principals

[proud2BlibKansan]

KC district mines businesses for school principals

By JOE ROBERTSON
The Kansas City Star

The Chamber of Commerce crowd has insisted they want to help the Kansas City School District — and on Wednesday, the district gave them a surprising option:

Become a principal — this coming school year.

If the district could find good matches, corporate managers might take charge of one or two schools still without a principal, said Steve Harris, assistant superintendent of human resources.

“It would be kind of like a TFA (Teach for America) for principals,” Harris said after the forum with civic leaders.

More ... http://www.kansascity.com/2010/06/16/2023168/kc-district-mines-businesses-for.html

[msongs]

1. good idea. then we can replace failing students with better as no office manager would retain

workers who fail. wow, we can replace all the trouble making kids and special kids and kids with no home and parents who don't give a crap, with only competent test passers and scores will go up. Gee what if teachers could do that right now without a corporate takeover.

Msongs

[Vampire Knight]

2. We already have enough

principals that don't know what the heck they're doing. Principals who never spent a minute teaching in an actual classroom. Glorified counselors who want to tell teachers how to teach based on theory alone and entirely minus experience.

Let's quit pretending and formalize the process by bringing in utter and absolute outsiders.

I think that one of the biggest problems with the educational system anywhere in this country is that there are too many cooks. Too many people think that they should have input into what happens in schools, no matter their level of pedagogical knowledge or experience. This is how we get "blame the teachers" policies where districts fire half or more of their teachers. When teachers have absolutely no authority in their own classrooms, students pick up on it instinctively and feel free to do what they will. After all, their bad behavior will ultimately be blamed on the teacher who has to fend for herself when admin won't even take her side.

In a non-functioning school relationship, the highest authority rests with the parents, no matter what caliber of parents they are. Next in the line of authority is the student. Then the principal, then, lastly the teacher. I've gone to conferences with the parents of students who have outright vandalized my classroom and destroyed school property, and I felt like I was the one on trial. The kid just batted his drug blearied eyes at his useless mother and she believed every word he said. "No," she tells me, "you have him wrong: he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time". The assistant principal nods. "What can we do," he asks as he leans over the table and steeples his fingers, "to help improve this classroom relationship?" I gag.

[LWolf]

3. I'm so sorry.

That my city of birth thinks non-educators will be better at education than actual educators.

:(

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Our union leadership is opposed to this stupid idea

And the HR director is taking a leave of absence for 6 months beginning July 1. I doubt this dumb idea will go anywhere. Mainly posted it for amusement.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. R #5. Sounds like Bloomberg's "Leadership Academy";

Named thusly because it produces sycophantic drones by the score to mindlessly follow orders from the politicians who created them. On the taxpayers' dime, of course.




>>>Harris imagines that a corporate manager might be willing to take a one-year sabbatical, go through intensive training, and learn about education from the inside.>>>>

One of our admins is a Leadership Academy grad. Believe me, if *she* can graduate, the training can't possibly be "intensive".

[Hannah Bell]

6. because business is such a model for "success". why don't they just invite mafia dons to run them.

[MichiganVote]

7. Sure, and let's enact an evaluation plan for them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Let's start with attendance

Since they are eliminating the truancy dept, school attendance is a good place to start for an administrator's evaluation. :)

[MichiganVote]

9. God ain't that the truth. LOL!