Blue Ribbon Panel on School Leadership

cmurray  posted on: 09/21/12 09:17 AM

I haven't stirred the pot yet in 1999, and thought I'd start the new year off by sharing my email message to Mike Masse, member of the Commissioner's Panel on Leadership, VP of Chase Bank in Syracuse and member of the FM BOE. Anybody feel the same way? You might like to email Mike at mjmasse.syr.com. Enjoy the diatribe! Mike - Congratulations on being appointed to the Blue Ribbon Panel on School Leadership. Certainly the contact I have had with you over the past three years makes me believe you are committed to excellence in public schooling in NY, and your appointment to this panel helps me restore a little bit of faith in the process being employed to tackle this difficult issue. My biggest beef with the Commissioner and SED at this point is that they inadvertantly ( I hope) add to the burden of the school leaders across the state. SED employs top-down management of issues rather than really involving the leaders in place whom they are now trying to cajole and coddle and make feel good about themselves. They are puppets to the legislature which is clearly anti-public education ( witness the culpable silence of SED on the Charter Schools legislation recently railroaded through politicians chambers)and anti-administration ( salary disclosure and caps on defeated budgets) and they lack the common touch ( Carl Hayden is a much more viable embodiment of what public schools should be about than Rick Mills or Jim Kadamus, and none of them compare in my mind to Tom Sobol whom we allowed to be ousted by the dispicable power-hungry man in the Governor's office.) Our own leaders are busy taking pot-shots at what we do every day instead of rallying the troops and standing up for what's really best for all of the children of all of the people. Instead of an environment of teamwork and shared effort, we have established a hierarchy of haves and have-nots and a focus on the most problmeatic areas ( the cities) as if they are something that need outside intervention to fix instead of real empowerment of the people in the trenches. I've only been a superintendent for 6 years and a principal for 4 before that, but I feel much less empowered to make effective change for the benefit of my local school today than I did when I entered the field. School superintendents and principals are relegated to one of a number of constituent groups the commissioner appeals to for advice on issues. We should be the key lieutentants in this commander's war on illiteracy and mediocrity. Instead, I too often feel that because we are small in number compared to the teacher's union, the taxpayer coalitons and the parent groups, we are the excluded indentured servants who are slapped in the face with every new decision coming down the pike. I do not feel supported in my efforts to bring real effective teaching and learning to the little corner of the universe I get to call my own. Not from Rick Mills, not from the Board of Regents, not from SED and certainly not from my legislative representatives. Thank God for my Board! Sometimes it feels likes its us against everyone else out there. That sort of hostile environment toward educators, education and educational leadership ( schoolmen) is something I can tolerate and even expect from a community at large. I should not have to tolerate it from the ranks of my own leadership. Regional scoring is a prime example of the disregard for the opinions of school superintendents which permeats the current culture in Albany. The reform to the graduation requirements is another - more of the same instead of what school leaders called for. Why? Because we are guilty of running the education department the way Bill Clinton runs the federal government- by poll and popular demand. Even the examination of school leadership of which you and this missive are part does not weigh in heavily enough with a frank discussion from school leaders about the nature of the problem. Instead we have panels and conventions of all sorts of people who are not the school leaders! Want to really hear what the problem is and how to solve it? Hold a special session at the mid-winter conference of NYSCOSS and get an earful. If there's one message I would ask you to pass along in your comments it is the frustration this particular practitioner feels with the internl rewards of leadership in education in this state. They are woefully inadequate. I happen to think I'm a pretty with-it and together kind of guy when it comes to not being power-hungry or inflated too much in the ego department. I think I run a damn good little school that supports good teachers doing good things with kids. I have supervised four administrative interships to date and have five more people involved in administrative coursework currently ( out of only 55 teachers in my little district). I think I show people how much fun it can be to do things well for teachers and kids. I should not consider my own State Education department more of an anethema to my efforts than my own taxpayers, and I do. I think that's a sadder comment than the demographics of who's availbale to apply for what job. If the Chris Manaseri's of this world get down on what the tasks of effective school leaders are and should be, we've got a big problem! Thanks for asking for my opinion. Bope you can translate it into something presentable. Would love to talk more with you about the issue. Have fun on the panel, Mike! Chris