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Class Notes
	More local control will help build better D.C.schools (Published June 2, 2003) By H. WELLS WULSIN

Schools must be flexible and adaptive, because the needs of students at one school may be markedly different from the needs of students at another school. Unfortunately, right now in the District, schools lack the local control they need to develop the best learning environment for their student population. Too many decisions are dictated by the central DCPS office and not enough are left to those closest to the students.

To build a great school - especially in some of the challenging conditions faced in the District - requires a strong leader who can chart a vision of excellence and inspire a school community to pursue the highest standard of education. But our principals, the leaders in our schools, have their hands tied in ways that make it hard for them to effectively guide a school community to success. Principals need more local control over their staff, their students and their budgets.

I know several teachers who were hired by the District early in the summer but assigned to a school on the first day of classes in the fall. They reported to a principal who had never met them, and who was unaware that they were coming to the school at all. For these teachers the first few days of instruction - the most crucial time for making a strong positive impression on students - were wasted as they waited to find out which classes to teach and which students would be on their roster. Principals should interview all new teachers at their school and have more voice in which teachers are hired.

Dismissal procedures for teachers should also be streamlined. Every good principal wants to retain effective teachers. But the teacher tenure system makes it nearly impossible to get rid of a teacher who has spent more than three years in the system, even if that teacher consistently fails to meet expectations. Before being dismissed, the contract dictates that a teacher must be given extensive support and mentoring, which a school often cannot afford. A colleague at another school told me of one English teacher who hurled a stapler across the classroom, aimed at a student. Instead of being fired, the teacher was transferred to another school in the District. Shuffling bad teachers from one school to the next will certainly not improve education in our city.

If we don't empower principals to find and keep excellent teachers, how can we ever expect them to create excellent schools? Constrained by the District's policies, principals have limited opportunities to reward hard work and discourage mediocrity. Few incentives are offered for teachers to strive toward excellence.

Also, principals need to be able to set professional expectations for their staff. They ought to be able to ask teachers to submit weekly written lesson plans, attend regular department meetings and perform limited after-school duties. Some principals do not require anything beyond the bare minimum teaching load, because they fear violating the DCPS teachers' contract.

Requirements for students set by the DCPS central office sometimes have negative effects. To graduate from a D.C. high school, students are required to complete 23.5 Carnegie units, distributed among different subjects. But by taking a full course-load, a student can earn eight Carnegie units per year. This means by their senior year, most students only have one or two units left to complete, and so they only enroll in half a day of classes. Academically superior students may deserve such a privilege, but there is something wrong with letting a senior go home at lunch when they cannot write a five-paragraph persuasive essay or multiply two fractions together. Principals need the power to set graduation requirements that ensure students take enough classes to meet minimum levels of proficiency.

Principals should also have more control over their schedules. Many charter schools have achieved better results by adopting an extended school day or Saturday classes. Why can't our public schools innovate in the same way? The DCPS calendar dictates dates for exams, teacher professional development and teachers' conferences. But if a school's curriculum would be better suited to holding those events on alternate dates, it should have the flexibility to revise its own calendar.

Finally, principals need greater control over their budgets. DCPS spends more than $10,000 per student, but schools receive only about $6,000 of that money. Some central administrative overhead is inevitable, but 40 percent is too much. Good principals use money wisely to improve their school. The more the spending is decentralized, the farther the money is removed from the students who need it most. The 1996 report of the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future found that developed European and Asian countries do not spend more money on education than we do, but they hire more teachers and fewer support staff to manage bureaucracy. In our country, only 45 percent of our educational staff are classroom teachers, while teachers make up over 75 percent of Japan's educational staff. Principals, with greater control over their budgets, could increase the number of staff who are in direct contact with students and who make the biggest difference in the quality of education.

No manager in a company would be asked to improve his division's profits without the power to reform working conditions, implement more effective procedures, recruit better personnel and reallocate funding. But this is exactly what principals are being asked to do: improve their schools with only limited control over their students, staff and budget.

The argument for local control is not an argument for dictatorship. A power-hungry principal who imposes draconian regulations will quickly fail. But wise principals will work hard to develop a consensus on best practices through teacher meetings, consultations with department chairs, parent conferences and student government requests. This type of local control entrusts leadership abilities to a principal without letting go of the reins. Still there must be control from the top, in the form of oversight by the District, to ensure that the school is meeting stated goals. There must also be control from the bottom, by giving parents the option to apply for openings at other schools if they are dissatisfied by the results at their neighborhood school.

Just because there are a few incompetent principals does not mean we should tie the hands of all the rest and try to centralize all important decisions in a downtown office building. Excellent schools need strong leadership and the autonomy to adapt to the specific needs of their student population. If we are willing to give schools greater local control, then parents, students and principals will be empowered to build truly successful learning communities.