The C.L.B. Report

First, let me say “thank you” to all the principals and asst. principals in America.  While they certainly cannot achieve success alone, they are the commanding generals, on-the-ground, in the war to improve our school system.  If this wasn’t clear before our discussion last week, it’s certainly clear to me now!

For context of what I mean:

In September 2003, The Wallace Foundation released a report entitled ”Making Sense of Leading Schools: A National Study of the Principalship”.  Initially launched in 2000, by faculty from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, the study was part of a major, multi-year, multi-million dollar effort to help improve and develop new leadership for American Schools.

Essentially, the study team poses five (5) major conclusions in the report. I’d like to focus on two of those for the purposes of this post.

1. The core of the principal’s job is diagnosing his or her particular school’s needs and, given the resources and talents available, deciding how to meet them.

2. Principals learn by doing.  However trained, most principals think they learned the skills they need “on the job”.

These two conclusions form the framework of my belief that principals are “the commanding generals, on-the-ground, in the war to improve our school system.”  No matter what goals or policies outlined by the State Boards of Education, every city, town, district, and neighborhood is different; therefore, the “best approach” to educating youth in those particular environments must, inherently, be different.

A principal must, above all else, diagnose the core social, political, and economic dynamics affecting his or her school community and start a solutions-oriented campaign based on that “intelligence”. 

Click here to read more of this post.

Share