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As someone with a spouse who has taught for over 10 years in an impoverished, inner-city school, and who has won a very impressive array of grants, awards, cert

As someone with a spouse who has taught for over 10 years in an impoverished, inner-city school, and who has won a very impressive array of grants, awards, certifications and national-level recognition, I could not agree more strongly with this editorial. Americans are under the misapprehension that all of their school woes stem from poor teachers. But even in poor districts like the one my spouse teaches in, which have accumulated a whole layer of apathetic teachers, the impact of both poor and excellent teachers is way overestimated, and the impact of poor and excellent administrations (both the school principal and the district leadership) is tremendously underestimated. A good principal, particularly one with strong school board backing, can almost single-handedly turn an entire school around (I've seen this happen twice now). An excellent teacher with a poor principal and negligent school board can do very little other than provide a strong role model for the most promising students, and (with great effort) pull a handful more of failing students up to the barely passing level than their less talented peers. Primarily, good principals act just like good engineer managers in corporations. Just as good managers keep engineers isolated from the bullshit of upper management and adjacent managers, and give good engineers space to do their jobs, so do good principals let their good teachers do their job, and intervene when poor teachers fail to meet expectations. Regarding the other factors mentioned, I do think poverty is a major hurdle, and the author of this piece rightly underlines its importance in poor school performance, but poverty is primarily an issue in that high-levels of poverty correlate strongly with lack of parental support and engagement (and not always due to a lack of care; often it's because these are single-parent households where that one parent is working all the time). But here an excellent principal can also make a major impact by rallying formerly disengaged parents around their kids and their kids' teachers, and supporting single-parent households where the parent is working multiple jobs. It makes me sad to see all this rhetoric around teachers in the U.S., not only because it's depressing for my spouse to be so unappreciated by people outside the teaching profession, but also because I know it will do little to fix the main problem: school poor administrations. Nor will it address any of the other major contributing factors, like poverty and the lack of respect in high school academic excellent so prevalent in our culture, rich and poor alike.

jwmerrill 12y ago
Really insightful comment. > the impact of both poor and excellent teachers is way overestimated, and the impact of poor and excellent administrations (both the school principal and the district leadership) is tremendously underestimated. Why do you think this happens? I'll speculate: most people form their opinion about what's important in a school by reflecting on their experience as a student. Most students attend only one school of each kind (e.g. elementary, junior, and high school), so they don't have a great frame of reference about the results of different school administrations. But everyone experiences many different teachers, and as a student, you really perceive the differences between the better ones and the worse ones. I bet if you reflect on your own experience as a student, leaving aside the context of your spouse's experience as a teacher, you will have much more vivid memories and opinions about teachers than administrators. I totally agree that it's likely to be much more effective to try to create environments that help all teachers do their jobs more effectively than it is to try to change who we're hiring. I wonder what the best way is to make people "feel" the difference between good administrators and bad ones like they "feel" the difference between their favorite teachers and their least favorite ones.
jacobolus 12y ago
> the impact of both poor and excellent teachers is way overestimated, and the impact of poor and excellent administrations (both the school principal and the district leadership) is tremendously underestimated. A good principal, particularly one with strong school board backing, can almost single-handedly turn an entire school around (I've seen this happen twice now). An excellent teacher with a poor principal and negligent school board can do very little other than provide a strong role model for the most promising students, and (with great effort) pull a handful more of failing students up to the barely passing level than their less talented peers. I think the way you’ve stated this somewhat misattributes the improvement in schools after the administration changes. The culture of a school is set by the whole community, including the teachers, the parents, and the students. While a dysfunctional administration can absolutely wreck the school culture and stifle the teachers, it’s not like any principal who turns a school around is really acting “single-handedly”. More realistically, the teachers at such schools are (at least in cases where I’ve known such teachers) champing at the bit to try new things and bring excitement to their classrooms, but get blocked at every turn by petty bureaucrats in administration and forced to endure all sorts of bullshit, and then when the administration changes to be more accommodating and progressive, it’s like the gate lifts and the teachers can run free. As an example of the opposite, my elementary school was an amazing and wonderful place, with a strong and dedicated teaching staff, and a strong sense of collective purpose. When I was in first grade, the principal left, and the new principal came to the school with rigid ideas about structure and organization, and struggled continuously with several of the more passionate teachers for the first several years (to the point that a couple of them left). But by being surrounded by the culture of the school (teachers, staff, parents, the community at large), over the course of four or five years the new principal became slowly indoctrinated, and learned to appreciate the way the school operated and support the teachers and their methods. By the time I was in 6th grade, and for the following 10 years or so he was principal there, he was one of the strongest advocates and defenders of the school’s unique culture and value system. In other words, I think your comment places an excessive emphasis on the principal and administration per se, sort of like Carlyle’s “great man” theory of history applied to schools.

jwmerrill 12y ago

Really insightful comment. > the impact of both poor and excellent teachers is way overestimated, and the impact of poor and excellent administrations (both the school principal and the district leadership) is tremendously underestimated. Why do you think this happens? I'll speculate: most people form their opinion about what's important in a school by reflecting on their experience as a student. Most students attend only one school of each kind (e.g. elementary, junior, and high school), so they don't have a great frame of reference about the results of different school administrations. But everyone experiences many different teachers, and as a student, you really perceive the differences between the better ones and the worse ones. I bet if you reflect on your own experience as a student, leaving aside the context of your spouse's experience as a teacher, you will have much more vivid memories and opinions about teachers than administrators. I totally agree that it's likely to be much more effective to try to create environments that help all teachers do their jobs more effectively than it is to try to change who we're hiring. I wonder what the best way is to make people "feel" the difference between good administrators and bad ones like they "feel" the difference between their favorite teachers and their least favorite ones.

jacobolus 12y ago

> the impact of both poor and excellent teachers is way overestimated, and the impact of poor and excellent administrations (both the school principal and the district leadership) is tremendously underestimated. A good principal, particularly one with strong school board backing, can almost single-handedly turn an entire school around (I've seen this happen twice now). An excellent teacher with a poor principal and negligent school board can do very little other than provide a strong role model for the most promising students, and (with great effort) pull a handful more of failing students up to the barely passing level than their less talented peers. I think the way you’ve stated this somewhat misattributes the improvement in schools after the administration changes. The culture of a school is set by the whole community, including the teachers, the parents, and the students. While a dysfunctional administration can absolutely wreck the school culture and stifle the teachers, it’s not like any principal who turns a school around is really acting “single-handedly”. More realistically, the teachers at such schools are (at least in cases where I’ve known such teachers) champing at the bit to try new things and bring excitement to their classrooms, but get blocked at every turn by petty bureaucrats in administration and forced to endure all sorts of bullshit, and then when the administration changes to be more accommodating and progressive, it’s like the gate lifts and the teachers can run free. As an example of the opposite, my elementary school was an amazing and wonderful place, with a strong and dedicated teaching staff, and a strong sense of collective purpose. When I was in first grade, the principal left, and the new principal came to the school with rigid ideas about structure and organization, and struggled continuously with several of the more passionate teachers for the first several years (to the point that a couple of them left). But by being surrounded by the culture of the school (teachers, staff, parents, the community at large), over the course of four or five years the new principal became slowly indoctrinated, and learned to appreciate the way the school operated and support the teachers and their methods. By the time I was in 6th grade, and for the following 10 years or so he was principal there, he was one of the strongest advocates and defenders of the school’s unique culture and value system. In other words, I think your comment places an excessive emphasis on the principal and administration per se, sort of like Carlyle’s “great man” theory of history applied to schools.