Reforming Schools: Superintendent Leadership, Principal Leadership, and School Cultures

comments welcomed Reforming Schools: Superintendent Leadership, Principal Leadership, and School Cultures Robert Maranto Villanova University Department of Political Science Villanova University, Villanova, PA 19085 610-519-7142 (Fax: 7487) or 610-299-3683 (cell); robert.maranto@villanova.edu

Ch. 1. Approaches to School Reform • The Challenges of Public Schooling • Social Conflict: Chubb/Moe, Tyack/Cuban, Jon Zimmerman, and Richard Mitchell on the conflicting goals paradox • Racial oppression (Orfield, etc.) • Bureaucracy: Chubb/Moe, Hill, Ingersoll, and Downs on the rigidity cycle • Personnel Matters:David Labaree’s paradox; Wilbur Rich’s paradox, Howard Fuller’s Turkey Farms • Leadership: Denny Hastert’s paradox • Scholarly Approaches to Urban Schooling: • Kozol/Orfield/Berliner (if you spend it, it will come)…but Kansas City plus Hanushek, plus Steve Peterson, plus Thernstroms… • Politics/Democracy: Gutmann, Smith and Meier: uncertain goals/effects • Standards (Shanker, Ravitch, PPI/Fordham): Effects positive but limited • Choice: Chubb/Moe, Paul Peterson et al, Fuller: short term effects positive but limited.

Ch. 2. Problems of Theory- Driven Approaches, and a new Paradigm • Making much of small R-squares: all are essentially incremental • Questionable lags and causality • Difficulty of controlled experiments (John Witte’s Law) • Getting to scale • Limited measures of success

An Inductive Approach: Organizational Leadership • Look for non-incremental improvements (X-efficiency) • Focus on schools as organizations with cultures • See what can be copied and to what degree (copying the Thernstroms…) • Fenno-esque soaking and poking • Leadership is personnel/culture management (Ouchi, Khademian, Kaufman, Hoy, RSI, etc.)

Leadership Characteristics • right goals and policies • Integrity & Trust • staying power • leading by example (no Joe Carruth!) • measurement and admitting problems • talent bigger than ego • a public school (taking names) • serving others • attention to and control of personnel policy • people smart • Energy!

Ch. 3. Levels of Leadership: System and Super • System Level: • The Stone et al studies and the poverty of regime theory (You can’t fight city hall, but maybe city hall will fight for you…). • Success is when many actors try to reform for several years. • Of the eleven cities, two partial, temporary successes: Atlanta and Pittsburgh. (I’d add Houston as a third, see Don McAdams.) Why did they sort of work?

System Level Determinants of Success • Schools for schooling, not jobs or symbolic politics (weak cartel, to use Rich’s term) in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Houston • Cross-sectional agreement that the schools needed improvement • A long term, cross-racial pro-reform coalition • Weak or coopted teachers unions • The Board hires the right superintendent • More resources (usually from foundations).

Superintendent Characteristics • Crim in Atlanta, 1973-88; Wallace in Pittsburgh, 1980-92; Paige in Houston, 1994-2001: • Strong, energetic personalities • Experience in urban schools • Innovators who had good ideas: standards and accountability years before NCLB • Outsiders, but with insider knowledge • Won business and mayoral support • Desire to stay • Lead by persuasion • Merit, not spoils, and good knowledge of Ed. Schools • Worked with the union, re-trained teachers

RESULTS • National acclaim • Significant improvements in elementary education • Few/No improvements in middle/high schools • Political backlash and minor scandals toward the end • Budget cuts and symbolic conflict follow the departure of the Big Man (the FEMA effect, as opposed to the NYPD effect)

Lessons • If leaders do everything right (pick the right super, maintain elite support for a decade, avoid racial conflict, etc.) and enjoy good structural conditions, and get more money, public bureaucracies can educate urban elementary school students---for a few years. • Why elementary? Relative agreement on goals and measures, more flexible teachers and no departments, more tractable clients (especially at first), smaller schools.

Why public bureaucracies can’t do urban (or some rural) secondary schools • Centralization v. principal leadership • Standardization v. fit • Insufficient leadership talent (see slide 5) • Tenure v. flexibility • Prescribed v. professional work • Large size (impersonality) v. community

Ch. 4. Organization Theory applied to schools (from Ouchi, Hult & Walcott, etc.) • Ouchi and Williamson style bureaucracies (which can apply to small districts as well) • U Form bureaucracies (traditional, like Radnor) • M Form (Edmonton, Seattle, Houston, Lower Merion), but also corporations like Edison • H Form (Catholic).

Non-bureaucratic (usually charter) providers • Movement-Markets • Coalition of Essential Schools (1,000 schools?) • Core Knowledge Foundation (600 Friends, 126 official) • Coops • Charter School of Sedona • Edvisions • Clans • KIPP, North Star, Amistad…

A Typology of Educational Organizations: Governance and Boundary Integrity

Implications for Success of Alternative Educational Providers Types

C. 5. What’s a Super to do? • Use Corporations to draw the fire (Philadelphia, Chester) • Make elementary schools M-Form: transparency, measurement, promotion by merit, principal autonomy, NCLB • Partner with core knowledge • RSI: • Recruit principals broadly and fire frequently, go beyond the usual Ed. Schools • Let teachers serve as principals on probation • Copy KIPP training for principals • Gradually replace secondary schools: • Encourage coops • Strongly encourage clans • Partner with Green Dot

Reforming Schools: Superintendent Leadership, Principal Leadership, and School Cultures