Steve Farkas, Jean Johnson, and Ann Duffett, Public Agenda
November 2003
The non-partisan research organization, Public Agenda, has conducted many illuminating education surveys and studies. This latest report continues in that vein, though its policy implications are somewhat blurry. Supported by the Wallace Foundation, it's the second half of a two-part examination of principals' and superintendents' views of their role, their effectiveness, and the conditions of their work. (The first appeared as a 2001 report entitled Trying to Stay Ahead of the Game. See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=82#1257.) The main message here, as summarized by Wallace Foundation president Christine DeVita: "Even as leaders report that they are focusing as never before on curriculum, instruction, mentoring, and professional development . . . they are hamstrung by red tape, competing laws and regulations, and inadequate resources to meet increased requirements and mandates." Two-thirds of them feel, for example, that it's hard to discipline troublesome kids due to excessive emphasis on documentation and due process. Nearly everyone grumps about overweening federal, state, and local mandates. Special ed consumes more than its share of money and attention. And so on through a long litany of complaints. A more vivid summary of these administrators' view of their roles can be found in Public Agenda president Ruth Wooden's "afterword," where she writes, "The daily travails of their jobs sound like a description of a particularly noisy video game, with an enormous array of obstacles hurtling from all directions, requiring split-second decisions and no chance to reverse course. The superintendents and principals we interviewed . . . expressed a profound concern about the ongoing assault of politics, micro-management and bureaucracy that drives them crazy - and often drives the most talented among them out of the field." The crankiness is somewhat offset by the one-third (but only one-third) of principals and superintendents who believe that the system "helps me get things done the way I want them" but that in turn is offset by the larger number - nearly half - who say that they can usually get things "done the way you want but you must work around the system to get it." What sort of system have we constructed, one may well wonder, if a huge fraction of its key institutional leaders conclude that success is attainable only by end-running its rules and procedures? The full report is currently available on-line if you surf to http://www.publicagenda.org/research/research_reports_details.cfm?list=9. Or you can pay $10 for a hard copy by contacting Public Agenda at 6 East 39th Street, New York, NY 10016, 212-686-6610.
