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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG AND SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR
JOEL I. KLEIN ANNOUNCE SWEEPING INITIATIVES TO PROMOTE
PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN SCHOOLS
Launch Comprehensive Leadership Academy
with $15 million
Support from Wallace Funds
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein
today announced a series of initiatives designed to promote leadership,
accountability and increased autonomy for principals in our public schools. The
program was developed by the Department of Education as part of Children First
- a multi-year reform effort designed to ensure that every school is a quality
school and every child is given the tools needed to achieve and succeed. At the
core of this reform effort is the firm belief that success will require a
dramatic change in the current operating culture of the Department of
Education- to a new culture that places a premium on real empowerment and true
accountability, one where leadership is valued, success is rewarded and failure
is not accepted.
"By making principal leadership a core element of our
strategy to improve New York City's public schools, we will be better able to
recruit, train and retain principals who have superior leadership skills, know
how to draw upon the expertise and dedication of quality teachers and staff,
and are fully accountable for the performance in their schools," said
Mayor Bloomberg. "It is a strategy supported not only by common sense but
by empirical research demonstrating that effective school leadership is
essential to effective schools."
"To achieve our goal of 1,200 effective schools, we must
focus first on principal leadership," Chancellor Klein said. "As
school leaders, principals are the key to overall school performance and to the
kind of fundamental change that many of our schools require. It is critical
that we begin work immediately on building a team of 1,200 great principals -
people who are true instructional leaders that can inspire and empower
teachers, students and parents in their school community. It is especially
urgent that we do so as we face record numbers of principal retirements and as
we dismiss non-performing principals in the next few years."
Today's announcement has two major components. First is the
recruitment, training and retention of quality principals, which includes three
immediate actions:
Retention of Principals:
1. A comprehensive Leadership Academy to recruit,
train and develop high-quality principals as strong instructional leaders and
managers:
The new Leadership Academy will be central to the Department's
overall effort to change the culture of our schools. Under the direction of
Chancellor Klein, the Academy will take ownership of the recruitment and
training of a new generation of school leadership. The Academy will cast a
significantly wider net for recruitment and will restructure training and
support so that it is job-focused, practical, and directly serves the Department's
core leadership needs.
"This is an historic moment for the nation's largest school
systems," said Walter V. Shipley, chairman of the Wallace Funds. "New
York City's sweeping reform agenda, with its focus on effective teaching and
learning, will bring together expertise, resources, and the right partners to
the benefit of 1.1 million students attending some 1,200 schools. Today's
announcement of a Leadership Academy is the first step in launching this major
effort. For the past year, the Wallace Funds have invested in twelve large,
mostly urban districts - including Community District 10 in the Bronx - to
discover and adopt new ways of strengthening leadership and to have those
changes improve the prospects of students in districts across the country. We
are pleased to support this timely and bold venture."
The Academy will include:
The Department has already secured a three-year commitment of $15
million from the Wallace Funds toward the costs of operating the Academy. The
Wallace Funds are one of the largest contributors to improving school
leadership. In addition, the Wallace Funds seek to help foster a national
movement aimed at elevating quality education leadership as a core element of
school reform.
The Academy will be an independent non-profit organization, and will be funded
by corporate and philanthropic giving. The total first-year cost for the
Academy will be $13 million.
2. A proposed incentive of $75,000 over three
years for outstanding principals who move to selected low-performing schools:
The Department proposes to include in the next collective
bargaining agreement with the Council of Supervisors and Administrators (CSA) a
program in which Principals with outstanding school performance records are
asked for a three-year commitment to serve as principal of a low-performing
school. In their new school, these Principals will mentor an individual
aspiring to be a Principal who can assume leadership of the school after three
years, and will be responsible for gains in student achievement. The Principal
will be paid an annual $25,000 bonus for the three years they serve at the
school. The program will simultaneously serve the two critical goals of
improving low-performing schools and developing a new team of outstanding
principals through strong mentorship and direct observation of best practices
in a real world environment.
3. A streamlined and more accountable principal
selection process:
In a major change from the current process for selection, assignment and
appointment of principals, Chancellor Klein will eliminate the red tape that
hinders effective principal hiring. In the new process, superintendents will be
able to select principals more efficiently, while ensuring continued parent,
teacher, and staff involvement through existing School Leadership Teams. The
time frame for the principal selection process will be reduced from a minimum
of six months to a maximum of 45-60 days.
Authority, Autonomy and Accountability for
Principals:
The other major component is increased authority, autonomy and
accountability for principals to serve as effective team leaders in their
schools. This component includes five immediate Department of Education
actions:
1. Appoint high-performing interim principals as permanent:
Approximately 200 individuals currently serve as interim acting principals, and
more than 100 of these have held these temporary positions for at least one
year. Where these principals are achieving strong results, giving them
permanent status will help create a foundation of committed, quality principals
and promote greater stability in our schools. The Chancellor will use his
existing authority to fill principal vacancies when the process has become
bottlenecked, and will take immediate steps to identify and appoint
high-performing interim principals to permanent posts.
2. Allow principals to hire their own Assistant Principals
(APs):
As the Chancellor asks principals to take on stronger leadership roles, he will
give principals the ultimate authority to build their own leadership teams.
This change eliminates the current AP appointment practice -- in which
superintendents assign Assistant Principals to schools -- and instead empowers
principals to select Assistant Principals, after appropriate input from parents
and others through the School Leadership Teams.
3. Conduct a comprehensive review of the nature of the
principal's job to increase focus on instruction:
The Principal's job must be that of the chief instructional leader of the
school. The Department will highlight the key instructional roles of the
Principal and limit the non-instructional functions principals perform. Through
a central audit of existing paperwork, the Department will remove unnecessary
reporting requirements and ease principals' bureaucratic burden.
4. Create a Leadership Advisory Council to guide the
Chancellor on key issues:
To build on the fundamental idea that Principals are key levers for change, the
Chancellor will create a Leadership Advisory Council of 20 principals with
proven track records of leadership and student achievement. Principals will
serve two-year terms, and the council will hold bi-monthly meetings with the
Chancellor and his senior staff to advise them on system-wide policy issues.
Principals were selected based on the strong performance of the schools they
lead. Some of the principals on the Leadership Advisory Council have taken
failing schools and turned them around; others have consistently shown strong
performance overall.
5.
Enforce Chancellor's authority to remove Principals based on failure to
perform:
Since 1998, Chancellors have had the authority to fire principals in clear,
documented cases of "persistent educational failure." No previous
Chancellor has sought to remove a Principal through this process. Among the
criteria used in the process are performance and progress on standardized
tests, discipline and attendance indicators, adherence to special education
policies, and progress of English language learners. Chancellor Klein will
begin exercising this authority, and the Department will seek to remove about
50 non-performing Principals by the end of the school year.
www.nyc.gov
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Contact: |
Edward Skyler / Jordan Barowitz |
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|
David Chai (DOE) |