No educational writer today is better than Jay Mathews, a columnist and blogger for the Washington Post. Yesterday he wrote this:
The D.C. schools that work best are run by principals who have the power to teach their students any way they and their teachers think best, as long as achievement improves.
Mathews targets a couple of do-gooding council members who have proposed a dramatic increase in physical education time for city students. With the increase in obesity and unhealthy behaviors, some might consider the proposal a worthy idea. But the councilors do not address how schools will pay for the additional physical education. And since the proposal does not include a longer school day, physical education will have to displace academics; the councilors offer no suggestions.
It’s these bureaucratic dictates, no matter how well-meaning they might be, that are often the obstacles for school improvement.
Mathews is exactly right when he calls for more decision-making power at the school level; give principals and teachers the power to make change, and hold them accountable.
But telling them [individual schools] they have to do it whether it works for them or not is a bad idea, one of many from politicians who thought they were doing the right thing but never considered the consequences.
Amen.
