The principal of PS 106 in Far Rockaway, now in the news for its lack of curriculum or books, is a graduate of New York City’s vaunted Leadership Academy.
When Joel Klein took charge of the New York City schools in 2002, one of his earliest “reforms” was the creation of the Leadership Academy, a fast-track program for new principals. Originally, it was funded for three years with $75 million from the business community. Its inspiration was Jack Welch, the legendary tough guy from GE, who sometimes gave speeches to LA recruits and imbued them with his philosophy of stack-ranking and firing the bottom 10% of workers.
In the “bad old days,” pre-Klein and Bloomberg, educators became principal by first spending several years as classroom teachers, then several years as assistant principal. Only after they had deep experience were they eligible to apply for the important job of principal.
Klein had no regard for experience in education; he possibly thought it was a handicap that locked educators into old ways of thinking. It was innovation he wanted, so the Leadership Academy was created. Its first CEO was a businessman from Colorado who brought his large staff with him and commuted to Denver on weekends. When he left after a few years, the program was handed over to a professor at Baruch College who taught leadership classes but had never been a principal. Joel Klein was chairman of the board of the Leadership Academy.
After the three years were over, the Department of Education had a competitive bidding process for an organization to run leadership training, and–wonder of wonders–the Leadership Academy won $50 million for five years.
Meanwhile, the pre-Klein educators scoffed at graduates of the Leadership Academy. Some schools and districts were told they had to hire them. To career educators, their lack of experience was a minus, not a plus. Imagine how assistant principals with a dozen or more years in the system reacted when they learned that their new principal had been a teacher for only one or two or three years.
Yet, outside of New York City, the Bloomberg PR machine told about the amazing principals its Leadership Academy created in only one year. Other districts and states began copycat programs.
In the dying days of the Bloomberg administration, the Leadership Academy got a new contract for $45 million.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Won’t it be wonderful when I can be in a school again? I cannot wait…I am taking those steps! Thanks for sending this my way. K
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Jack Welch? The legendary progressive who was great at backing candidates so his share holders profited from NO TAXATION?
Why would any one think that is a smart man to listen to?
Wayne
Luvsiesous.com
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Unbelievable, but, I guess, true.
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Once again, outsiders think they can do a better job than trained professionals. After all, how much do you need to know to run a school? All you need is a one year intro and “poof” you are a principal. After all, since it only takes five weeks to become a TFA, a year for the top job should be enough. Leadership? Over rated.
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“After all, how much do you need to know to run a school? ”
Minimum TEN YEARS teaching in the classroom experience.
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Not only did Jack Welch insist on stack ranking and firing the “bottom 10%” of employees (Leadership Academy hacks obviously exempted), but he was also adamant that students are “products.” This premise also forms the under-acknowledged basis of VAM, which is about enhancing the value of products or services (formerly known as children) before they are offered for sale to customers (aka employers).
VAM should be opposed not only because it is pseudo-science, but because of its gross reductionist view of children, teachers and education. That VAM should be considered in evaluating teachers shows the moral bankruptcy of so-called education reform.
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Jack Welch
Horrible CEO. Figures Joel Klein thought he was great. It’s like we got the worst of both worlds of both business AND education when they melded the two.
We hear a lot about how dreadful teacher training is from ed reformers. Why don’t we ever hear any critiques of their own “CEO” training programs?
Also, why do they love the word “Academy” so much? Can they at least find a different word, throw it in there occasionally?
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“Also, why do they love the word “Academy” so much?”
Maybe because the word “academy” implies that there is discipline, rigor, and attention paid to standards, academic or otherwise. Also, that true leaders are emerging from these organizations.
The complete antithesis of what the faux “Leadership” Academy churns out.
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A ship of fools
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That explains why the New York Daily News didn’t have an stories in their “education” section on this.
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*any stories
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It will be interesting to see what spin those rags, the NY Post and the Daily News will use on their “educational” stories and op-ed pages, now that Bloomberg is gone.
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Well, now that Mayor deBlasio has control of the NYC school system, will he dismantle the Leadership Academy?
Will the holdovers in the DOE upper echelons from the Bloomberg administration be replaced? Will Mayoral control of the schools be allowed to sunset?
Let’s see what happens.
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Check out the school’s webpage. Pretty depressing. Go to any public school webpage in your district and bet you can’t find anything as sorry as this one. So sad for those kids.
http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/27/Q106/AboutUs/Policies/default.htm
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This is pretty much what you will find on any of the NYC school portals. Some grandiose “mission” statement, and very little else about the school, other than the stock pictures of some grand institutions, that don’t even resemble the actual school.
I have to wonder why on many of these portals the principals’ pictures are not on there, any news of activities going on at the school aren’t on there, clubs, after school events, etc.
They just don’t seem to be very individualized, just rolled out, cookie cutter style.
If you’re looking for real information about a school, these portals, in my opinion, are less than useless.
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That school’s webpage is rather . . . minimalist.
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Good to see they’re catching up to the times! Only four-five decades more to go!
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When I lived in North Carolina, they used to be called Bigot Academies. They were strictly for white people then.
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Being principal of any school should NOT be a lifetime position.
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A great principal who meets professional standards should be able to keep his or her job for a long career, but indeed, being a principal should not be a sinecure or a no-show job.
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And selecting someone with little teaching experience is reprehensible and really nuts! I want to be the person who oversees operations in the emergency room. Now really…that is how insane the entire situation is. Common sense is being compromised by money and power….OY.
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The large urban districts of Texas have a biased method of selecting mostly white conservatives who can say they had an ancestor who was a minority, then they become a principal with an ethnicity called “minority”. Austin and Houston have their “in house” leadership academics to train them to become masters for the new slave culture that is being developed in the Title I Schools.
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Joel Klein relentlessly pressured corporations to put money into the Leadership Academy both directly and via the Fund for Public Schools. I recently spoke with a few of these corporate reps and they now will only contribute to charter schools because their donations to “public schools” – in the form of the Leadership Academy – turned out to have been such a complete waste that they no longer will contribute to such a “black hole.”
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I retired in July 2013, and I just visited the school where I worked as an Assistant Principal for 10 years. The principal now is a graduate of the leadership academy. Yesterday I heard nothing but tales of distress and discouragement. The principal told all the staff that any student who did 50% of the work was to pass and that students passing was equated with teacher’s effectiveness. The principal hired her firend to be a college advisor so students are not up to date on college applications and no one even knows about the Common Application. The principal cancelled all Chemistry classes because the Chemistry teacher refused to cheat on her labs so now the school only offers Biology and Earth Science. This is just one small example of what Bloomberg has done with his Leadership Academy. The cheating on the Chemistry was reported to the State, and no investigation was even done. The principal announced that she had friends in high places.
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“I Have A Dream”
– Written by a former teacher from PS106Q in Far Rockaway, New York, the “School of No”. This letter is in response to the media’s spotlight on the Principal, Ms. Marcella Sills. She has been in her position for close to a decade. Teachers have fought against her since her appointment, with no avail. The Department has protected her relentlessly. This teacher resigned from her position, frustrated with the onerous climate of public education. You are being asked to share this letter with anyone you think may relate. Most of this is a direct quote from Dr. King. His speech was adapted to fit today’s issues. Thank you for reading.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the period of the greatest fight for education in the record of our nation.
Two score and ten years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Americans who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of oppression. It gave hope to all citizens, that they would be able to usher their children into a world where their inalienable rights were safeguarded.
But fifty years later, the education system does not protect these constitutional dues. Fifty years later, the life of the American child is sadly crippled by the manacles of high stakes testing and the chains of private interests dictating pedagogy. Fifty years later, the climate of education is a dark and questionable one. Fifty years later, the classroom is still languished in the corners of American society and finds itself in jeopardy in its own land. And so I’ve written this today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense I’ve written this letter to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all children would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of P.S.106Q are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given these children a bad check; a check, which has come back, marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this Department of Education. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of education and the security of justice.
I have also written to this hallowed management to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of the Bloomberg and Klein administration to the sunlit path of educational justice. Now is the time to lift our city and our nation from the quicksand of the educational injustice to the solid rock of scholastic success. Now is the time to make success a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of P.S.106Q’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of justice and redemption. 2014 is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the teachers needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the city returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in New York City until the child is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our city until the bright day of justice emerges. Marcella Sills must be removed.
But there is something that I must say to teachers, who stand on the warm threshold, which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for redemption by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into leaving the profession. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting political agenda with soul force.
The marvelous new climate of collectiveness, which has engulfed the national educational community, must be a peaceful one. We must band together, and lovingly move forward into the future. For our current actions and decisions dictate the course of this nation. Politicians, private interests, and all others who believe that they are versed in the art that is teaching must realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and they need to wake up. And they must come to realize that their future is inextricably bound to our future.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the children are the victims of the unspeakable atrocities that exist with Marcella Sills in power at P.S.106Q. We can never be satisfied as long as those students go without receiving the education that they deserve, as American citizens. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Department of Education tries to cover up the ills that have take place there for nine years. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by having a Mayor that ignores the pleas and grievances for almost a decade. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Chancellor turns a blind eye to a woman, trained in his Leadership Academy. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I am not unmindful that some of you have experienced similar trials and tribulations. Some of you have had experiences with administrations trained to run their school like a corporation. And some of you have had the gloom of calling out to your union for help, only to learn that it has been weakened to the likes of nothing. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Far Rockaway, go back to Harlem, go back to South Carolina, go back to Miami, go back to Oregon, go back to New Jersey, go back to New Orleans, go back to Detroit, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
I have a dream that one day in the New York City Department of Education, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina will be able to sit down together and agree to remove Ms. Marcella Sills from her tenure at PS106Q.
I have a dream that one day even the state of New York, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of corruption, will be transformed into an oasis of educational equality and justice.
I have a dream that all little children will one day live in a nation where their right to an equal opportunity education will not be according to their zip code but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in New Jersey, with its cruel politicians, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “scandal” and “conspiracy” — one day right there in New Jersey teachers will be looked at as experts in their field, being shown the respect that all other professions receive with the level of training and experience that is necessary to receive licensure.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every parent will stand up for his or her child. With this union, of both teacher and parent, the child is but guaranteed to find success in this life. Parents, please do not stand by while people like Marcella Sills deny your child their American dues. Your voice is the loudest. If you do this, collectively, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the Smart board with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to school together, to stand up for education together, knowing that we will be cultured one day.
And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let our voices ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let our voices ring from the city of New York.
Let our voices ring from the state of New York as well.
Let our voices ring from the hallways of New Jersey schools.
Let our voices ring from the districts of Oregon.
Let our voices ring from the struggles of Miami.
But not only that:
Let our voices ring from the schools of South Carolina.
Let our voices ring from Detroit, Michigan.
Let our voices ring from every teacher in New Orleans.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow our voices ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the Nelson Mandela:
Change the world! Change the world!
Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world!
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Followup on this story this week from the NY Times:
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