Marc Tucker’s blog reports how top-performing nations select school principals. Most require several years of teaching experience and a long and in-depth course in leadership skills. The report, by Jennifer Craw and Jackie Kraemer, describes the high professionalism required in top-performing nations.
By contrast, some states in the U.S. allow non-educators to become principals.
The U.S. is definitely an outlier.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NYCDOE has succeeded in producing a cadre of principals over the past decade who are noticeably lacking in intellect, interpersonal skills, experience, empathy and leadership. This group, however, is strong in their disdain of teachers, placing all blame on teachers, forcing teachers to pass students when it is unearned and making illogical decisions regarding staffing and academics. Oh, and one more thing: many of them are wonderful at establishing shams called credit recovery.
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Generalizations are unfair.
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This is not a generalization. Bloomberg made it a policy of hiring school principals based on business models – teaching experience be damned. Bloomberg instituted “Leadership Academies” to train future principals in punitive business models. These so called academies are the means in which many of the newer and more disastrous principals have entered. Farina has lengthened the teaching requirement for new principals. However, in my humble opinion, one should have at least ten years of teaching experience before being considered for a leadership position.
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Agree on the ten years experience – show that you can really teach.
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You need to get someone knowledgeable on CNN and MSNBC about another version of what has happened to the New Orleans schools.
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Interesting, but “top-performing nations” is defined exclusively by scores on PISA tests, vintage 2012. There are different levels of centralization in educational policies and governance systems for education in the nations selected as “top performers.” The US system is not really a system but on its way to “disintermediation” meaning deregulation so that just about anything goes short of documented criminal offenses.
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Yes, “performance” is narrowly defined. Performance (also known among “reformers” as “achievement”) equals test scores, period. At a glance, Tucker’s work appears to reduce education policy to setting up and maintaining “standards” and measurements. The main focus is on the presumed economic outputs of education, not the personal benefits to students and community. It doesn’t even pretend to be a humanistic approach.
When somebody like Amanda Ripley talks about “how our kids are doing,” she’s not talking about their well being. She is only talking about how American kids score on international tests, tests that are highly suspect in the way they’re administered and analyzed. (Who would’ve thought that Shanghai was a nation?)
I’m all in favor of trying to raise our overall standard of living, partly through education and partly through other public policies. But to make economic competitiveness (against other nations) the main goal of American education is wrong.
Mark Tucker is identified as “Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer” of the Center on International Education Benchmarking, apparently a subsidiary of the National Center on Education and the Economy, which he founded. I’ve always been skeptical about his claims and have wondered why he receives so much attention for his ideas (most of which I think are either bad or beside the point). Reading this from his “about page” shows how he and his values are entrenched among the elite:
“Marc has been a leader of the standards-driven education reform movement for many years. Mr. Tucker created New Standards, a 23-state consortium designed to develop internationally benchmarked student performance standards and matching student examinations. He authored the 1986 Carnegie Report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, which called for a restructuring of America’s schools based on standards; created the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; created the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce and co-authored its report, America’s Choice: high skills or low wages!, which called for a new high school leaving a certificate based on standards; and, was instrumental in creating the National Skill Standards Board and served as the chairman of its committee on standards and assessment policy.
“With Ray Marshall, Mr. Tucker co-authored Thinking for a Living: Education and the Wealth of Nations, selected by Business Week as one of the ten best business books of 1992; with Judy Codding, co-authored Standards for Our Schools: How to Set Them, Measure Them, and Reach Them, published in 1998; and co-edited The Principal Challenge, 2002. Mr. Tucker created the National Institute of School Leadership, a state-of-the-art executive development program for school leaders. Mr. Tucker was the lead author of Tough Choices or Tough Times, the report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. In 2014, the Education Commission of the States awarded Mr. Tucker the James Bryant Conant award for his outstanding individual contribution to American education. Mr. Tucker currently has an appointment as a Visiting Distinguished Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.”
The list of funders of NCEE is a Who’s Who of industry, commerce, and philanthropy:
http://www.ncee.org/about-ncee/funders/
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In the U. S., politics usurps educational objectives. Politicians “know more” than educators or are just bought out by moneyed interests. Double speak, a favorite device for deceiving the public.
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Diane,
You state that we are outliers in the USA, but we are also when it comes to medical care for women and treatment methods, birthing methods, cost of medical care, child poverty rate, infant mortality rate, vacation time, duration of time break, childcare, and nationalized healthcare.
A close friend of mine in Paris who knows people well in the States declared that if you do not work in the US, you die or are reduced to a pauper. In Europe, if you do not work, you have enough of a safety net, even with its flaws, to help you get back up on your feet again.
I am apalled by our American exceptionalism. Not enough people know how truly uncivilized the USA is, as it sees healthcare as a commodity instead of a birth and civil right.
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Corporate media controlling about 80% of the “news” hides what our country is really doing. ONLY in other sources can the depth of our government’s actions, Obama’s as well as “George W’s horrific intrusions into abominable actions. Our populace would be appalled if they had any idea of these shenanigans
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“Rugged INDIVIDUALISM” and “AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM” are myths in this country. This mentality has injured this nation on so many levels. Oh … and now developing “GRIT” (ugh) is the goal for the kids in USA schools. OY! What about gratitude, humility, kindenss, generosity, imagination, courage, integrity, thoughtfulness, and all those attributes, which truly make a difference for the people of any nation? Egads, look at the “messes” in countries where “MEAN, NASTY, and GREEDY bullies who have not a clue are in charge.
I agree with Robert, I am too appalled, and agree that the USA is uncivilized.. May I add GREED and the MOVIE STAR mentality in this country are also way out of control and ridiculous.
View this for a brief historial view of what happened to Lili’iuokalani: Hawai’is Last Queen.. Then think: This is the American way. The entitled in the USA, use USA military to defraud, steal, and destroy. After all, it’s just politics and the “Manifest Destiny” mentality … still prevalent, which far too many unconsciously embrace in this country.
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