EDUCATION LEADERSHIP
VSBA President
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There
is much lament today over the lack of individuals who are willing to take leadership
positions in education. In 2007-2008,
Vermont had 18 vacancies in superintendencies and
many more in principal positions, and many of the districts involved were not
overwhelmed with applicants. I believe
that one problem is that we are not looking in some of the obvious places. One major priority appears to be finding
people who are experts in education, but we may be overlooking those who would
be new to education but have clear leadership abilities. Combing both talents would be ideal, but in
my mind, leadership trumps other skills and knowledge.
Corporate
America has already discovered this, although perhaps business should not be
the poster child for leadership these days.
But business seems to have no trouble taking an executive from a food
company and putting him or her in charge of a metals manufacturing firm,
apparently on the grounds that the leadership skills involved are
transferable. Here are two examples from
my personal experience: I’ve been a
school board member for 12 years, and while I have zero experience as a
professional educator, I did learn most of the nuts and bolts of school
administration –it’s not that difficult.
Could I be the learning leader schools need? No way, but there are
others, including teachers, who are well qualified to take over that role. The second example is from my days as a
management consultant, specializing in strategic planning and organizational
improvement. My aim in any assignment
was to get to know the organization as well as possible in the first few days
by talking with people at all levels, and I found that in a very short period
of time I knew more about the organization that anyone else, including the CEO.
This was not because I was particularly perceptive, but because most organizations
and most businesses are just not that complicated and because people in the
ranks seldom get an opportunity to share what they know with top
management. The typical response to my
questions was “Thank you! No one has ever asked me about my job before!” followed
by full disclosure.
My
solution to our leadership gap is to expand our search beyond education to
business, higher education, the military, and public service. Educational leadership positions in Vermont
don’t pay what corporate executives are accustomed to receiving, but hey, this
is Vermont and that counts for something. Of course, a few things would have to
change to make these jobs really desirable. First, we need federal and state
education agencies to reduce regulations and limit the penalties for failure to
comply with submission deadlines for the myriad of reports they require. Second, school boards must look at their
superintendents as leaders, not as functionaries who are primarily responsible
for paperwork. Third, get over the
discouraging expectation that the superintendent will attend every board
meeting and thus be out 10-12 nights each month. Either have fewer board meetings (there’s a
fine idea) and/or expect some sort of written report on progress against stated
goals instead of a personal appearance.
Vermont
has many good, even outstanding, superintendents, but not enough. The alternatives to opening up the field are
unattractive, such as leaving professional leadership positions vacant, or settling for administrators who are not leaders.