The Autonomy (or lack thereof) of Principals

Over the weekend, the Washington Post Outlook Section contained a piece entitledWhy Is Your School On This List?, a series of statements by a number of Washington area school principals explaining why their school is on the needs improvement list as required by NCLB.

Admittedly, at first, all I saw was excuses, mostly because I don't handle excuses well because I see them as a mechanism for dodging responsibility. All of the usual suspects were there, "NCLB is too inflexible" (all evidence to the contrary), "we need more money," "I have too many (poor, special ed, minority) students in my schoo." The litany seemed to go on and on. On the surface, I did not see one school leader stand up and say, "We are on the list because I didn't do enough. It was my responsibility to make sure these kids are taught their lessons and I failed." I have always admired people who own up to their mistakes. But I didn't see any of that and thus, initially, I was angry at these principals.

But on a second reading I began to wonder about a few structural issues. All the people interviewed are principals and thus would, at least in my world view, be given the responsibility and the power to make adjustments in resources to address those areas needing help. After all, the term principal impliedly contains the concept of policy making authority. But then I remembered, schools are run like rational organizations. School principals, at least it appears, are nothing more than automatons for the district administration (the micromanagers) and playthings for the unions, whose contracts tend to tie principals hands too much.

And so I began to ask myself these questions (not necessarily in this order):

1. What is the role and purpose of a principal?
2. What is the scope of the power of a principal in general?
3. What are the limitations on that power?
4. How did those limitations arise?
5. What can school boards and legislators do to give more power and control to the principals?
6. What can parents and citizens do to give principals more power to address school-level concerns?

I, of course, realize that many times my calls to treat the education system more like a business and less like a bureaucracy have gone largely unheard because people are afraid of such a concept. However, when we deal with businesses, particularly when dealing with chain stores, we know there is a store manager. There is one person in the facility who has within their power the ability to make good on our concerns. Only in the biggest of cases does that store manager not have the autonomy, and the accountability, to address problems.

But from what I read in this Post article principals appear to lack all authority to effect change at their schools. We intuitively hold principals accountable for the test results, otherwise we would not be asking principals why. So the question is this, if principals are held publicly accountable, how much autonomy do they have to address problems?

If the answer is not enough autonomy, then we need to give the autonomy and right damn now. If the principal does not, or cannot, have the power to effect changes, let us ditch them, retain their salary and put that money to better use. If a principal (a title which implies a certain policy-making authority) lacks the ability to effect change, they are a waste of time, space, money, and oxygen.

In reading a number of blogs by teachers, I am constantly amazed at the descriptions fo the ineptitude of principals, vice principals and other administrators. I know people like to complain about their job, their bosses, etc, but how much do these people really stand in the way of a good education system? How much of the inflexibility and intolerance apparently shown by administrators is a result of the administrator's incompetence and how much is a result of outside forces, like state law, regulations, union contracts and the like?

Anyone with answers, please let me know.