An Ideal Principal?

Right Wing Prof tells you how he would run a school if given the opportunity. While many of the ideas are great one, this one in particular I love:

I would have to insist that I be allowed to teach a class every year. I would not make decisions that affect teachers and students without being in the classroom, with my own students.

snip

Likewise, I would have to insist that wherever possible, all administrators in the school teach at least one class a year. Not all employees in administrative positions need to be in the classroom — office assistants, for example — but as a general rule, administrators need to be teachers.

I have often thought that, if given the opportunity, to design and build a school, that just about every adult who worked at the school would have some teaching responsiblity. Further, I would offer teachers the chance to earn more money by doing some administrative work--i.e. guidance counseling or other higher level work. Finally, assuming I had a student body of an appropriate age, say 8th grade or higher, I wouldn't have office assistants, but student interns.

I have seen schools with a staff that included less than 50% teachers. Even being generous and designating library aides and others as "teaching positions" school often operate with a faculty (teaching positions) to staff ration of like 4 to 3 or something like that. In short, I think too many schools have too many non-teaching staff soaking up resources and not contributing to the educational mission of the school.