The June 30th expiration date for the 2002 mayoral control law in NYC is rapidly approaching, and the New York Times just published its third article in a series  evaluating Mayor Bloomberg’s record on education. (For previous related posts see here and here).

The subject of this third article is the Aspiring Principals Program created by Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel I. Klein as part of the New York City Leadership Academy. It is a 14-month paid intensive training program designed to prepare talented candidates (often young graduates of top colleges) to become principals in New York City’s highest need schools.  Academy graduates earn higher salaries than their traditional counterparts, and have greater freedom over hiring and budgets in exchange for greater accountability. But an analysis by the Times suggests that schools run by graduates of the program do not do as well as schools run by experienced principals or by new principals who have climbed the ranks the old-fashioned way. And I can’t say that I’m surprised.

While I’ve already voiced my support for teacher prep programs like Teach For America that fast-track new teachers into the classroom (see here , here , here , and here ), and I see no reason why carefully selected candidates who undergo intensive and effective training can’t hit the ground running as new teachers as long as they continue to get mentoring and support during their critical first years in the classroom, I definitely have my doubts as to whether this same formula can rightly apply to fast-tracked principals.

There are a few key factors in the whole equation. The first is the selection process (Who are the candidates? What skills should they and do they possess?), the second is the quality of the training program (How long is it? How effective? How do we know?), and finally, once the principal is placed, the nature of the mentoring and support they receive during their first few years in the school (Who are the mentors? How often are they in touch? Are they providing enough guidance and is it the right kind?)

The aforementioned Times article, as well as an older article about the Leadership Academy, answered many of my questions about the program and its candidates, but did little to convince me of its overall effectiveness. Given that new principals who work their way up the ranks the traditional way tend to have more success in their first few years than those coming out of the program (for example, among elementary and middle-school principals on the job less than three years, Academy graduates were about a third as likely to get A’s on New York City’s school report cards as those who did not attend the program), I suspect that it might be a better use of resources to recruit and train new principals from among the cohort of experienced teachers and assistant principals who are already taking the traditional route. In other words, why not give experienced teachers and assistant principals extra intensive paid training opportunities instead?

Furthermore, according to the article, 20% of Academy grads have less than five years of teaching experience. If the goal of the program is to prepare principals to be instructional leaders in their schools as opposed to just institutional leaders (i.e. to spend time in classrooms with teachers supporting teaching and learning as opposed to sitting behind a desk all day dealing with administrative issues, looking at data, and analyzing test scores), wouldn’t more experienced teachers be better candidates for new principals? Wouldn’t they get more buy-in from the teachers already working in the schools? (Think street cred but for teachers—maybe “teacher cred?”). That might explain why the teacher turnover rate is higher at schools run by Academy principals. (During the summer of 2007, nearly 25% of these principals lost at least 33% of their teachers, while other principals lost only 9%.)

It just seems to me like the job of principal is so complex (as Maxine Nodel, principal of the Millennium Art Academy in the Bronx put it: You’re a teacher, you’re Judge Judy, you’re a mother, you’re a father, you’re a pastor, you’re a therapist, you’re a nurse, you’re a social worker…you’re a curriculum planner, you’re a data gatherer, you’re a budget scheduler, you’re a vision spreader), I find it hard to imagine that new recruits (with the possible exception of a handful of outstanding ones) can be adequately trained to become successful principals in a little over one year. (There is actually a formal study and analysis of the New York City Leadership Academy being conducted by the Institute for Education and Social Policy at New York University. Results to follow in June.)

President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently announced the funding of a $5 billion federal school turnaround program that will transform thousands of failing public schools in the next 5 years (see previous post here). I can only assume that many of these school turnarounds will involve hiring new principals. Since schools (like most other organizations) either rise or fall on the strength of their leadership, it will be interesting to see where these thousands of new principals come from, and how they are trained.

(Photo: ecastro’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)