Challenging Times
Now more than ever, school leaders must focus their priorities
to make strategic use of the resources they have.
Elizabeth A. City
T ake this short quiz: Which of the following factors does a leader need to improve student achievement? A. More money B. More time
C. Smaller class sizes
D. More teacher experience
E. Professional development for teachers
If your answers were mostly “it depends,” you’re
on the right track. For each of these resources,
quality matters more than quantity. More time doesn’t
make much difference if it’s not used well. The same
with more dollars. And as painful as it is for me to
admit, professional development often doesn’t make
much difference either. (That’s a commentary on
current quality, not on potential.)
Of course, quantity also matters. We need a basic
level of resources, and in some schools today, that
level is not being met. But resourceful school leaders
can always devise ways to overcome challenges and
improve education. They do this in two ways: ( 1) by
making strategic use of the resources they have, and
( 2) by cultivating the roots that nurture sustained,
thriving learning communities.
Working with Existing Resources
The basic resources that school leaders have to work
with are people, time, and money.
People
People are the most precious resource in a school,
both in terms of potential value for student learning
and in terms of expense. Resourceful leaders invest
in people through hiring and staffing, professional
development, and supervision and evaluation.
© JAMES YANG
In some school systems, principals have little choice about whom to hire. But no matter how much choice you exercise in hiring and staffing, it’s essential that you support the people you have. The more constrained you are on the hiring and staffing front, the more important professional development and supervision and evaluation become. Educator evaluation is the antidote du jour to the plague of “poor teacher quality.” I don’t hold out as much hope for evaluation as many policy- makers do because I think “teacher quality” is an incorrect diagnosis of the disease, which makes me skeptical of the cure. We certainly have a challenge
of teaching quality. But I’m doubtful that teacher
evaluation is going to make much of a dent in that
problem—in part because we’re not making the skill
and knowledge investments we need (for example,
ensuring that evaluators know enough about
effective teaching and how to support it); in part
because teacher evaluation tends to put the focus on
teaching rather than on learning; and in part because
we’re relying too much on it without complementary
investments in other areas. It’s a little like thinking
that standardized tests are going to solve all our
achievement problems. What’s abundantly clear
from the last 20 years is that data can help shine a
light on problems, but data alone won’t solve them.
All that being said, teachers (just like students)
can benefit from evaluations that provide formative,
ongoing feedback. Ben Levin, former Ontario deputy
minister of education and current professor at the
University of Toronto, says that one of the most
striking differences between Canada (which perennially ranks in the top five on the Programme for
International Student Assessment exams) and the
