Qualified? Barely Qualified? Highly Unqualified?
Last Wednesday Leo Casey on Edwize wrote about Renee Cloutier, the new principal at PS 7 in the Bronx.
The woman has very little experience. Quoting the New York Times Leo wrote:
After four years as a teacher, with the time window allowed for obtaining the Masters Degree required for permanent licensure about to close, the new principal entered the Leadership Academy. She will now be a principal, with a new clock for the Masters Degree, without ever having completed that requirement for a teacher’s license.
The Department of Education contacted Edwize, indignant. Apparently the new principal was not unqualified: she earned her Masters more than two months ago.
Many teachers will relate: instead of a diploma, the DoE sent a letter from her college. (How many of you have sent the DoE or State Ed letters from your colleges, since your certification couldn’t wait for the diploma?)
So she was qualified, if only for a very brief time, not unqualified.
Click for ———->
But look, folks, there’s a lot more here than the joy we feel when we’ve caught the miserable DoE in a “gotcha.” Even with it being a fancy Riverdale school. Even with the outgoing principal being married Bronx Press-Review/Riverdale Review editor and publisher and City Sun education contributor Andy Wolf. (not my favorite people. I’m not providing links -2718)
Anyhow, look at this. The Masters or lack, or lack of lack, that is not such a big deal. The woman has 4 years teaching experience. Granted, she may be a tremendous individual (I do not know her). But no way is that enough.
Today I looked at a transcript, transfer student, from a middle school / high school where the administrators have middle school backgrounds. Damn, it was a mess. Who told these people in what order kids should be taking courses? (Answer: No one.)
It is not ok for people with no high school experience to be running a high school. It is probably not so cool for elementary teachers who haven’t taught at least a good variety of grades to be running an elementary school. Experience matters.
In the meantime, the discussion at Leo’s article continues, mostly about how much education a teacher should have. (It is being prodded on by an anti-union troll, but there is still real content. I am participating.)
JD2718 
principals just have to go up the ranks. It is not about that traditional way of getting to the top, but about experience. Principals do not earn the right to passage but they do need to build knowledge and understanding and those qualities just don’t come with a bureaucratic wave of the hand. A principal needs to have gone through the ropes. Ms. Cloutier is not principal material
Yo miss! in Bushwick wrote:
“My school certainly has its flaws, but teachers at my school work really hard. Any suggestion that we’re just not trying hard enough to “reach” these kids is a huge slap in the face. Our population is tough, and we’re doing everything we can to make up the ground for the kids who don’t have what they should at home.”
She concluded:
“But kids who haven’t gotten that by ages 14-18 don’t seem terribly likely to ever get it, no matter what we do. And again, we do a lot. We really do.”
yo miss! in bushwick
No truer words have ever been spoken by a teacher. Given the limitations and futility of attempting and failing to educate a large percentage of students, it’s time to change the approach.
As Yo Miss says, the kids don’t learn. If the lack of learning is not based in some inherent inferiority of the kids and the teachers are doing their professional best, then the only remaining culprit is the teaching methodology.
Based on Yo Miss’s observation, it would make no difference if teachers’ pay were doubled. As she says, it’s not the teachers. Okay.
Frankly, there’s no doubt teaching methodology is the problem. And it’s made worse by the bureaucratic monopoly that defines public-school education.
Real competition would make the difference. But bureaucrats always fear competition.
First step. Change the certification process. In its current configuration it blocks engineers and other science grads from gaining swift access to the classroom. Second, insitute an apprentice teaching program to introduce new teachers to classroom management rather than throwing recent college grads and career changers into social situations way beyong their neophyte capabilities.
Third, there are about 78,000 people identified as teachers in the NY City public school system. If all of them were actually working in classrooms, the teacher:student ratio would be about 15:1.
In fact, thousands and thousands of teachers want to be anywhere but in the classroom. Hence, they have been absorbed by the education bureaucracy and relieved of teaching duties. Oh well.
That’s what happens in a bureaucratic monopoly. There is no accountability.
Anyway, even Chuck Schumer sends his kid to private school. And let’s be frank, every teacher with a school-aged kid in NYC would do the same if it were financially possible, unless the child were in the gifted program..
No slappz comment does not seem related to this post.
His 15:1 ratio assumes that teachers eat lunch with kids and have no preparation time during the day.
But I won’t continue. His comments will be moderated, and no further trolling will get through.
His anonymous nails it: experience counts, big time. (though it does not excuse the trolling)
(although I do not know about the performance so far of the specific principal)