Let Principals Lead

This NYT editorial is right on the mark. I can understand the arguments for teachers being unionized, but principals are MANAGEMENT and shouldn't have a union. If a principal doesn't perform, he/she should be removed. Kudos to Bloomberg and Klein for this innovative program -- and to the 300+ principals who signed up for it. Hopefully this is a big first step to taking this program to EVERY school.

One of the longest-running labor disputes in New York City involves the impasse between the school system and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. The union’s last contract ran out three years ago, and there are no signs of a resolution. The disagreements are myriad, but there is one overriding problem: the union has no business representing its star members, school principals.

New York schools chancellors have long bridled at a nonsensical labor arrangement under which principals are regarded as rank-and-file members of a labor union, and not as the managers that the job requires them to be. To make matters worse, the principals make up only about a quarter of the union’s membership, which also includes assistant principals and administrators — who clearly hold the balance of power in the union and who are supposed to be supervised by the principals.

For a long time, the city seemed to solve the problem by following the union’s lead and treating the principals like rank-and-file workers. Fortunately, that has changed.

Recently, more than 300 principals signed sweeping new accountability agreements that gave them more control over school budgets and curriculums, and freedom from regulations that many schools have found cumbersome. Most crucially, the so-called empowerment schools have been promised additional money, which can be used for innovative programs.

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Let Principals Lead

NYT editorial, July 14, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/14/opinion/14fri3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

One of the longest-running labor disputes in New York City involves the impasse between the school system and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. The union’s last contract ran out three years ago, and there are no signs of a resolution. The disagreements are myriad, but there is one overriding problem: the union has no business representing its star members, school principals.