Empowering Principals
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Chancellor Klein’s effort to launch a principal-empowerment program illustrates that it can often be difficult to see the forest for the trees. Witness the letter, published on this page yesterday, from the president of the principals’ union, Jill Levy. She takes issue with a comment from an education department spokesman reported in the Sun. Speaking of the union’s reaction to the chancellor’s proposal, the spokesman, David Cantor, had said, “the last group we expected to oppose us was the principals union.” Ms. Levy calls that characterization of her group’s position “beyond credulity.”
The program allows individual principals to request greater autonomy from the department. Participating principals gain more freedom over curriculum and more choices to procure some services from outside contractors instead of internal department providers. But they must set stricter performance targets with the department and face consequences if they don’t meet the targets, such as more stringent reviews from watchful administrators.
A small pilot of the program has been a smashing success. The chancellor is now hoping to expand the program, and many principals seemed eager to participate. Some 270 schools had at least started to fill out the online application ahead of this week’s deadline.
The Council of School Supervisors last week sent its members a letter expressing skepticism, and Ms. Levy filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board this week objecting to the implementation of the program. The union argues that the department is trying to pull a fast one by creating a program that might have the effect of illegally disrupting the contracts of its members, in part by subjecting them to more accountability.
Ms. Levy is technically correct when she writes that the CSA “has never said that it opposed the empowerment zone for principals and assistant principals.” Instead, in the name of “playing by the rules,” the union is taking advantage of the administrative options available to it in order to obstruct a reform proposal. Assuming the union does support the measure, this episode still only proves that onerous union work rules are a big part of the problem facing the city’s schools. Kudos to Mr. Klein for tackling the issue by trying to empower principals.
