Is Admin To Blame For All Our Problems

by | Mar 5, 2012 | Leadership News, US Schools

Although this editorial is about the education system in the US, it says some pretty provocative things about administrators in general.  I think most responsible administrators would accept a lot of responsibility for their school’s success or failure, but do they deserve the most blame?  Is poor leadership as endemic in school administration as Mr. White seems to think?  Are international schools different, or are our problems masked by our relatively high performing population? Paul D. White: Education Lost in Administration By Paul D. White NO education reform article I’ve ever read accurately identified the two real stumbling blocks to improving our K-12 school system. The reason is because almost all of them are written by school administrators – not teachers. Our schools are melting down – academically and morally – for two simple reasons that (contrary to what you’re told) have almost nothing to do with teacher quality or a lack of funding: Ineffective leadership at all levels and a refusal to hold parents accountable for their children’s behavior. That’s it. These two areas are the source of every single thing that’s wrong with our nation’s schools. School leaders would have you believe that public education’s failure is totally due to ineffective teaching. But their endless attempts to lay full blame on inadequate teachers, teacher training programs, tenure, nonspecific curriculum, etc., are nothing but camouflage blather, used to distract the public from the real causes of this problem. This problem starts at the top, with the U.S secretary of education. The education secretary is the symbolic head of all K-12 schools in the United States. Secretary Arne Duncan, like...