There’s a great story in the Morning News Sunday that talks about how DISD has changed the focus of school principals from administration to ensuring that teachers are teaching and challenging students. I recognize some of the story’s buzzwords ("academic rigor" for students; "paradigm shift" for administrators and teachers) from attending meetings of some of our neighborhood schools’ Site-Based Decision Management (SBDM) teams. According to the story, principals are now "required" to spend two days a week in "learning walks" — in classrooms observing and coaching teachers on betters ways to teach. Principals who are successful at improving their campus test scores stand to earn a bonus of up to $10,000; those who don’t, according to the story, "can be terminated more easily." All of this sounds great, but the story also points out the biggest barrier to the plan’s success: Half of the district’s principal’s have been with the district 20 years or longer (that’s 11 different DISD superintendent bosses, for those trying to keep track). Unless Dr. Hinojosa hangs around long enough — or is allowed to hang aroung long enough — to carry out the plan, it won’t work. In fact, nothing will work at DISD unless Dr. Hinojosa hangs around long enough. Hinojosa’s ambitious plan to make DISD the top urban school district in America by 2010 is going to require one important commitment: He’s going to have to hire principals who are good at "learning walks", and he’s going to have to stay around long enough to protect the good ones and get rid of the bad ones — simple as that. Those principals are out there, but they aren’t going to leave jobs in other districts or give up good jobs in DISD to take on troubled campuses unless they’re convinced they’re building careers rather than walking into minefields.
