Should Community Superintendents sit in a dunking booth?

How's that universal proficiency thing workin' out for ya?

NCLB (No Child Left Behind) required everybody to be proficient by 2014. Lately there's been some grousing. Apparently proficiency is not a reasonable expectation for some demographic groups in some school systems. So the idea is to get rid of the requirement, so systems won't be identified as failing and then actually have to do "whatever it takes."  See Tougher Standards Mean More Schools 'Failing'

I feel bad.  Maybe the systems didn't realize a decade ago that this would be a big job.  Maybe they thought the mere incantation of "equity" or "whatever it takes" would do the trick.

Part of the NCLB idea was that, when parents saw that their schools weren't making AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress), they would make a stink, and school Boards and Superintendents would do whatever it takes to fix things. MCPS, just to pick an example, has many schools not making AYP, but I don't hear much complaint from parents. How come? They don't think it matters that lots of kids in their schools aren't even "proficient?" They're confident that MCPS already is doing "whatever it takes" to get these schools and demographic groups proficient?

Here's another thing. Pursuant to NCLB and Maryland regulations, principals are losing their jobs when their schools have failed long enough. It's the principals' fault. Different principals would achieve AYP. But the odd thing is that these bad schools, with their bad principals, are located in the red zone. Isn't it odd that MCPS makes bad principal choices only for schools in the red zone?

I'm thinking that the principal is important, but not sufficient, in doing whatever it takes to attain equity and AYP. The red zone concentration of failure suggests to me that more Carver resources will be required. I recently suggested to a pretty high ranking fellow that the Community Superintendents show more leadership in the school; but the fellow told me that it's not done that way in MCPS: that would undermine that (short-tenured) principal. And it's magnifying the principal's authority that's important, even as demographic groups fail to make AYP year after year.

I think that if a principal loses his/her job, a Community Superintendent should sit in a dunking booth, or stand in the stocks, for a day. I'd buy a ticket. Funds go to the failed school. 

Whatever it takes.

Frederick Stitchnoth