WHO'S MINDING THE PRINCIPALS?

[Anonymous]

Since Rhee has left, will her numerous lackluster appointees be confronted with greater scrutiny under Henderson? As we take in the landscape before and after Rhee, there were many moves that had nothing to do with enhancing student achievement and I wonder if principals that were in her "circle" might be judged a bit more realistically now. Also, did the Asst. Superintendent assignments Rhee made recently go into effect? We get lots of newsly bulletins from DCPS these days, but the role of Assist. Supers, who they are, etc... remains mysterious. What are they all doing ? Who is assigned to what schools? Are these the people who evaluate principals?

[Anonymous]

THE SAME PERSON WHO'S MINDING THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON.

[Anonymous]

Jeff Steele? Really?

[Anonymous]

hee hee hee!

[Anonymous]

All caps aside, given the pressing budget issues, it seems like there is space to cut some of the new instructional supers that Rhee hired last year. 8 salaries at $130K buys quite a bit of copy paper at schools that have none.

I'll be interested to see if they'll be clearing out some of the excess downtown.

[Anonymous]

If any indication of who's minding the principals is evident to what is going on at Dunbar and McKinley...then do I need to say any more?

[Anonymous]

I find it really interesting we've read so much ink dedicated to teachers and their(over-stated) failings over the last few years, and very little ink dedicated to specific success stories related to the principals Rhee was in such a hurry to remove and replace.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to hear about her star principals and how they've fared. She had the opportunity to hand pick them (unlike teachers) so they should be the best and the brightest, right? doing great things?

Has anyone heard of one of these stars that has performed an educational miracle?

[Anonymous]

Guess Not! Kaya Henderson, are you out there?

[Anonymous]

I sat on a principal search panel in June. The candidates lacked experience and the ability to run a spell check or proofread their resumes. One came completely unglued in the interview. It was unbelievable and yet this person is now running a DCPS. In fact, all of the candidates are now running schools. These are people who would be laughed at in Fairfax or Montgomery county.

It was truly discouraging and this principal cohort will continue to hurt the system for years to come. It's especially frustrating when you consider Rhee often brayed about how she was attracting talent from across the country. (Not one of these candidates I saw were from even outside the Beltway.)

I'm a longtime DCPS parent and really wanted things to get better, but this is our last year in the system.

I can't subject my children to this sort of "let's learn on the job" mentality that drove the Rhee administration.

[Anonymous]

Spellchecking a resume is not as bad when the vacancy announcement for principals was glaringly wrong. But there's always a bragging chat regarding Bell's, Eastern's and Phelp's principals. You have to have the opportunity of getting both as in Kaya and John in the same room together when the bragging and brandishing is about to commence. Believe me, there are more principals at the high-school level that Kaya is probably fed-up with than Rhee. Case in point McKinley and Ballou principals both had horrendous years and both were noticed through their first level supervisor John that a termination was going to commence. As in due process both hot-watered principals pleaded their case to Rhee and have survived another school term.

Let's be real, if they told us who were the best principals would we honestly believe them?

[Anonymous]

as a DC Public Charter School parent, I wonder the same....

[Anonymous]

Who is the instructional superintendent for Oyster-Adams? That woman needs oversight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it really interesting we've read so much ink dedicated to teachers and their(over-stated) failings over the last few years, and very little ink dedicated to specific success stories related to the principals Rhee was in such a hurry to remove and replace.

Excellent point. She said in Washingtonian interview that a bunch of principals still need to go. It may be impossible to sort out her hiring legacy. The new principals were not all young and inexperienced. Some of the top schools' principals were well on their way before Rhee, like Kim at Deal. What worries me is how oversight by instructional superintendents appointed by Rhee (with less transparency than principals) will be able to help with inevitable principal turnover.

[Anonymous]

Look, the Instrucitonal Supers. are the invisible hand and they need to be front and center. Considering the amount of power "supposedly" bestowed on them they need to be as publicly scrutiinzed as the teachers (who are often unfairly skewered in the lousy "IMPACT" eval.), and principals together with these guys should be all in the spotlight! How do we even know what school our "cluster" is without a long navigational search or requests from Central? And to PP, obviously principals, like Kim, were well on their way before Rhee. Rhee did nothing in this area.