Reply to APS - How can we get rid of Superintendent Murphy?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am surprised that such an under educated person is leading a school system with such high-achieving parents and children. It's odd.

A coach? Wtf? the least educated of educators.[/quote]

I'm not a big fan of Murphy, but I will push back on this charge.

It's actually not a surprise that many coaches end up in admin positions in school systems. The skills that make good coaches are similar to the skills needed to be a good administrator. They are, literally, team leaders. They are accustomed to working with a variety of skills to try to put together a cohesive team. They have to consider skills and personalities and be able to recognize people who bring "intangibles." (The player who doesn't look great on her own, whose stats aren't particularly impressive, but who somehow makes everyone else on the floor/field play better.) It sounds facile, but they are accustomed to providing direction and oversight and watching the team work together to get the job done.

Most teachers don't do any of this in their day to day jobs, though of course some do have these skills. In fact, there are lots of teachers who love their jobs in part because they love being the ruler of their little fiefdom. (That's not a criticism.) These teachers love the day-to-day autonomy (even if they have to hew to imposed standards), love being in charge of their classrooms, and often don't enjoy, and even actively dislike, committee work. They are autocrats, however benign. These teachers typically aren't attracted to admin positions (and if they are can be autocratic admins who are not beloved by their underlings).

Also, don't forget that many subject teachers in high schools actually love teaching their subjects and don't want to stop doing it. They went into teaching because they love French or physics or history and want to teach.

Another factor is energy level, or willingness to devote a shit ton of time to the job. School administrators work really long days. Teacher-coaches--who teach PE all day and then stay after school to spend 3 more hours coaching--are accustomed to this and actually enjoy it. Many other teachers do not have any interest in this. (And underlying this is the male-female dynamic--in our culture, women still do the vast majority of childcare, and teaching is still a primarily female profession, so a large proportion of teachers are women who need to go home to their own children, so they can't/don't want to devote this kind of time to their job.) (Again, this is observation, not criticism.)[/quote]

I have to congratulate you on the way with which you worked with the raw material here, but APS under Murphy has stagnated. APS had some natural advantages years ago, due to a combination of affluent residents and relatively few school-age children, which Murphy has since exhausted by building a handful of expensive new schools while neglecting the curriculum or capacity needs elsewhere.  As a result, APS now attracts an embarrassingly low number of the region's top students, while now also facing a major capacity crisis in the upper grades.

The better analogy for Murphy is not a coach who makes optimal use of his players' diverse talents, but instead an athletic director who builds an expensive new football stadium with a flashy scoreboard, without bothering to check if the squad is competitive or whether there are enough seats for all the season ticketholders.[/quote]

No argument with the Murphy specifics. I'm arguing with the notion that the underlying problem is that Murphy started out as a coach. I don't think that's the problem. Hey, maybe he was a bad coach, LOL.

I also want to add to my last paragraph above about male/female differences: I should have added that no doubt part of this is sexism in hiring/opportunities as well.[/quote]

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