Caught Between Nostalgia And Utopia
Every time we rigidly define the model of the principalship, we confine who fills the role.
Two of our graduate students, both aspiring principals, asked us whether they could be effective school leaders and have satisfying personal lives. We briefly considered long-winded professorial responses that would skillfully address the issue and leave them both hopeful. Instead, we said no. Our bluntness surprised even us, but the evidence was too overwhelming to characterize any other reply as responsible and honest. The juggling of work and family is becoming increasingly difficult for working women and men in America, a problem felt keenly by school principals.
As is true with many professions originally reserved almost exclusively for white men, the principalship is still identified with mid-20th-century male work models. The premises governing this attitude toward the position include the outdated notion of a partner, usually female and unemployed outside the home, who brings the clothes to the dry cleaner and prepares dinner for the homecoming of an omniscient, male leader. Fortunately, social reconstruction and educational reform challenge these assumptions. Therefore, the model of one tireless, constantly available leader to one school building is no longer tenable. Educators were then left with the question, if the old model is not viable, then what should the new one be?
Today the principal is more likely than ever before to be a woman and/or a person of color, although white men remain overrepresented. The American principal is also working longer hours, is being held accountable for student achievement on high-stakes tests, and is usually on a one-year contract without union protection. Moreover, the pay differential between the principal and the experienced teachers in the building is often minuscule. All this leads to a well-documented national crisis in the principalship. A relatively small number of qualified candidates are pursuing a mounting number of vacancies. What we have learned in education about making substantive change must now be applied to our thinking about school leadership. We must replace tinkering with...
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