0.3 Preparing and training superintendents for the mission of  (Page 2/23)

Preparing Superintendents to be Executive Managers

The Need for a New Paradigm

Often school reformers sarcastically criticize superintendents as“mere”managers not capable of leading, schools, districts and communities. Education literatureabounds with conventional wisdom rhetoric advocating“silver bullet”leadership stratagems guaranteeing higher test scores. For the sake of self preservation, many superintendents“talk the talk”of transformational, creative, challenged, results based, follower based, distributive and situational leadership but few actual“walk the walk”toward verifiable results and“managerially”improved districts. District improvement is more likely achieved through“appropriate”board and superintendent leadership behavior in conjunction with effective management. One strategy alone in mostcases will not maintain or bring about organizational effectiveness and reform.

Large urban districts poignantly and tragically illustrate this paradigm. These large urban districts(often mammoth impersonal hierarchical bureaucracies) serve more than a third of the nation’s public school children and provide a majority of No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB)“failing”schools. The picture of“failing schools within failing districts”in“failing communities”provides a chilling view of urban America today. By 2015 at least one out of two public school students will be aminority enrolled in one of these“failing districts”(National Center for Education Statistics, 2000).

What massive set of policy initiatives can turn around this urban (actually national) catastrophe? More money,more teachers, better teachers, better principals, better curriculum, parental involvement, better governance or current“jingoistic”leadership by principals and superintendents?

Recent reform literature offers“quick school fixes”via“better”leadership. Foundations, state agencies, universities, private sector groups, and school districts have inthe past, and are today, spending significant amounts to“implant”leadership skills in principals and superintendents. How this“new”leadership is to be evaluated, except by very nebulous test scores increases, is not discussed. Many reform writers slip into thebeginning graduate student error of assuming high correlation denotes causation.

The Roles of Superintendents

In some respects the superintendent’s role is an anomaly in comparison to many complex organizations. The rolesof leadership (executive) and management are discrete functionscarried out by separate role incumbents in large private sector organizations. This is only true in perhaps 1% to 2% of Americanpublic school districts.

A body of literature in the field of business not only separates the two roles but also discusses personalitytraits and types best needed to fit each role. These“managerial”and“leadership”personalities are portrayed many times to be in opposition and conflict (Zaleznik, 1977). If this businessorganization literature aptly describes leadership and management needed in public school districts, a curious paradox is created forsuperintendents. Can a superintendent possess both a leadership and management personality? Or does the more confining role of themanager inhibit the less confining role of executive leader?