Moscavitch offers a range of needed inputs to those schools, which I won’t enumerate here, but I will highlight the issue of leadership which he feels is very important.
I liked this point because just as I feel that teachers who offer "too much paper work, and focus on test preparation" as reasons for not teaching kids are not good teachers-the really good ones try to figure why they didn’t get to a particular kid-, I feel that principals who claim they cannot get their staff to try new teaching aprpoaches or get rid of very poor teachers because they are too busy with so much paperwork for the central office, or because they are constricted by the union contract are also just making excuses.
Moscavitch feels principals need to take the bull by the horns and get the job done.
He cites the fact that it’s already happening:
Certainly there are many principals who care passionately about making sure all kids succeed, who insist that teachers use research-based pedagogy, and who have the complete backing of their superintendent to changes in the way their teachers teach. They do this without charter status and without changes in current union contracts and dismissal procedures.
Moscavitch makes the important point that all staff of a school needs to be accountable to the principal of a building and not to a central office curriculum administrator or superintendent.
The public can accept reasons and explanations for why things don’t work but people bristle at excuses.
Whenever a teacher at Back to School Night complained to parents about class size or lack of resources, I heard from some of those parents. “We know teaching is a hard job and middle school kids can be tough, but we want to hear what s/he is going to try to do to help our kids learn, not why s/he can’t do it.
Principals need to know what’s important and make it happen.
No too busy with minutia, not prevented by the contract, not....!!!