Proposal: Superintendents in low-performing districts
could face removal
This from Brad Hughes at KSBA:
If the Kentucky Board of Education and the General Assembly agree, Education Commissioner Jon Draud would have the authority to remove superintendents whose districts have failed to meet academic targets for a period of years.
However, among the unresolved issues is just how many years of missed goals would place the superintendent in jeopardy and whether school board members could lose their elected posts as well.
Department of Education staff are drafting a 2009 legislative agenda for the agency and the state board. In the package to be voted on at the state board’s December meeting will be language to amend state law and expand the list of causes for which the commissioner can remove local school leaders.
The proposal resulted from the work of Draud’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Interventions in Low-Performing Schools. Among the recommendations in its 38-page report is a call for changes in KRS 156.172 to allow “removal of a superintendent or school board member for chronic low student academic performance…to enable clear authority.”
“I don’t feel the department can run districts better than anyone else, especially as the department has cut back on personnel,” said Draud. “On the other hand, I’d like to have that option if we have a district where there has been no academic progress for six, seven years. We need to place academic progress as a high priority.” ...
Superintendents on panel seek their own changes
...Three superintendents – Tim Moore of Mason County, Brady Link of Christian County and Stu Silberman of Fayette County – served on the 33-member Blue Ribbon panel. (Among other panel members were KSBA Associate Executive Director David Baird, Madison County board member Doug Whitlock, three principals and seven KDE staff.)
All three superintendents feel strongly that before superintendents face removal over academic failures, the district’s chief administrative officer should have the authority to make changes at the school level – specifically to remove and replace principals.
“I would hope that any legislation on this issue would give superintendents the authority to appoint principals at the very least at those schools that have been underperforming for some time,” said Silberman.“We’re not trying to use this issue to push for superintendents to have the authority to hire principals across the board,” said Link. “But the board would be held accountable to set goals for the superintendent, and the superintendent would put in goals and actions for the principal to achieve. If it doesn’t happen, a domino effect would take place.”
Moore added, “Superintendents aren’t afraid of accountability as long as we have opportunities to initiate change. Accountability doesn’t always start at the bottom; it needs to start at the top.” ...
