Here's how CMS is preparing principals

At last week's "State of our Schools" speech, Superintendent Ann Clark mentioned how Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is focusing on developing principals. A recent report from the Wallace Foundation gives some more specifics about what the district is doing.

CMS is one of a half-dozen districts across the country to receive grants from the foundation to work on their principal pipeline. They got $7.5 million over five years, beginning in 2011.

The report describes some of the programs CMS has set up. A few things they've done:

• Created a set of "super standards," or things they're looking for in a school leader. Take a look at an early version of them on pages four and five of this document. They were updated in 2014 to include these. District leaders also got together to come up with rubrics for grading principals on the metrics. For example, how would an aspiring principal demonstrate "belief in children"?

• Required principals to take a university preparation course. Before, principals were encouraged to complete one, but alternatives were allowed. Now, CMS told the Wallace Foundation, aspiring principals need to do one of these courses with Winthrop, Queens, UNC Charlotte or Wingate and the alternatives are being phased out.

• Tweaked the criteria for entering the principal "talent pool" from which CMS hires leaders. Changes have alternated between being more and less restrictive, and one person interviewed said CMS has yet to hit the "sweet spot." 

• Created a five-year support program for new principals that begins with a "consultant coach" and ends with a capstone project with the McColl Center for Art and Innovation.

• Added an executive director of leadership development

Study: Get more creative in recruiting principals

Urban school districts aren't doing enough to recruit and pay great school leaders,  according to a new study by the Thomas Fordham Institute titled  "Lacking Leaders:  The Challenges of Principal Recruitment,  Selection and Placement."

The DC-based education research and advocacy group  (funded by the usual list of reform philanthropies) studied five urban districts that have been working to improve their principal processes.  I was guessing Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools might be among them,  especially since the institute teamed up with Public Impact of Chapel Hill, which has worked with CMS.  But the descriptions of districts,  which are given pseudonyms such as Reformville and Urbanopolis as part of an anonymity agreement to ensure candor,  don't match.

Still,  the issues loom large here as the summer leadership churn cranks up.  "Leaders must deal with everything from overstretched budgets to mediocre teachers to unruly (and potentially dangerous) students, not to mention heavy pressure to boost academic results (without, of course, 'teaching to the test,' much less engaging in even more dubious practices),"  the report says.  They get little autonomy,  often make little more than classroom teachers and face grueling accountability demands,  it continues.

The researchers conclude that the five districts,  which they describe as pioneers,  are too quick hire from within,  rather than making an energetic and systemic search for the best candidates from other districts and sectors.  Some officials told researchers they'd had limited success with finding outsiders who understand the local culture and stick around,  while others said tapping outsiders over assistant principals in the district hurts morale.

The Fordham Institute and the Broad Foundation issued a 2003  "manifesto"  urging districts to look for noneducators with strong leadership skills.  The latest report also pushes the idea that a strong corporate leader could make a great principal,  so long as there's an instructional expert on the administrative team.

"We acknowledge that private firms do not face the same licensure constraints as school districts, so cross-sector recruitment in public education is apt to be harder" than in corporate hiring,  the report says. "But policymakers could change those licensure rules. And the takeaway is the same: great leaders can succeed across sectors."

I don't think I've seen CMS recruit a principal from outside education,  and the district had some setbacks with a couple of HR directors hired from corporate America.  Superintendent Heath Morrision does seems to be searching outside CMS for principals:  A scan of announcements this spring and summer shows seven from within CMS,  three from adjacent districts and one from Tennessee.

The report also calls for compensation that's more in line with corporate pay,  turning principalships into  "phenomenal job opportunities."

"Districts should also see the principal’s job as the year-round position that it is and treat  —  and 
compensate  —  it more like the executive role that it’s become,"  the report says.  "Too costly, you say? Think of it this way: the United States employs roughly 100,000 principals. If we gave each of them a $100,000 raise, the total price tag would amount to $10 billion—obviously not chump change. But that’s less than 2 percent of the K–12 public school budget—and $5 billion less than the total new cost estimated to fund President Obama’s pre-K plan."

Update: The Wallace Foundation,  which has been working with CMS on its  "principal pipeline"  since 2011,  announced today that it will provide additional money to support principal supervisors in hopes of developing a larger corps of strong principals.

What's up with special CMS meeting?

My eyes bugged when I saw the notice of a special Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board meeting to approve personnel appointments Tuesday afternoon.  The meeting will start with closed session at 1 p.m., the note says.

Last week's regular meeting started almost half an hour late because members were talking behind closed doors. I flashed back to three years ago, when Superintendent Peter Gorman stunned everyone by announcing his resignation with little warning. (Post Traumatic Superintendent Disorder, perhaps?)

But spokeswoman Tahira Stalberte and the board's vice chair, Tim Morgan, laughed at my urgent query about whether some big shakeup was afoot. The meeting is about filling principal vacancies,  Stalberte said.  Update:  Stalberte now says it will include personnel other than principals, but she and Chief Communication Officer Kathryn Block say Morrison isn't going anywhere.

Stalberte

But those appointments are normally approved during regular meetings.  Why the long closed session last week and the special meeting this week?

Morgan said it's a matter of timing  --  waiting until end-of-year testing is over to avoid school disruption while moving as fast as possible to prepare for 2014-15.  As for last week,  he said,  the closed session that normally precedes public meetings ran long with a long list of unrelated items,  including property issues,  individual student assignment questions and evaluation of the general counsel.

Speaking of school board drama,  Stalberte is leaving CMS at the end of this week to become chief communication officer for Union County Schools. She's been a mainstay of the CMS public information office since 2006,  with about a year's detour to Durham County Schools. I'd tease her about fleeing the stress of the big city and the Charlotte media,  but consider where she's going:  To a district where parents are suing the school board over boundaries and the school board sues county commissioners over the budget.  I wish her good luck as she crosses the county line.