The Carnegie Report on Teaching: The Principal's Perspective

Abstract

is superintendent of Eaton (Pa.) Area School District. Faddishness is one of the terrible things bedeviling American education today. The public in general, and educators in particular, are bombarded by a steady cascade of reports, studies, commissions, and other impulses for school betterment.Almost everybody gets into the act. U.S. and state departments of education, governors, legislators, foundations, universities, national union 1'eaders, and prominent people all have a go at telling the country what is needed for our ailing schools.To the public at large, the effect of all this is confusion, and after awhile they tune the whole thing out.To educators, this panorama is often discouraging. The din of criticism, the indiscriminate mix of good and bad ideas, and above all, the lack of commitment to support effective change in any substantial way, suggest to us that all the above is &dquo;sound and fury&dquo; signifying nothing. Like the public, we are tempted to tune the whole thing out.To pull the covers over our head on school reform, however, would be a grave mistake, for two reasons.First, there are real problems in American public education today, and as committed conscientious professionals we cannot ignore them.Second, if we do not take the lead in reform, then others will do it for us.People less knowledgeable and less involved will change our professional environment and we will have to live with it.