Posted on October 2, 2008 at 5:05 pm by Eric Osberg
Of Total Student Loads
UCLA professor Bill Ouchi argues in today’s New York Post for giving principals autonomy—a point about which we surely agree—based on his forthcoming research that, when given control, principals can get great results by manipulating the school variable that (he finds) matters most: “Total Student Loads,” roughly described as “the number of students [teachers] must get to know each term.”
Count Stafford and Jay Mathews as skeptical that, in teaching, quantity might matter more than quality.
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October 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
“Giving” principals authority? And what, pray, is the motivation of those who currently possess that authority to give it away?
Some possibility that, perhaps, student achievement will increase?
Yeah, right. Why don’t you drop by the Detroit Public Schools sometime and you can see that it’s a lack of student achievement that’s worked out quite well for those who currently possess the authority you think they ought to hand over to principals.
30% graduation rate? 25% literacy rate? Woopee-do! More funding! Hoorah!
In the public education system no one gets paid for doing their job right but there’s plenty of people who get paid for doing it wrong. There’s a policy focus for you.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
If we had a principal in every school who was capable of site based autonomy, education wouldn’t be in the mess we are in. First, we need a Marshall Plan for principals to recruit and train thousands of them. Ouchi is right about the importance Total Student Loads. I didn’t realize that anyone would disagree. But finding enough teachers would take a Marshall Plan for teachers.
To realize the benefits of both, we need to create and fund another position in schools, a building manager. Take an inventory of the new responsibilities that we’ve imposed on principals and estimate how much we’ve increased their workloads in the last decades. I bet we’ve doubled their “To Do List,” without de-prioritizing anything. - a teacher, not an administrator
October 5th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
The “total student load” notion can’t be discussed in isolation from the nature of the students in question (and btw I haven’t read the relevant columns, etc., so if I’m stating the obvious, I apologize).
Public schools are now overwhelmingly committed to providing “differentiated instruction” in the context of heterogeneously grouped classrooms. My own district defines differentiated instruction as unique instruction provided to each individual child, and I don’t have the sense that this definition is uncommon.
You’re going to need a very small Total Student Load to make differentiated instruction work.
October 5th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
As to principals with power, I have seen the future and it doesn’t work.
Until parents have a seat at the table, until it is permissible for individual parents to advocate for individual children, principals-with-power will simply be bureaucrats without a clientele.