HISD superintendent Abe Saavedra has outlined some changes that would focus on whittling away at administrative bureaucracy and cutting back on standardized testing. As with any new proposal, it’s the details that matter: the changes sound good in theory, but implementing them so the benefits are seen is often the biggest challenge.
Let’s start with his proposed administrative shake-up:
The plan, which the Houston Independent School District trustees said they were likely to approve, calls for scrapping the current administrative structure, which uses 13 district superintendents and about two dozen other senior managers to oversee HISD’s 300-plus schools. Saavedra said the district would save as much as $4 million by replacing them with three regional superintendents and 18 executive principals.
[snip]
The leadership overhaul is designed to de-emphasize administration and put the focus on teaching, Saavedra said. Candidates with strong experience as campus principals would be recruited to fill 18 executive principal jobs. Each of them would oversee every school within a feeder pattern that includes the elementary and middle schools that feed into a high school. Schools would still have their own principals.
[snip]
Senior-level administrators whose jobs are eliminated in the shake-up would be allowed to apply for the new positions, Saavedra said.
Because layer upon layer of bureaucracy requires layer upon layer of support staff, reducing the number of administrative layers is a good idea, IF the number of support staff is also reduced and not just shuffled around. If the people whose jobs are eliminated are moved to other jobs within the district, then the benefit is muted. Again, details matter here, and it will be important for a watchdog media (pssst…Chronicle) to keep an eye on this. We can’t always trust school district press releases!
Also, Saavedra needs to fill these new administrative positions carefully. Public education has a nasty habit of moving around terrible administrators. Sometimes the most incompetent officials are rewarded with promotions, and of course, that filters down to poor education for students. It really does matter who will fill these positions. As Rick Casey recently pointed out, the head of the Texas Education Agency is a former school district superintendent who we now know presided over a district with some suspect test scores. These people need to have their backgrounds thoroughly checked out. Politicians love to say, “it’s for the children,” but if they really want to do something for the children, they will work hard to get the best people in charge of educating our children.
The second part of Saavedra’s plan is to reduce testing. The fact that teachers spend so much time teaching the tests is a concern, but these tests assess a student’s basic skills. Some of us would argue that a school curriculum which actually teaches the basics will take care of that “teaching to the test” problem. But of course, schools haven’t been doing an effective job of teaching the basics for many years, which is why our children are often poorly educated and must be taught how to take the tests.
“If we improve our instructional programs, our scores will improve,” he [Saavedra] said. “We don’t have to chase test scores.”
It’s such a common sense idea. The fact that schools have to spend so much time chasing test scores is a huge indictment of our public education system.
Here’s another one of Saavedra’s ideas:
He also will seek to design end-of-course exams for high school freshmen beginning next school year, adding another grade level to the program each year thereafter until tests are in place for all high school students.
The tests, in all core subject areas, could eventually be a component that helps decide whether students are promoted to the next grade.
This is a good proposal, IF Saavedra can get every school (and every teacher!) to agree to a solid, district-wide curriculum and to agree to what’s on the tests. He could have a battle on his hands for this idea, but if he’s successful, it would be a good one.
Saavedra also wants to increase the number of students taking Advanced Placement exams. But the district needs to have effective pre-AP courses built in for this to work. If the students haven’t been properly prepared, the number of students passing the AP exams won’t increase.
This next quote from Saavedra is very important:
All of this, Saavedra said, is geared toward muscling up HISD’s academic rigor to produce better-prepared graduates.
“If we’re going to make a large dent in our kids not having to take remedial classes in college, we’ve got to pay attention to more than the (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills),” Saavedra said.
That acknowledgement — of a big problem — is huge. We have written about this before here and here. Public education has become so woefully inadequate that students entering college often have to take remedial classes before they can even take beginning college courses, and businesses increasingly have to pay for new employees to take remedial classes to meet basic levels of math, writing and communication skills. It’s almost criminal how public education has failed so many students.
The school board will undoubtedly support Saavedra’s ideas, but his own test will come with selling these proposals to HISD administrators, teachers and the unions. Usually the most vocal opposition to any new school idea will come from the unions. We wish Saavedra good luck.
