[NYC school-network] staffers jumping ship ahead of [Schools Chancellor] Fariña’s system overhaul (Chalkbeat - 1/16/15) EXCERPT: The school-support networks created during the Bloomberg era are shedding leaders and staffers ahead of an overhaul of the city’s school governance system, which Chancellor Carmen Fariña will announce next week, according to multiple sources. Fariña will reveal changes to the way schools are managed and supported during a speech next Thursday at the Association for a Better New York, according to network leaders and teachers who were told about the speech by their union president. The revamped system is widely expected to diminish or dismantle the support networks and restore authority to district superintendents, who were weakened under Bloomberg. Several current network leaders have already taken new jobs working for superintendents as “principal leadership facilitators,” according to principals and network leaders. . . . That represents a major power reversal for network chiefs who, under the previous administration, overshadowed superintendents. While network leaders oversaw staffs of a dozen or more employees who helped principals run their schools, superintendents had only a handful of helpers and served mainly to evaluate principals. Meanwhile, some network employees are leaving to work in schools or various education department offices, even as a network hiring freeze keeps their bosses from replacing them. The effect is that some networks have had their operations undermined before they have officially lost any authority. . . . As many as a dozen network chiefs are said to have accepted the new principal leadership facilitator jobs, which are being informally referred to as “deputy superintendents,” according to the network leaders. Their role will be to give principals instructional support and help superintendents evaluate them. (A few network leaders have also been hired as superintendents.) . . . The system of nearly 60 networks, which span multiple boroughs and usually support about 25 schools, has earned mixed reviews over the years. Principals who favor the system point out that it separates support from supervision, allowing school leaders to share problems with their networks without fear of reprisal. Their ability to choose which network to join, they say, lets them collaborate with like-minded colleagues outside their geographic districts. But critics call the structure inefficient and impractical, leaving low-performing schools with too little oversight and parents without local officials to turn to. They point out that network leaders cannot compel the leaders of struggling schools to make changes and say that the quality of the different networks vary widely.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 18:38:19 +0000
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