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May 13, 2005
Credentials versus experience
A recent incident with the DC Public School raises a major question of whether our educational system is prepared for the information age. The story is related by columnist Marc Fisher of the Washington Post in No Way To Choose A Principal
The District school system will announce soon that it has hired a new principal for Deal Junior High School in upper Northwest, the city's only junior high that attracts a racially and economically mixed group of students. The new principal holds a master's degree in education, is an assistant principal in a respected suburban system and taught in Washington for a few years. By all accounts, she is a good pick.
This story is about a guy who didn't get the job. Somewhere in the mystery of why the D.C. schools rejected an application from Charles Abelmann lies a clue to the abiding failure of the District system.
Abelmann, a senior education specialist at the World Bank, first came to the D.C. schools in 1998, when he was lent to the system as special assistant to the superintendent. In 2001, he took an extended leave from the bank to serve as principal of Janney Elementary in upper Northwest. There, he introduced a new math curriculum, boosted test scores and won Blue Ribbon School status, making Janney one of only three D.C. schools so honored by the U.S. government. Janney parents loved his work, and after he returned to the bank last summer, they begged him to apply for the job at Deal.
Abelmann agreed to go for it. He aced the test the District requires for all applicants for principal jobs. He had outstanding evaluations at Janney. And he holds both a master's and a doctorate in education administration and planning from Harvard.
. . .
But Abelmann's Harvard degrees aren't good enough for the District. His graduate degrees are in education administration and the D.C. schools personnel office says principals must hold a certificate in education leadership.
So last month, after Abelmann had made the first cut and been interviewed by administrators, he received an e-mail from schools personnel officer Nicole Wilds saying that "you will not be able to interview for any principal positions because you do not meet the employment requirements."
Apparently, Mr. Abelmann has taught in the program that grants the "correct" certification for the DC bureaucracy. But, since he didn't graduate from that program, his is not considered qualified.
At that same time, Fisher goes on to note in his column that:
the certificate the District requires for principals is granted by university programs that range in quality from "inadequate to appalling," according to a new study by Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College at Columbia University. Levine concluded that programs in educational leadership are plagued by some of the lowest admissions standards in all of academia, irrelevant courses and faculty who lack the experience or skills to do the job.
In other words, the piece of paper that the most qualified candidate doesn't have isn't worth even the ink used to print it.
Fisher suspects other motives for the rejection:
At Janney, Abelmann rocked the boat on behalf of his school, and the system does not appreciate that.
Even without the political games, the decision by the DC school system is problematic. It is symptomatic of the old industrial age mentality where the existence of the piece of paper is more important than the information supposedly embedded in it. This story is repeated over and over again through out our economy as we struggle to come to grips with the new realities.
In this case unfortunately, these types of bureaucratic rules -- "no, you used black ink when it said to use blue ink, therefore your request is denied" -- are dooming an entire generation of our neediest children to the margins of the information economy.
No wonder that charter schools are popping up like spring flowers all over DC.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at May 13, 2005 10:37 AM
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