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at The Chicago Public Education Fund
Susan Woodward, Director of Development & Communications
(312) 558-4516

Chicago Tribune, May 9, 2005

Finding an A+ principal
Chicago Tribune editorial

Several years ago, more than 50 local school council members from across Chicago sat attentively in a training seminar, gleaning tips on how to hire a principal.

By the end of the session, it became clear that despite all efforts and good intentions, the task extended far beyond the reach of most in the room, no matter if they boasted a college education or lacked a high school diploma.

Choosing a principal is the most important task facing local school councils, which are elected groups of community, school and parent volunteers. It's also the hardest task. Too many Chicago public schools end up with mediocre principals and, occasionally, even awful ones.

In those schools, principal candidates get selected on personality and high-falutin' rhetoric, rather than on records that demonstrate critical leadership skills. Such skills include the ability to motivate staff and communicate a clear vision, create a culture of high standards for students, provide meaningful feedback to teachers and keep the school on solid financial footing.

Because a principal sets the tone for an entire school, a bad leader can easily undermine the work of the most outstanding teacher.

Tribune reporter Tracy Dell'Angela recently detailed how local school council members at Nash Elementary School in Chicago's Austin neighborhood spent a mere 15 minutes interviewing their top principal candidate last year and hired him after he seemed to say all the right things. That principal was replaced last month by Chicago Public Schools officials amid allegations of financial misspending and a flood of parent and teacher complaints.

Fortunately, CPS created a new system last year to help local school councils weed out unqualified candidates. This tough, new screening process so far has yielded stark results: The pool of eligible principal candidates shrunk from 510 to 180. The local councils now pick from this narrowed pool of qualified candidates.

The screening requires prospective principals to submit portfolios detailing their records in five leadership and skill areas. The candidates take a written exam. They are given hypothetical situations and gauged on how appropriately they respond. Their entire personnel files are scrutinized. They undergo criminal background checks. More than 170 principal candidates didn't even bother to apply this time around.

CPS also is encouraging innovative principal training programs by Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the non-profit New Leaders for New Schools.

More than a third of all principals in the Chicago Public School system are expected to retire by 2007, according to Nancy Laho, chief of the CPS office of principal preparation and development. That provides an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is to train and expect more from a new generation of principals. The challenge is to find enough of them.

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