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Evan Roberts
Park
English 106
2 October 2014
Why Coach if You Dont Know the Game?
Recently, the number of educational administrators with no educational background has
increased as America seeks reform of their schools. Administrators who have never been employed by an educational institution are being hired to improve the quality of schools. For someone to make improvements from a managerial position, they must understand the working conditions of the people who execute their plans. Administrators should be able to offer insight and
corrections to teachers to help improve the way they teach. If they want to improve their academic prestige, their ideas must coincide with the ways students can learn and provide the best possible learning experience. There knowledge of a successful teacher must also be known in order to
hire educators to improve the school. As the government searches for improvement in education,
they believe that the people in charge of schools must possess great leadership skills. If significant, positive changes are to be made in American education, the administrators of the institutions must have previous work experience in education.
The leader of the school must be able to relate to the teachers and know how the classroom works in order to help improve it. Superintendents have a lot of responsibility for their
school to make improvements in their academics. Not only do they set the academic tone,
butthey also actively work with teachers to develop and maintain high curriculum standards,
formulate mission statements, and establish performance goals and objectives. (University of
Scranton). The process of making a school better starts first with ideas about how to improve the
school system. How will someone with no educational work experience be able to discern what
changes are best to improve the classroom? An administrator with no previous work experience
in education will not know what the classroom is like for teachers. For one to create new, innovative ideas to boost test scores, they should have once been in the place of the teachers that they
are guiding to make such improvements.
If a leader is unable to connect to the people that receive their orders, then it will be difficult to execute any plans provided. The inexperienced administrator is brought in with the intention of creating change in the schools. The improvement of schools begins with changing the
ways teachers educate their students. How can a person who has never taught able to offer insight on how to be a better teacher? According to an article in Education Week in 2011, If people without teaching experience are allowed to become principals, the essence of this contributiona deep knowledge of what contributes to excellent teaching and learningwill disappear
(Baeder). The administrator may have good ideas for ways to expand learning in the classroom
but without any teaching experience it will be difficult to get their opinion to matter. The teachers will not give much thought to the ideas of a superintendent without teaching experience. In
many cases in our lives when we are critiqued, the one criticizing us also offers insight on how to
improve our skills. If an administrator tells a teacher they need to improve the way they are
teaching, the teacher will expect specific ways on how to improve. Without knowing what it
takes to be a successful teacher, teachers will show much skepticism with an administrator commanding them to do better.

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An effective administrator must have the ability to identify valuable teachers in their
school system. Because an administrator is responsible for improving the school, this is parallel
to the decision of whether or not a teacher is being effective in the classroom. Effectiveness in
the classroom may look much different for a person who has never been a part of educating others. In this era of reform, principals are under increasing accountability to ensure the quality of
teaching and learning in their schools, and this requires firsthand knowledge of what quality
teaching entails (Baeder). Many administrators have the responsibility of evaluating the success
of teachers in the classroom. As seen in Figure 1.1, principals and superintendents will go into
classrooms to see how well their teachers are teaching (Mader, Kieffer). If an administrator has
started their career in teaching, they will have a better idea of high caliber teaching.

Figure 1.1. A high school principal conducts an evaluation of a teachers performance in


an elementary school.
Someone who has never been a part of education will not be able to relate to students as
they strive to succeed in the classroom. If they have never been a part of education professionally, they will not have as much of an emotional connection to the success of the students. The
administrators are reliant on the success of their students. With the reformation of schools, the
government is looking for great amounts of academic improvement from the schools. [The administrators] are also increasingly being held accountable for ensuring that their schools meet
recently imposed State and Federal guidelines for student performance (College Grad). The
scores of their students only improve when the students are doing well in the classroom. Many
students do not have their own personal goals to do well in school and the mindset to do everything to the best of their ability. These students are the ones who need to be encouraged to do
well in the classroom. If the administrator has no experience with students then it will be much
more difficult for them to show the students it is necessary to do their best in school.

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Further, administrators should be able to address and handle the emotional needs of their
students. Schools focus not only on a students academic success, but their emotional wellbeing as well. Consequently principals attend to matters outside of the academic arena (Career
Overview). Most of the non traditional administrators come from the business world. Most likely
they do not have much experience in dealing with the emotions of the people below them. However, the superintendents and principals of schools must be aware of how their decisions will effect their students emotionally and provide ways to create a positive environment in their
schools. Also, it is their responsibility to help establish ways to improve the way of life for their
students. These include establishing many after school programs to help ensure safety of students
and provide the students with ways to be positively involved with their school.

One might argue that it does not take an educational background to possess quality leadership skills. There is an abundance of people outside the realm of education who have acquired
skills to lead a successful organization. The goal of hiring new administrators is to put people in
charge who know how to build consensus, work with diversity, convey trust, and communicate
with others (Adams). Also, it is valid that the people who come into the educational world will
have a new perspective on issues within the school system. The school system can be seen as
similar to a business. The one in charge must be able to lead others well and many people outside
the field of education possess those qualities.
The United States needs change in education; however, hiring administrators with no educational background is going about reform in the wrong way. I've never been a believer that
people without medical degrees should be able to practice or lawyers without appropriate training should be in a courtroom. I have a similar belief about educators, says Rudy Crew, former
superintendent of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, ex-chancellor of the New York City
DOE, and now professor of clinical education at the University of Southern California's Rossier
School of Education (Cited in Adams). Rudy Crew speaks on behalf of many educators who do
not wish to be led by administrators who have never been in their position. The ones in charge of
schools must understand the way the entire system works as a whole. When these non-traditional
administrators were in their previous field of work, they most likely were not hired as the CEO
of their company after their interview. In many fields of work, the leader of the company had to
start from the ground and work their way to the top. The educational workforce should not deviate from this way of hiring administrators.
As the United States attempt to increase the quality of public education, they should venture to find superior administrators who have experience in the field of education. The United
States is in a crucial stage of reform for their education system and is searching for innovative
ideas to create change in education. As mentioned above, the government is going about means
of improvement the wrong way. With the intentions to enhance American education, the government is attempting to put administrators with no experience in charge of schools. We should
keep the people in charge of schools who have many years of experience in education. If we do
not keep people in charge who know how the education system works, public education will lose
much of its credibility and ability to educate the youth of America.

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Works Cited
Adams, C. (2011). No Experience Needed?. Scholastic. Retrieved from
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3755578
Baeder, J. (2011, February 2). Fast-Tracking Leaders with No Teaching Experience Into the
Principalship. Education Week. Retrieved from
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/on_performance/2011/02/fasttracking_leaders_with_no_teaching_experience_into_the_principalship.html

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Career Overview. (2014). Education Administrator, Director and Principal Careers, Jobs and
Employment Information. Career Overview. Retrieved from
http://www.careeroverview.com/education-administrator-careers.html
Kieffer, C. & Mader, J. (2013, April 17). Mississippi develops new teacher evaluation system.
The Hechinger Report. Retrieved from http://hechingerreport.org/content/mississippi-developsnew-teacher-evaluation-system_11833/
Krueger, B. (2014). Career Information: Education Administrators. College Grad. Retrieved
from https://collegegrad.com/careers/manag08
University of Scranton. (2010). Why a Masters in Educational Administration Matters. University of Scranton. Retrieved from
http://www.uscranton.com/teaching-career-resources/education-administration-masters/

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