A Special Message to School Principals
I have been spending a lot of time visiting schools and meeting with principals lately. I have concluded that school principals are really caught in the middle of Louisiana's school reform movement and are often being unfairly blamed for and expected to cure all of the perceived educational ills of society right now or else!
State authorities are dictating that school principals and their faculties bring up their school performance scores every year even though almost nothing is being done to address the other major factors affecting students' school performance. At the same time school resources dedicated to the classroom are shrinking while more and more is being spent on testing and accountability.
Some principals report that pressure is being put on principals to reduce student suspensions and often to keep disruptive students in the regular classrooms even though this relatively small number of students often interfere with the learning process and are preventing other students from getting the best instruction possible. At the
State authorities are dictating that school principals and their faculties bring up their school performance scores every year even though almost nothing is being done to address the other major factors affecting students' school performance. At the same time school resources dedicated to the classroom are shrinking while more and more is being spent on testing and accountability.
Some principals report that pressure is being put on principals to reduce student suspensions and often to keep disruptive students in the regular classrooms even though this relatively small number of students often interfere with the learning process and are preventing other students from getting the best instruction possible. At the
