Making Demands
by John Merrow
If you were regional sales manager for, say, washing machines, auto parts or lawn fertilizer, you might insist on performance guarantees from your sales reps, perhaps with the promise of bonuses for superior performance. But suppose you were a school superintendent? What guarantees would be appropriate to demand from your principals?
I pose the question because some former principals in Washington, DC, recently shared their correspondence with former Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. Here are two examples, one of which uses ‘safe harbor’–a gain of at least ten percentile points–as the target.
On September 27, 2007, Chancellor Rhee wrote Carol Barbour, principal of Rudolph Elementary School,“You are guaranteeing me that you will see a bump in test scores from 29.2% in English and 26.9% in math (proficient and advanced) to ‘safe harbor’ in the coming year. I plan to hold you accountable to these goals.”[1]
One day later the Chancellor wrote Lucia Vega, principal of Powell Elementary School, “You are