TUSD job announcement: “Turnaround Principal Search”

by David Safier

I plan to write more about my conflicted-but-mainly-negative feelings about TUSD's plan to fire the principals and half the staff at Rincon and Palo Verde High Schools. But first, I just saw this paid ad on an email from Education Week, a highly respected education journal I subscribe to.

It links to a Job Announcement page on the TUSD website:

Turnaround Principal Search

Imagine leading a high school for which you were able to hire a dedicated staff, meet the challenge to design and implement an innovative and transformative model of instruction, and have resources to provide aggressive professional development and financial rewards for success! Tucson Unified School District in Tucson, Arizona is offering such an opportunity to a highly motivated and experienced secondary principal.

Ideally, the right candidate will be able to begin immediately. If the right candidate is currently under contract elsewhere, the contract offered would begin on July 1, 2011. However, compensation will be provided for the principal to be available evenings and weekends to conduct interviews for the hiring of the right staff for this "turn around" school.

Please contact Nancy Woll, Chief Human Resources Officer at 520-225-6009 or nancy.woll@tusd1.org for additional information.

If you want to be a part of a progressive and innovative 21st Century school district, have the skills and personal characteristics described above, and enjoy challenging work, please apply here!

I'm sure this is about a national search for replacements for the Rincon and Palo Verde principals.

My concern is, this is pure business speak. Businesses hire turnaround specialists to transform their operations. You know, people who cut costs, shut down unprofitable portions of the business, raid the retirement funds, boost the value of their stock prices, sell out and move on.

Education is making a huge mistake by adopting the business model, whose emphasis on product and profit are diametrically opposed to the ideals of education. School districts are allowing the same economists who destroyed our economy to create flawed "value added" models for their teachers and schools. And now they are subscribing to the myth that there is something better than an excellent principal. It's a Turnaround Principal.

Does anyone out there remember how inflated numbers in housing and lending and the stock market led to a bubble that burst, oh, somewhere back in 2008? Are we in the process of creating an equally false Achievement Bubble, based on false premises and cooked numbers, and rewarding School Turnaround Artists who will create the inflated numbers?