Presented here is an
editorial from the Portland (Maine) Press Herald that details extraordinary leadership
by a middle school principal in achieving remarkable success in such a
situation. The article misses not a single point of excellence in project
management.
My thanks to Greg
Kesich, Press Herald editorial page editor, for granting permission to reprint
his piece.
There are a lot of fads and buzz words in education reform,
but not many clear successes. One shining exception has been Portland’s King
Middle School.
Located near some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods,
serving hundreds of English language learners and with more than half the
student body qualifying for free or subsidized lunches, King has all the
elements that are often used to explain low performance. But in spite of all
that, it has been a nationally recognized success.
Some might credit the learning model King pioneered over the
last 27 years, but the real credit goes to its principal, Michael McCarthy, who
is retiring in September.
McCarthy turned King from a school that parents fought to
get their kids out of into one that couldn’t accommodate all the
out-of-district families that wanted their children to get in.
McCarthy was a proponent of the Expeditionary Learning
model, in which groups of teachers and students work together on hands-on
projects that require an understanding of many disciplines. But King’s success
was due to more than just a model.
McCarthy was able to work with faculty and develop a team
where everyone understood the common strategy and was on board with carrying it
out. He had a reputation for listening to his staff with an open mind, but he
was not afraid to make decisions that he considered to be in the school
community’s best interest, even if they were controversial.
In other words, King had a leader, and the whole school
benefited.
In a 2010 interview, when he was a finalist for National
Middle School Principal of the Year, McCarthy remembered how he learned to
trust his staff. A group of teachers had proposed having their students snorkel
in Casco Bay and take underwater photographs of ocean life. It was the kind of
thing a cautious principal would have found easy to turn down.
But McCarthy said yes, and he was glad he did. “The work was
unbelievable because the kids were so engaged,” he told Press Herald reporter
Kelley Bouchard. “At one point I thought to myself that I should get back to
the school. Then I realized that I was right where learning was happening.”
Inspiring students, empowering teachers, encouraging learning
are not buzz words. They are the goals behind all other education reform ideas.
Portland has been lucky to see those concepts come to life,
and McCarthy’s ideas have become the organizing principles of all the city’s
middle schools. That’s a great legacy, but there is an even better lesson to be
learned from McCarthy’s career.
Hiring good people, trusting them to do their jobs and giving
them the support they need to succeed is still the best way to run an
organization. McCarthy showed the city how leadership is supposed to work, and
thousands of middle schoolers and their families will be forever grateful.
See also: Leadership:
Do You Want to Work that Hard?
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