Principaling and Its Effects On The Schools Discussion Paper
Using the case study of “Principaling and its Effects on the Schools” answer the questions below. 1. Principal Carter used a letter writing and newspaper campaign to persuade the board of the need of the new textbooks at his school. How might he accomplish the same goal with fewer consequences? Develop an alternative approach to this situation. 2. Building community support has changed over years principals today do it differently than did principals in the 1960s and 1970s. What are the differences? Describe the issues confronted by the principals during the two periods of time. The controversy surrounding the Ocean Hill-Brownsville situation in New York City pointed up some of the problems faced by principals; it may be a good starting point for comparison purposes. 3. This chapter is based on two expectations of the conventional wisdom as discussed in chapter 1. The fast is that the principal is the manager of the local school. Concerning these two tasks. How have the expectations of the conventional wisdom changed over the last decades? What do you predict will be the changes in the next ten years? 4. Analyze the performance of your own principal as instructional leader. How much administrative time does he or she allocate to this activity? Although the evidence supports the view that the principals typically do not spend much time in classroom supervision, many persons still claim that instructional leadership is the most important responsibility of the principal. What do you think? How can this task be performed within the mix of other pressing time demands? 5. Regarding instructional leadership, one scholar puts it this way; “the improvement of instructions embraces a wide range of activities that good principal engage in if they are worth their salt, and many of these activities are not direct supervision of instruction or staff development.” What are some of these activities and how best can a principal perform them? 6. An unspoken norm of the principal is “Always back the teacher up when dealing with students, parents, and outsider.” An incident described in this chapter (pages 85) and in Case Six (page 295) that illustrates this norm in action. What would you do as principal in this situation? Principaling and Its Effects On The Schools Discussion Paper