On Leadership: Superintendents must be willing to take the heat

Abstract

A superintendent’s role is often less about doing the work of educating all students than about creating conditions that enable others to do that work. This is especially true when it comes to potentially controversial efforts, such as initiatives to improve equity. In those cases, the superintendent must often serve as a buffer, protecting the principals and teachers who are implementing the agenda from those who are likely to object. PDK CEO Joshua Starr explains how superintendents can serve as buffers in the areas of teaching and learning, community engagement, policy, and resource allocation.

Keywords

leadership superintendent equity change buffer improvement community public relations policy resource allocation

I love to quote old movies, and one of my favorite lines is from Willi Cicci, a henchman from the Corleone crime family in The Godfather Part II. When Cicci is testifying in front of a Senate committee, a senator who’s in the pocket of the Corleone family asks if he’s a “buffer,” meaning someone who stands between the head of the family and the action on the ground. Cicci leans back, chuckles, and says, “Yeah, the family had a lot of buffers,” as the crowd behind him laughs. (To my wife’s chagrin, I tend to repeat this line whenever anyone says the word buffer.)

I don’t want to suggest that school districts are like organized crime families (or that superintendents are like mafia dons), but both are complex organizations with multiple layers that need to work in concert toward a common goal. In the case of the Corleones, the buffers’ main responsibility was to protect their bosses from prosecution by keeping them away from direct involvement in criminal activities. But in school districts, buffers can serve a different, more noble purpose: They can protect school leaders and district staff from the political maelstrom that tends to swirl around change efforts.

In their new book Supervising Principals for Instructional Leadership (Harvard Education Press, 2020), Meredith Honig and Lydia Rainey explain how principal supervisors can serve principals in this way, acting as a buffer between them and anything that distracts them from a relentless focus on supporting equitable teaching and learning. I would add that superintendents should be prepared to play that role, too, especially if they mean to pursue ambitious reforms.

As soon as a superintendent articulates a plan for district improvement — say, an equity agenda that involves the redistribution of educational resources — they should expect an angry response from one group of stakeholders or another. As the public face of change, the superintendent will take most of the hits, as well they should. It might not be pleasant to absorb criticism, but it is a necessary part of the job. By standing as a buffer between the school system, on one hand, and a cadre of furious parents and community members, on the other, they give their staff the space they need to get the work done.

Four ways to be a buffer

I see four areas in which superintendents should embrace this role, if they hope to move an equity agenda forward. All four are intertwined, but each one merits separate consideration as well.

Teaching and learning. This is, quite simply, the primary mission of school systems. Superintendents must articulate a clear vision for what students should know and be able to do, and they must do so regularly, to a wide variety of audiences. Unfortunately, though, according to the AASA 2020 Decennial Study of the Superintendent, district chiefs tend to spend far less time on instructional issues than they do on board management, personnel issues, and operational concerns. Moreover, in many systems, they have relatively little authority to mandate specific approaches to teaching and learning, leaving principals to decide how to approach instructional improvement. (Whether this is a positive or negative depends on the district and the school.)

Whatever their authority in this area, though, superintendents can at least insist that each school’s instructional program be equitable. And here’s where they may need to serve as a buffer, providing cover to local principals when board members, parents, and community leaders object to plans to detrack classes, for instance, or open up access to advanced courses, implement a culturally relevant curriculum, invest in additional supports, assign the best teachers to the most vulnerable students, or provide professional learning to the staff about institutional racism. As the superintendent makes the case for such efforts, other district leaders can then verify that schools are actually doing these things, whether they’re following a district-mandated approach or one unique to the school.

Community engagement. Clearly, the main responsibility to promote an equity agenda to the community rests with the superintendent. And at this point — having seen conflicts over equity break out in numerous districts across the country — superintendents should know what kinds of resistance to expect: White parents will question the potential disruption and effect on their children, even as they acknowledge the need for additional investments in helping other children succeed. They’ll likely ask to see the research behind any new initiative, the data upon which decisions are based, and the particulars of the improvement plan, even as they work behind the scenes to amass political power, perhaps even posting screeds on Facebook to gin up opposition. In the meantime, parents of color will ask what took so long, and they’ll question whether this might be yet another experiment on their children, or maybe just a symbolic effort. And they may demand accountability for the adults who have failed their children for so long. For their part, individual school board members will hear heated testimony from constituents on all sides of the issue, and they’ll wonder whether supporting the program will help or hinder their political career. The business community may wonder what the big deal is, urging schools to go where the data lead, while the nonprofit and faith-based communities may express skepticism, pointing out that this reform will likely be no different from the ones that came before it.

In all of these scenarios, the superintendent must act as a buffer, or even a shield. They need to keep schools focused on the main goal (promoting more equitable teaching and learning) by managing the many questions, complaints, and vocal distractions that will come their way. And in the process, they’ll show their supporters that in order to do the right thing for kids, they’re willing to take a public beating.

Policy. While a big part of the superintendent’s job is to make an outward case for an equity agenda, they must also work on changing the internal structures and rules that guide the system’s work. Districts operate according to “big P” and “small p” policies and rules. The “big P” rules, which come from the federal, state, or local government (including the school board), may govern procurement processes, appropriate expenditures of federal dollars, staffing allocations, or class sizes. Standards, assessments, accountability, and school improvement regulations fall into this category, as do the labor contracts that guide the day-to-day scheduling of teachers and staff, as well as some efforts to provide professional learning, support, and accountability.

“Small p” policies are those that are decided by practitioners at the local level, without formal direction or oversight from governing bodies. For instance, a school department head or assistant principal may decide to assign students to certain teachers based on their test scores, effectively steering those students into different tracks (even though the school system doesn’t have an official tracking policy). Or a central office leader, confused by the federal rules that govern Title I funding, may decide to just follow their state’s guidance instead. Or, when trying to discipline a staff member, a principal might choose to interpret the word shall, in their contract, to mean must.

The list of big and small policies is endless, and a superintendent can’t know all of them or follow all the details of how they’re applied in their schools. Yet, given the inevitable resistance to an equity agenda, they must (not shall) learn the rules in that area and be prepared to use them to make the agenda stick. Here, leaders act as buffers by letting the public know that local school leaders must follow the new rules. In turn, that allows those school leaders to say, in effect, “Don’t be angry with me; the superintendent made me change our policies.”

Resource allocation. For education leaders trying to pursue an equity agenda, this is where the rubber really hits the road. All the talk in the world about fairness and “meeting kids’ needs” won’t mean a thing if the resources — time, people, and funds — aren’t aligned to those goals. Depending on the school system, the superintendent may or may not have much flexibility to make decisions about resource allocations. But either way, they must be able to make a compelling case to the board and the funding authority, persuading them not only that more resources are needed, but that a larger share of those resources should go toward serving the students who face the greatest challenges.

Most superintendents are well schooled in presenting their budget requests, as it’s their primary responsibility and something only they can do. Yet, given that the distribution of funds and personnel is an area the board and the public is likely to watch closely, they must be prepared for the controversy that will follow when, for example, they describe plans to assign the best teachers to the most vulnerable students, increase class size in the upper grades in order to reduce it in the early grades, or invest in an overhaul of the literacy program to explicitly address the needs of students with disabilities and English learners. Budgets are a matter of choices, and superintendents need to continually help their communities understand why these choices matter. By forcefully arguing to allocate resources to those who need them most, and by insisting that schools do the same, superintendents are making those choices clear and protecting individual schools from potential criticism.

Allowing the work to get done

Much of what I describe above is the standard work of a superintendent and will come as no surprise to anyone who has been in that role. The challenge, however, is for the superintendent to focus less on actually doing the hands-on work of improving equity and more on creating the conditions that enable others in the district office to do that work effectively. A great leader helps the people around them do their jobs better.

A superintendent’s effectiveness is measured by the extent to which others succeed in serving all students at a higher level. Superintendents should think of themselves as standard bearers for the work. And if they’re pushing an agenda that not everyone will support, then they must be ready to act as a buffer between those who are working to ensure that all children are served and those who want to maintain the status quo. To put it another way, the superintendent may need to make the community an offer it can’t refuse.