School Chancellor Harvey Scribner stirred up new controversy when he recently advocated that parents, teachers and students be given a greater voice in the selection of high school principals. The suggestion was made in an after dinner speech on "participatory democracy in the schools" in which the Chancellor made numerous criticisms of the schools, supervisors and teachers.
It is regrettable that the Chancellor did not examine the failure of the present system before advocating its extension. At present, it is the policy of the Board of Education to consult with parents of students in high schools before appointing a principal. However, most high schools do not have active parent associations. (Most 16, 17 and 18 year-olds just don't want their mothers coming to school, and their mothers generally don't feel the same need to be part of the school structure with their older children as with their younger ones.) The result of the Board's disastrous policy can be seen in the sudden emergence of conflicting parent groups at George Washington High School a few months ago. At the present time the same sort of situation is arising at Eastern District High School in Brooklyn. The school has almost 3000 students and has had no parents association. In order to comply with Board of Education procedures, a parent group was hastily called together with 70 out of a possible 6,000 parents electing as their spokesman a parent who had run for the community school board and was overwhelmingly defeated by the voters. At its next meeting, the "parent" group, which by then had dwindled to 19, demanded that the principal of the school be selected by a committee composed of all interested parents, "community" people, five students, one UFT teacher and one non-UFT teacher.
There is no doubt that the Board's practice of consultation, intended to bring more democracy to the schools, has resulted in the very opposite -- the arrogation of power by small, unrepresentative, self- appointed groups. The "consultation" process in the schools is rapidly becoming as counter-productive in the educational field as "maximum feasible participation of the poor" has been in anti-poverty programs.
Which Role for Dr. Scribner?
At the heart of the dispute is a basic misunderstanding of the workings of democracy by the Board and the Chancellor. It is ironic that they argue that it is undemocratic to appoint a principal to a high- school without a vote of parents and students, while at the same time arguing against the election of the central Board of Education itself on the grounds that the city would be thrown into chaos in such an election and that an elected board could not be truly representative. It is time that the Board applied the logic of this position in a consistent way. Democracy in a mass society can only survive if some decisions and some positions are removed from the direct electoral process.
Greater chaos in our high schools would not be the only outcome of Dr. Scribner's proposal; the other would be the tragically increasing alienation of the professional staff Dr. Scribner, by himself, can bring no changes to our schools. He can bring change only by winning the support of the 70,000 professionals in the schools. The professionals are eager for change, for they, too, is victims of outmoded current practices. But the more he attacks and maligns the very group he needs, the less likely he is to succeed. The staff sees the Chancellor using destructive criticism more and more as a cover-up for his failure to provide creative leadership.
Dr. Scribner's speech was a step backward and an indication that he has not yet decided what his true role should be -- leader of our school system or merely one of its many critics (the new establishment). Since Dr. Scribner's performance as Chancellor will be judged not by the quality of his criticism but by the worth of his accomplishments, it is time for him to switch tactics.