What Joe Is Up Against: Scaling Education's Everest

All across the country, people are interested in what's happening in the New York City schools. One question they often ask is, "How's Joe Fernandez doing?"

There are a number of reasons for this interest. New York is a news center, so people know what's going on there. And New York, with nearly a million kids, is the Mt. Everest of education -- if you can make something work in New York, it'll work anywhere. Joseph A Fernandez, the new school chancellor, has a sense of mission, lots of fresh ideas and a reputation for getting things done. He also has strong support from the press, business leaders, the political community and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and its president Sandra Feldman.

This sounds promising. However, my usual answer to the question about Joe Fernandez is that he's doing very well, but I'm not sure he'll make it. There are several reasons for this answer, not the least of which is the current budget crisis in both New York City and the state. But mostly I have something else in mind.

I'm pretty familiar with New York City and its schools. For more than 30 years I held various offices in the United Federation of Teachers and its predecessor, the New York Teacher Guild. When I joined the union in the early 50s, there were 50,000 teachers in the Big Apple and the union had only 2400 members -- even though it had been around since the end of World War I. Over the years, those of us in the leadership worked to turn things around -- to get teachers to support and join a union and bring them to understand that one strong organization would be more effective than the 106 they had. Now, the UFT has over 100,000 members. Teachers, paraprofessionals and other school employees have a major voice in the school system.

Why do I bring this up in connection with Joe Fernandez? Partly because, he, too, has the job of turning things around. But more to the point is something we found during those years when we were trying to build one strong organization: We could not do it alone. What we did was necessary, but it was not sufficient to make the changes we were looking for. Like Fernandez, we had vision, ideas and energy, but we couldn't have accomplished much without the troops in the schools. Things happened because, in almost every one of New York's 1000 schools, we had a chapter chairperson, delegate or other dedicated volunteer who worked to turn our vision into a reality.

Joe Fernandez has the vision, too, but where are his troops? Who will make his ideas happen in New York City's 1000 schools? To most people, the answer is obvious -- the principals of the schools will do it. Wrong! Instead of supporting Fernandez' ideas, or at least giving them a good try, the principals' union, the Council of School Administrators (CSA), and its national, the American Federation of School Administrators (AFSA), are actively opposing Fernandez.

A story in April AFSA News makes their point of view pretty clear. The headline reads "Dade County Report: Pupils Show No Gain, Morale Down," and the article goes on to criticize the state of affairs in Dade County, Fernandez' old school system. There is no doubt that the CSA shares these views and that principals who cooperate with Fernandez are viewed as breaking ranks.

What is the major difference between Fernandez and the principals? Fernandez wants to introduce school-based management and shared decision making into New York City schools. He believes that the people closest to students should be allowed to run the schools because these people have the best idea about what the schools need. And running a school means deciding how to organize instruction, spend the budget and deploy faculty. The management team, which could vary in composition from school to school, would consist of the principal, the local UFT leader, teachers, parents and others. If this idea sound familiar -- and promising -- it's because it's already being tried in a number of schools across the country. And because it's being used with great success in businesses here, in Japan and elsewhere.

Some principals share Joe Fernandez' vision, and they are volunteering to be part of this new way of running the schools. But the supervisors' organizations says, "No!" Clinging to the old, authoritarian model, they maintain that a school can't operate effectively unless the principal is the boss. After all, that's the way things have always been done.

Maybe they're right and the experiment won't work. If they drag their feet, they probably can kill it. But they should know that change is going to come. Our schools are not doing a good job of educating students and people are beginning to look at radical, new ways of reforming them. If the principals resist what Fernandez is proposing, they could end up with something they'd like even less. Like what their colleagues have in Chicago -- school-based management with parent-majority boards and no tenure for principals.

It will be a bitter irony if people who claim that bosses ought to make the decisions deny their boss the right to do so. Let's hope, instead, that New York's principals get behind Joe Fernandez as he tries to give teachers and others a real share in running their schools. Success in New York could be important for all of us.