I consulted with a school district a few years ago at the behest of a school board member. He had stated that year after year, the community hears the same tired response when achievement scores come out: The State and Federal government are not adequately funding our schools. Everyone agrees that our schools are inadequately funded. However, the problem with this school district is that it performs significantly worse than other school districts with the very same demographics and funding issues. This school district has stable leadership; financially, it has been a good steward of the public tax dollars, it has a stable school board and Superintendents are not non renewed for frivolous reasons. So why do they significantly underperform? The lack of an effective protocol in identifying and rewarding talent! I was reading an article on Tesla CEO Elon Musk and he stated:
“You want to make sure that…if somebody great wants to join the company that they actually get an interview. This is actually one of my big worries. Like, if Nikola Tesla was alive today, could he get an interview? And if not, we’re doing something wrong. And I’m not totally sure he would get an interview. So, if one of the most brilliant engineers who ever lived could maybe not get an interview, we should fix that and make sure we’re not barring the doors from talent, or that we’re looking at the right things.
“Generally, look for things that are evidence of exceptional ability. I don’t even care if somebody graduated from college or high school or whatever… Did they build some really impressive device? Win some really tough competition? Come up with some really great idea? Solve some really tough problem?”
Elon Musk then asked: “What did they do that was clear evidence of exceptional ability?”
Clear evidence of exceptional ability.
When I interview individuals that want to become assistant principals, principals, directors, or advance in a leadership capacity, I always insist on artifacts or evidence of exceptional effectiveness. I want to know what the candidate did, which improved the capacity or effectiveness of their current work environment. I want to see evidence and artifacts of being highly effective and not just the typical letter of recommendation. During interviews, every candidate is going to say how great they are. Usually, in public school systems, the hiring and promotion process consists of a panel of hand-picked people, all with an already set agenda. The “Fix” is in as these hand-picked panels have usually decided whom they want as the preferred candidate. In many other instances, there is a King or Queen maker, this is the sole person that decides who gets which job.
No surprise, it is usually their friends, sorority sister, fraternity brother, school mate, from the same hometown or attend the same church. You have heard it before- It is not what you know, it is who you know. No one person should ever be in charge of choosing the leaders of an organization by themselves. We all have blind spots and what happens is the person choosing, chooses people with the same talents and blind spots, as themselves. A great leader knows their blind spots and hires people that can fill in those areas. I am hopeful though; I have seen more school districts assign performance assessments including having potential candidates look at classroom videos and report out on how to improve the lesson. I always insist on an assistant principal or principal candidate having to give a demonstration lesson in front of high performing teachers before advancing to the next stage.
I know of one leader that was insistent that all cabinet-level and senior leadership members have a doctorate degree. There is no correlation between having a doctoral degree and effectiveness. I have served on over 75 interview panels, and the questions developed by many of these panels heavily favor disciplinary practices, and union-labor relationships. How to increase academic achievement and effectiveness is, unfortunately, not given priority. Hiring talented people is what will transform the school site and system. Nevertheless, hiring talented people must be led by talented people themselves. The process must include candidates demonstrating effectiveness above and beyond their work description and the ability to prove such effectiveness with documentation such as assessment scores, grade failure reports, referrals for disciplinary issues, emotional intelligence and further evidence of students improving from one performance level to the next.