Overwork Conditions for NYS Principals

New York State principals' overwork in the coming academic year, to meet the state's Race to the Top mandates. [Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post made reference this week to an Economic Policy Institute report that Race to the Top is a flop, not living up to the hype.] Note, also, that districts are having to eliminate some assistant principals. These budget-driven decisions are casualties of all the spending on tests and new Common Core curricular materials and training.

From the New York State School Boards Association (NYSBA) site:

Fall tasks mount for principals

On Board Online • September 2, 2013

Some excerpts:

Even the most ardent supporters of the avalanche of newly prescribed rubrics, curriculum standards and accountability apparatus acknowledge that principals will be carrying a heavy load – especially in view of the importance of classroom observations in carrying out APPR.
“We had double the amount of work last year. It will feel like triple or quadruple the amount of work this year,” predicted Principal Phil Cammarata of Jamestown . . .

Karl Thielking, a veteran high school principal in Pittsford and the current president of SAANYS, questions whether the new expectations set for school principals are fair or realistic. He points out that the State Education Department has fallen behind on its own timeline for providing data that local administrators will need to calculate teacher scores and act accordingly.
“It was already a pretty unreasonable timeline,” Thielking said during a mid-August interview with On Board. “We are supposed to provide composite (HEDI) scores to teachers by Sept. 1. Now, it’s the 19th (of August); we still have not gotten the 3-8 scores back for teachers and principals, and that is crashing up against other deadlines.” (Editor’s Note: State officials provided growth scores Aug. 22.)

Full NYSBA article "Fall tasks mount for principals" here.