I did give them a

     good piece of advice and helped them to enroll the kid at

     MMM CC, take one course this summer, get some exposure to the

     community college, and I'll take that as a credit for

     graduation.  But they tried to ramrod me and then were

     insistent that if I wouldn't graduate him, he would go

     through the ceremony, and nothing would happen except that I

     wouldn't sign his diploma.  Our district policy has been

     that nobody walks through the line unless they have

     completed all of the necessary requirements.  I think that's

     right and I did not walk him through the line.  they gave me

     hell for about three straight weeks.  It was something that

     happened to the kid in the 10th grade and they never raised

     a question until May of his graduation year.  They wanted

     the teacher to go back and change a grade and I'm not going

     to make the teacher do that.  Frankly, first, I can't do it,

     and I wouldn't do it anyway.  The teacher was ZZZ, a

     really nice guy, he did everything he could, but the kid was

     a jerk.  The kid didn't graduate.  Maybe he learned a

     lesson; maybe he'll be a better kid because of it, but,

     yeah, there is parent pressure.  It's being fair -- if we

     did wrong, if we wronged, we give bad advice from this

     office, if we miss the credit check, I'm going to help you.

     But if you're not coming to class, not doing the work, not

     passing, I'm not going to pistol whip some teacher and help

     them get away with it.  This is very frequently faced in the

     last, I would say the past eight or nine years, the pressure

     at graduation time on principals is extraordinary.  Of

     course, the position speaks with power.

 

A.   And you said you couldn't make the teacher change the grade

 

Q.   I had no authority to do that.  I have changed --

 

A.   Do their rights come from teacher association?

 

Q.   Yes, the teachers have a -- this due process for the

     teachers, I wrote it for the district and I was on the

     committee with the State Ed Assoc that wrote the due process 
     
     situation for teachers. I can't do anything for you that violates 
     
     any of their rights.  If I told you as a young lady that I

     wanted you to open up your purse and put the contents on my

     desk, you can tell me where to go with your purse, I have no

     right to do that.  I can't search personal effects.  The

     only grades I have changed -- I did change some -- involved

     one teacher, her nickname among the kids was air head, it

     was proved, we got ourselves off the hook with her -- there

     was no way that grade could have happened.  When I looked at

     what was in the book and she wasn't returning and was no

     longer a teacher here, it was obviously a terrible

     miscarriage of professional responsibility.  I changed

     those.  But for me to go in and tell you as the teacher, "I

     want the old bum to get a B; his dad is the head of the

     Chamber of Commerce."  I can't do it; I don't want to do it

     and they can complain to the end of the age, but they would

     have a hell of a grievance on me, and they should.  I'll

     support my staff as long as I feel that what they are doing

     was in their best judgment the right thing about the kid.  I

     will not -- if they do something that's really wrong, do

     something that's not proper, I will not support you in that.

     I will support you till I die, maybe you made a mistake and

     you were trying to correct it, because God knows I make

     them, every single day, but I will support them.

 

Q.   Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life

     was influenced or shaped by a professional organization with

     which you identify?

 

A.   Well, NEA.  Is that a professional organization?  Okay.  We

     had an incident here many, many years ago, probably in --

     probably about 14 years ago, we hired a gentleman, a

     journalism teacher, and he had been in teaching and then

     gone into construction and wanted to come back into

     teaching.  (inaudible)  It didn't turn out that way and he

     did some very inappropriate things.  Mild profanity and some

     of the handouts that went home were absolutely _____________

     and did some things that were very poor.  I checked with

     other teachers that taught with him and they said his

     behavior was a long ways from what they thought a

     professional teacher should be.  I investigated, I called

     him in, we had a couple of conferences, and he didn't change

     much.  I told him that I wouldn't ___________ and go for a

     dismissal.  I had a call from the NEA, the executive

     secretary of NEA, he said, "Well, I don't know if you've got

     enough to make it stick or not."  I said, "I feel I have

     more than enough."  He said, "Would you care if I saw it?"

     I said, "No, I don't care.  You're going to see it anyway

     when we go to court."    You know, that's an

     involvement there.  For the most part, I'm not hostile to

     them, I'm not hostile to the teacher groups.  I think a

     teacher that doesn't want ___________________ is foolish.  I

     think there are protections in there for teachers that need,

     hopefully, -- most of us administratively do a pretty good

     job -- I go to principals' meetings with all the principals

     in the district,  a couple I would never have hired, I

     wonder about them sometimes, I wouldn't want to work for

     them, so I think it's important.  You know, sometimes when

     we had teachers that were experiencing some difficulties,

     I've asked somebody, a building representative, to sit with

     us when we talk.  You know, the main point is not to fire

     people but the plan is to help them, to bring them to a

     point where they are producing at a good level, that's what

     it's about, and I think a supervisor should do that.  The

     principal says, "Well, boy, I really improved my high

     school; I got rid of 25 percent of the staff,"  I don't know

     if that's such a great thing to boast about.  You may have

     one or two people you can't help, I could not help that

     gentleman, I really couldn't, but for the most part, I think

     teachers are pretty good people and they want to do a good

     job, if you give them a little bit of help and support, and

     sometimes a little bit of training, it's better, it's better

     to help them than to -- when I go out in the job market,

     what I like to do is say something about ____________ if I'm

     going to hire you.  You sit in here for 20 minutes or a half

     hour and talk to me and I read your records.  You can't lie;

     you're open when you're hiring.  So if I got you and you're

     basically a good person with a couple of things to be worked

     on, I'd much rather stay with you and help you.  that's how

     we got the journalism teacher.

 

Q.   Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life

     was influenced or shaped by students?

 

A.   Oh, sure.  All the time.  I work a lot with student

     government and I think it's important, kids are involved in

     the school, and I think it's important that kids don't just

     sell balloons, go to dances, so I give the kids quite a bit

     of input into it.  We are an unusual structure here.  We

     have an all-school council, that's my advisory group, and

     we've had some __________.  It has on it student leaders,

     parents, teachers and a couple of our classified staff and

     we meet at least once a month, more, if necessary.  We'll

     feed input from parents through the parents group, teachers

     through the teacher representatives, classified the same

     way, and the kids the same way, through the student center,

     if there are concerns about school, programs, policies and

     things.  They have every right to bring that to the floor

     for discussion.  Things happen in school and sometimes when

     they happen, they're aggravating, they make you mad;

     sometimes when we decide we didn't solve the problem, your

     solution is overkill.  Kids understand -- sometimes they're

     right.  When the dust settles and you look back on it, it

     really wasn't that big a deal.  A very small example:

     Several years ago at homecoming the kids built a float and

     the float had inside of it two kids and they were like

     working arms.  It was covered basically with crepe paper.

     When the thing was over, we parked it down at the end and

     the kids were still in it.  Some jerk walked by and threw a

     match on it and it burst into flames.  And the assistant

     principal and I ran down there and tore the chicken wire

     away with our hands to get those two kids out, otherwise

     they were in real serious trouble.  The chicken wire made a

     mess out of us, it just chopped us up, I was infuriated.  We

     made a decision there would be no more floats in the

     homecoming parade, period.  The kids asked to meet with me

     and suggested that maybe that was a little bit severe and

     maybe what we should say was that there would not be any

     floats in which kids were not actually inside of the float.

     It took about a month to cool off.  It made good sense.  So

     we've had that policy for a number of years.  Sometimes they

     come up with pretty good things.  I always try to find that

     and the reason I have that group in there is because we see

     with different eyes.  I see it as a 38-year veteran of

     education and a principal forever and you see it as it as a

     16-year-old junior, and that's okay.  It doesn't mean I

     always see it right, and that's why we need to share those

     things.  We need to hear what mom and dad have to say about

     it and the teacher's point of view and so, I use them a

     great deal.  One thing I did that was extremely effective --

     I had everybody do an assignment and they came back to me

     with two things:  Number one, if there was no restrictions

     on, absolutely carte blanche, no restrictions, money or

     anything, what would I do that would most improve Montevideo?

     And then looking at Montevideo and realizing the

     parameters of where we were, what would I suggest as a major

     improvement at Montevideo?  And out of that we came up

     with like, let's see, about 18 ideas.  Approximately 10 of

     those are now in effect.  And there are a couple that we,

     looking back on, I thought well, maybe this isn't such a

     good idea and a couple of them are going to go into faculty

     studies for the fall where we are going to take a look at

     them.  One of our people wanted to know about a school

     ________________ failure, how would you create that?  We

     decided that we didn't have enough research, we didn't know,

     and since we didn't know enough, we wanted more information.

     And we talked about some creative type schedule, some ideas

     about what they wanted to do and how could we fit it in with

     our co-op programs, and so we'll have a faculty study

     committee look into those.  And we'll get a scheduling

     process.  Maybe there are a couple of schools that are

     trying some different kinds of things.  It's easy for a

     principal to say "It doesn't work."  But it didn't work the

     way we did it; it doesn't mean it can't work.  Maybe I just

     didn't do it right.  So I feel real comfortable -- yeah, the

     kids have a lot of input and I try, as best I can, to give

     them a certain amount of freedom to work.  The one thing you

     do tell them is that the amount of freedom you give them

     will depend a whole lot on the responsibility that you show,

     that you've got to demonstrate responsibility, and the more

     responsibility and the more you follow through and get the

     job done, the more I am going to give you an opportunity to

     exercise that.  Also, our student government kids who attend

     every faculty meeting, have much to offer.  There are things

     that they want to say to faculty -- the reason for that is

     that I never wanted to be in a situation where I would say

     things to faculty that I wouldn't have the guts to say to

     the kids.  So if we're going to crack down on something, I

     want them there.  They can be horribly useful to a

     principal.  We had a big tee shirt deal here a few years ago

     -- four or five years ago by now -- where we outlawed the

     wearing to school of tee shirts that advertised tobacco,

     alcohol and its products, or anything with upsetting

     (inaudible).  We had parents who marched in front of the

     educational center with their kids.  Then, of course, the

     kids rumor mill starts, almost as bad as the teachers, that

     you couldn't wear concert tee shirts and no one could wear

     the color black and you couldn't this and you couldn't that,

     they were getting so upset; so I called the student senate

     together and met with them and said, "Now, look, let me go

     over the policy and exactly what it says, exactly what it

     says."  I went through it real carefully and they said, "Do

     you mean that we can still wear our concert tee shirts, we

     can wear whatever color we want?"  We said that was right,

     just not tee shirts with alcohol and tobacco.  Why?  Because

     our curriculum from the state dictates that we teach you

     about the problems associated with those things, mandated by

     state that smoking, drinking and using narcotics are not

     good for you.  It doesn't seem appropriate that you should

     be able to advertise those things.  It made sense to them

     and they just quit it.  Then I told them to go back to every

     homeroom and I want you to talk to them and tell them

     exactly what we talked about.  Our problem was over that day

     and I probably had three kids that year that wore anything

     that was inappropriate  and we had three or four white tee

     shirts down here in assorted sizes and gave them a choice of

     going home and changing or go to the restroom and borrow my

     nice clean white tee shirt today and bring it back to me

     washed tomorrow.  They want to know that you're receptive,

     too, you just don't use them, but they have to know that if

     they have a legit problem that they can come in and talk

     about it.

 

Q.   Could you tell me from none to a great deal how much

     influence you have on establishing curriculum?

 

A.   Probably about average, about halfway through the spectrum.

     Curriculum in the core courses is developed through Dr.

     DDD's office who is the assistant superintendent for

     curriculum, and with using committees and teachers and

     writing in the summer, the core curriculum in the Montevideo

     schools comes out of that.  I've had the ability to add

     courses here and we've been able to adjust some of those

     courses.  Having the 30 percent freebie still gives you a

     lot of room, like we've been trying real hard to put in

     speech, students have suddenly become interested in that, so

     we've been very interested in trying to get some speech

     courses, speaking courses.  But the truth of the matter is

     that, at least in that solid core, that comes out of the

     district effort from all of these schools being involved.

     So I haven't really -- of course, I have killed a couple

     that I thought were nonsense.  Some of our schools go off

     with what they call paperback literature, if you read six

     paperbacks during the semester, you pass the course, and

     nobody necessarily spells out what they are.  They could

     read six Louis L'Amour, six Gothic romances, I don't think

     that's an English course.  I don't think that's an English

     course at all.  So we have substituted Shakespeare and we

     now have a very healthy Shakespeare course.  We have a

     European literature and a world literature course.  What I

     think I've been able to do is I've been able to pare out

     some of the things which were not challenging to the

     students here Montevideo.  And in the advanced placement

     area, I have been the most influential person in the

     district.  There was none when I came here.  None.  I was

     told by the assistant superintendent at that time that that

     stuff's okay for (city name), but (city name) kids aren't smart

     enough to handle that sort of thing.
     

     
     I've had great influence in the

     district on programs for slower kids.  I violated one of my

     principles a long time ago and I got into a federally funded

     project with State Univ., called Para-level(?) in curriculum

     programs.  The government thought it was going to be a

     strictly special ed operation, secondary school models for

     handling special ed.  We saw it better and we saw it as a

     program for kids that were experiencing difficulty in

     school, could or not be special ed, and we had Dr. WWW

     in the special ed department, KKK from the special

     department, TTT who is now a professor at the U of (state name)

     , and several other people.  We worked for about four years

     in a combined project with State Univ on developing teaching

     techniques, testing techniques, identification techniques

     for kids in a wonderful program.  It ultimately has evolved

     into what (city name) calls its Study Skills Program.  But that's

     where it came from.  And that was an initiative here.  And

     after, it demonstrated with research that it helped

     tremendously in schools.  All secondary schools in (city name) then

     developed the programs.  So in that sense, yeah.

 

Q.   Okay.

 

A.   So I've done some neat things.  This high school has been

     out in front and it's influencing history quite a bit.

 

Q.   Yes, it sounds like that.  How would you describe your

     influence on determining instructional methods in the

     classroom?

 

A.   I think in your -- A to E, A being the highest, I suppose

     you would receive -- and there I think it would be -- the

     district has shown a lot of initiative in that area.  Almost

     all of -- all of our administrators and almost all of our

     teachers have been through the essential elements of

     instruction program.  That's the (inaudible) has been almost

     universally done here.  In addition to that, most of the

     supervisors have been through the clinical supervision

     program.  We have all been trained, and most of our staff is

     now trained, in small group learning -- cooperative

     learning.  About half of this faculty or more are very

     heavily involved in the mastery learning program.  Half in

     teaching how to work with slower kids has had a huge impact

     on the classroom activity for our teachers, and we train

     everybody we can.  So, a lot, but I also give the district a

     great deal of credit in that a lot of the initiatives were

     theirs and we have certainly worked hard with classroom

     instruction.  Probably that's the biggest difference in

     principalship in the last 15 years, has been the emphasis of

     viewing the classroom and the classroom teacher and what

     really happens when you go to classes.  The last few years I

     have spent more time in classes and talking with teachers

     than ever before.  It costs a little bit in the sense that

     they see the kids every day, I don't see the kids at the

     extent that I did at one time, because the emphasis has

     shifted so much more onto how are we doing in the classroom,

     that's monitored by some degree by the district criteria and

     it's reference testing program, and then each teacher gets

     back that material.  So I think that's maybe -- maybe that's

     a good emphasis.  I kind of miss sometimes quite as much

     contact with the people but the majority of my day as a rule

     is spent with adults.  I think we've improved the classroom

     teachers an awful lot.  I think we're doing a lot more

     things, we have a lot of repertoire of teaching techniques

     than we have ever had before.  I feel real good about that.

     We're able to pretty much help everybody.  We had one

     teacher this year that has been absolutely -- and we're not

     going to rehire her.  We tried five or six different

     techniques.  Something that you may or may not be aware of -

     - this district takes a classroom teacher up to this year

     and has supported that classroom teacher as the

     instructional specialist for the school.  That teacher

     receives real intensive training.  They then are available

     to any teacher in the building who wants help and they'll

     come in, make the visit, make suggestions, work out a plan,

     come back and monitor the teacher periodically; all of that

     is outside of -- it's not a part of the evaluation process.

     It has been very, very successful.  We've had two very, very

     good people.  We've also had, up till this year, a study

     skills specialist who works the same way with teachers but

     basically looking at who they are working with, their

     ability, come and help them develop materials and

     techniques.  This year, for economic reasons, (inaudible)

     The job is combined now on one person -- I think it's an

     overwhelming position.  I don't think -- we are saving money

     but I question the decision on that.  I don't think it was a

     good decision.  We picked up one teaching period, one

     teacher cell, not much within our budget.

 

Q.   How much influence do you have on allocating funds?

 

A.   A lot.  If we're talking about the funds -- the district

     tells me how much we are going to get, I determine where it

     goes a lot.  I'm very involved in the budget when it comes

     to building or remodeling, when it comes to purchasing

     capitol equipment, setting a room up.  Each teacher is

     involved in their department; the department then submits

     their requests to me with justification.  I study that whole

     thing, I look at it from a priority point of view, talk to

     the people, look at the things I need to look at, then I

     make a decision and I prioritize.  I prioritize by

     department and then I prioritize by school.  So I submit

     them a budget in January which allocates all those funds and

     where they go.  There is a budget review at the district

     level.  I have incredible success with them because I always

     come in about $200 under the allocation.  Therefore my

     budget is always rubber-stamped right away.  Some of the

     guys will come in and they're going to get $30,000 and

     they'll submit a budget for $60,000.  Well, you know you're

     going to get killed.  And sometimes you don't even end up

     with your $30,000.

 

Q.   Would they then lose the prioritizing?  Somebody else would

     then get high priority?

 

A.   The district looks it over and they decide to cut $30,000

     out of there and they make the decision, and they don't

     visit sites and they don't look.  So I would much rather --

     and I'll come awfully close, within a hundred or two -- but

     we then feel that we're in control of it and I think it's

     the best thing on the local level.  The teachers should know

     best what they really need.  I don't know that.  But if the

     science chairman and teachers told me that this is the

     number one thing they need this year in science, I'm pretty

     sure that's a pretty high priority.  I have a lot of control

     there and then the 5410 instructional monies, I allocate

     that, and that's been based on experience, looking at things

     -- some of our schools will take all of the instructional

     money and they'll divide it up to every department.  Then as

     the English teacher, if you want to run 150 exams, you key

     into your machine that this English, you run 150 exams.  At

     the end of the month somebody bills your department how much

     paper and toner you used.  I think that's insane.  I don't

     do any of that.  I take a great big hunk of money and put it

     in an administrative area and I furnish all the teaching

     supplies -- all the basic teaching supplies, anything you

     need, paper, rulers, pencils, toners, Xerox, file folders,

     whatever you need, I am going to furnish you.  You just go

     down and check it out, ask them and they'll give it to you.

     Then I give your department less money so that money can

     then be used to buy instructional materials.  You may want

     to buy a set of slides, anything that's non-capitol, and

     therefore the department and chairman have a great deal of

     freedom in spending that much.  I simply take the burden of

     the basic teaching supplies off of their shoulders and it's

     easier for me so I can kind of monitor it, looking over the

     last couple of years how we're using Xerox paper and that

     sort of thing.  I think a lot.  I spend more time in

     business ______________ than I want to.  I'm not as thrilled

     about that -- that's important and I recognize it, we have

     to be very, very careful, we don't give someone -- we are

     very careful about how we use it and I have never ever drawn

     a deficit.  We will in the spring gather together all of the

     monies we've got left, all of the departments, after

     everyone is done, after April 1 you can no longer buy

     anything, because you can't be repaid for it in the fiscal

     year.  Then all of the money that is left I take and buy a

     huge warehouse order of the basics, and that will be out of

     last year's budget.  And if you keep doing that, you're real

     solid; it's a little hard when you first start out, you have

     to build a little bit, but it has worked well.  It's sad

     that some have no administrative ability at all.  You can't

     be a manager without working at it and finding something.

     But we do it well.  And the secretary is very, very good,

     and she's a wonderful secretary.  She deserves most of the

     credit.  I read the requisition and I personally sign every

     requisition and question anything that is inappropriate.

     She'll give me a statement every month of all the accounts.

     We have suggested that they not spend more than 60 percent

     of their monies and then we release another bunch.  I have

     one guy, one department chairman, who spends everything in

     one week.  He's done it to me and then come back all year

     saying, "Well, what am I going to do?" you know.   Some

     burden falls on the chairman; the decisions I think are made

     on experience and our track record, and ______________, she

     does a real good job.  She probably saves us an awful lot in

     dollars.

 

Q.   And how much influence do you have on hiring new teachers?

 

A.   A lot, a lot.  I've never had a recommendation to hire a

     teacher turned down.  However, the way it works is like

     this:  I call personnel and I tell them that I need a

     biology/math combination.  They'll search through their

     records and they'll send me over the electronic mail a real

     short sketch of maybe a dozen.  I'll look over where they

     went to school, their grade point average  (end of tape)  --

     I thought she was by far and away the best candidate.  We

     requested hiring and it was approved, but when you go off

     that list you have to know that you do run the risk of a no.

     The only time you get math in (city name) is in the involuntary

     transfer process and you will get math there.  I accepted a

     gentleman who I think will be okay in math, he was not my

     first choice, but he was surplus in another school, he had a

     right to be rehired, I was told that there were four or five

     surpluses, every high school was to take one, you pick the

     one you want, but you WILL take one of them.  And we did.

     In that sense, I don't have -- he wasn't the guy I would

     have picked out on the open market.  There was a voluntary

     transfer from Westwood which I thought would be much better

     but -- about an A-, I feel pretty comfortable and the whole

     staff -- out of everybody here, about 115 to 120 teachers, I

     probably five transfers that I didn't particularly want to

     take.  But it's not too bad.

 

Q.   Last question, for which I have a little script.  My

     research is directed at a current debate in education.  It

     is claimed by two researchers, Chubb and Moe, who wrote

     Marketing Politics in American Schools.  The issue is

     schools need to be marketed, compete, as it relates to

     school choice.  They claim that private school teachers have

     greater autonomy to innovate, adapt curriculum and teaching

     to meet the needs of their students, and that in doing so

     they are primarily -- (telephone)  -- these researchers

     claim that private school teachers have greater autonomy and

     they are better able to meet the needs of their students,

     and that they are primarily influenced by students and

     parents, not by school bureaucracy.  Whereas public school

     teachers are subjected to a variety of influences and

     pressures that restrict their autonomy in meeting students'

     needs; among these influences are many of the things I asked

     you about, state and federal regulations, unions, court

     orders, organizational rules called "bureaucracy."  What do

     you think about all of this?

 

A.   Well, I am in a unique situation.  I have been head master

     of a private school.  In India, the American International

     School, which is now the American Embassy School, but it was

     an international school then, was a private agency under the

     auspices of the Indian government.  I ran the school -- the

     difference I think is that not all rules and regulations are

     stupid.  I don't think everything that comes down is dumb.

     I think sometimes I get real frustrated and real angry at

     some of the parents, but at the same time, sometimes there

     are things that we really need to do.  When I was in India,

     we had the ability to respond very quickly to an idea.  If

     somebody came along with a pretty good idea, we could

     respond to it very quickly; within a week or so I could

     implement in the classroom a program, something they wanted

     to do.  Because, in effect, there were no controls on us.

     We had an unofficial board of governors, the state

     department came by once a year for a visit but that was a

     joke, they came over to buy saris and rings and see the Taj

     Majal, they didn't give a damn what happened in school, they

     never really looked at anything. 
     
     

     I think it's demoralizing to them in that they know there are

     things they could do to help but there is only so far they

     can stretch themselves, and that, I think, bothers teachers

     an awful lot.  There are some interferences in school, some

     are our fault, some of the things that you don't know how to

     get out of, assemblies -- we don't have a bunch of them, but

     the four or five pep assemblies during the year, district

     programs.  One is when they come in and they'll take days

     away from us, they take away from our teaching,  the

     (state name) Testing Program, the conceptualization of that is

     okay, but they have made it so difficult to administer that

     it destroyed our school for two whole school days.  The

     administration was awful on it, it was just awful.  No one

     who has ever been in school would ever have done that.  I

     know the state has a right to test and to find out where our

     kids are on a continuum, but that was badly done.  That

     bothers you.  I don't like having to do some of the surveys

     that they stuff us with.  I get real sick of filling out

     those stupid surveys.  They're irritating, they're time-

     consuming, they're frustrating to a classroom teacher.  But

     I don't think that the (city name) Public Schools, I'm the

     principal of this high school, really impede teacher work in

     the classroom, and I think the teacher who comes in -- we

     brought a guy in from Minnesota a couple of years ago, he

     had retired in Minnesota fairly early, probably his early

     50s, we hired him, he came in, he was a very fine teacher in

     a good school, we gave him the curriculum materials the

     district has, he taught those materials, then his kids took

     the criterion reference test at the end of the semester.  He

     had the highest score in our school going away.  Some of the

     other teachers were angry at him.  He said what I did is I

     taught the material that was in the curriculum handout and

     then I taught the other things that I thought reenforced it.

     What makes anybody think that a teacher is so well trained

     or so brilliant or so intuitive that within their own

     resources they know exactly what one person has to know in

     American History to survive in this world?  But if you took

     the best two or three social studies teachers in our high

     schools and they got together in the summer and they took

     the materials they were using and they developed a syllabus

     which is reviewed every third year and revised, the combined

     thinking of those teachers together -- (state name) does not tell

     me what has to be taught in American History; it simply says

     we have to teach American History.  Now were rely on the

     best teachers in our district, so selected by their

     colleagues and administration, to develop those materials.

     It's a terrific help to a teacher coming in to have a pretty

     good idea of what the district feels, and if we, like in

     English, interlock those English courses, then a continuum

     of learning from kindergarten through 12th grade, and we are

     going back and covering all that material three or four

     times.  That's good, that's good instruction; whether people

     like it or not, repetition is part of what this business is

     about.  We have taught those skills, we checked to see that

     you got them, we'll pre-test, we'll post-test.  To me, a lot

     of that really helps a teacher.  When I was a very young

     man, I was a Marine Corps officer and I was a reserve

     officer, I got called to summer duty, I went, I was moving

     from Illinois to Michigan to change jobs.  The Lebanon

     crisis, the first one, where the marine Corps and

     paratroopers invaded Lebanon the first place took place at

     that time.  I got _______, I wrote the principal of my new

     school and I said, "I'm praying that I'll be there for

     opening day but you haven't told me what my assignment was."

     This beauty sent me back a letter and said "You're going to

     be teaching History III and IV and coaching."  And I wrote

     him  back a letter rather reverently, "What the hell is

     history III and IV?  And as a coach, you had better know

     that the two things I can coach are football and track.  But

     if you give me basketball, we're going to have a blood bath

     because all of my kids are going to be on the bench after

     five minutes, because I think that anytime you pick up a

     ball, we tackle you."  The guy wrote back and said, "Well,

     History III and IV is American History."  But there was no

     syllabus with it; none.  So now I knew I was going to teach

     American History but I had no idea what the Grosse Point

     Public Schools felt was content.  When I came to (city name) 17

     years ago and Scottsdale, I was given the job of working in

     this high school.  I asked for the district curriculum.

     They said there is none.  There were two high schools in

     town -- (city name) High and Tanglewood.  I went to the one -- they

     gave me a bunch of ditto sheets; the other one gave me a

     list of courses taught.  There was no established content at

     all.  Now we've won that circle -- we have not taken away

     teacher freedom, there's still a lot of discretion on the

     teacher's part -- but now you pretty much know if you teach

     in (city name) Public Schools what's going to be happening as they

     go through.  When a teacher I hire right now comes in, I can

     give them the syllabus for those courses.  If they want to

     get started this summer, they got a pretty good head start

     on it.  I don't think, frankly, are all as wonderful as they

     are said to be.  You had better now quote me on this one or

     I'll probably be in court.  At PPP High School, I used

     to get the kids from DDD.  They were awful.  I have never

     seen any more poorly prepared kids.  That's a real expensive

     school.  Ride horses and you won't see your kid except two

     or three times a year, it's a wonderful place to send them.

     I don't think content-wise, skill-wise, that those kids are

     getting a good education.  On the other hand, I think there

     are a couple of schools, private and state, that do a pretty

     good job.  But when you compare this high school with a

     private school, look at us from the standpoint of AP,

     National Merit Scholars, scholarships, we run them right out

     of town.

Q.   Crestwood Country Day?

 

A.   Right out of town.  The only school in this state is the

     Magnet school in (city name), and that's not quite fair.  If you

     gave me the top 20 percent out of AAA, BBB High,

     CCC, and RRR High, guys all the way from

     Massachusetts --

 

Q.   Which is what a magnet school does --

 

A.   Sure, the cream of the crop.  The only high school that

     comes anywhere near is in the state is LLL High School

     and there's a marked difference between them, but LLL

     High School, in those areas, comes in.  When my kids go to

     college, they do very, very well, and they go to good

     schools.  I'm not putting everybody into HHH Community College.  
     
     I'm sending

     kids to Stanford, Cal Poly, Michigan, Northwestern, Notre

     Dame, Yale, Dartmouth -- these kids go to good schools and

     they compete very, very well.  The conceptualization that

     private is good, public is bad, isn't necessarily true.  Now

     give me credit for this:  I have a really good student body.

     I serve basically a middle to upper middle class community.

     I have an area where parents are interested in their kids,

     are involved in their kids' lives, and are interested in

     education.  I work in a district that believes that basic

     literary skills are an essential part of education, that

     those skills and that knowledge is essential to be

     successful.  It always has since I came here.  I'm not

     ashamed to measure this high school with any private school

     you can find.  When I did the evaluation on those private

     schools, I was of the opinion frankly that they only had

     four or five people on their whole staff that could get a

     job in this school.  A lot of them were rookies who were

     dying to work in a school like this; some of them were just

     hopeless; and a few of them were ladies who were married to

     men that were pretty successful financially and they could

     afford to work $15,000 or $16,000 a year.  They were

     wonderful people, they were really almost donated their

     time, but the overall quality of that staff was awful.  I

     can take you down to the business department and you will

     see state-of-the-art equipment.  All of our kids in our

     business department are computer-literate.  They are all

     trained in operation of computers and how to use them.  The

     math department trains the programmers but all of them in

     business are trained.  There is not even a typewriter left

     in any of the business rooms downstairs.  Everything is word

     processing stuff.  Our kids are beautifully prepared to go

     out and work in that area.  The private school I was at,

     they had old manual typewriters, they weren't even electric

     yet.  You say, well, sure, all their kids are going to go to

     college.  Probably so, but I'll bet you any money when they

     do, they use word processors, you know.  The days when I

     went to school with my pen are no longer -- we get pretty

     good equipment that way.  The caliber of staff, even though

     people may not like teacher certification, at least the

     caliber of staff says that they have 28 to 30 hours in their

     major field and most of my teachers have masters so most of

     them have 40 to 50 hours in their major field, and I have a

     couple who have a 150 in their major, and several people

     with doctorates on the staff.  ___________, you say, well,

     anybody can teach, you just go to Motorola and give you a

     great teacher.  Bull!  Nonsense!  You don't have to know

     anything about teaching, you don't have to know anything

     about techniques, anything about testing, anything about

     psychology, you can just walk in and because you can build

     an airplane, you're immediately a wonderful teacher.  That's

     not so; that's not so at all.  We had those guys from

     McDonnel Douglas come in one day to teach.  They were happy

     to go back to McDonnel Douglas after a full day with a 150

     kids and some of those math and science labs -- they thought

     it was a tough way to make a living.  I don't agree with

     those two gentlemen.  There are things that I wish, you

     know, sometimes I think the department of education doesn't

     develop a terribly wise, most of the time I don't have a

     major problem with it; as far as the district is concerned,

     rarely have I felt that my school's quality is held down by

     it.  And as long as we have Republicans in the white house,

     we're never going to have to worry about them helping us in

     schools, because they're going to talk all about Education

     200 but they're never going to do anything but talk.  And I

     got in trouble with our superintendent for a remark I made.

     A newspaper called me and asked me what I thought about the

     (state name) Business Industries recommendation for schools?  I

     told them very nicely that -- I've worked in (state name) about

     20 years, I've never been impressed by the caliber of

     businesses that I saw in (state name), and yet they are worried

     about us and our contribution with the Japanese.  I would

     think that after they had defeated the Japanese, driven them

     out of (state name) and everything you bought was (state name)

     purchased, I would be really happy to have them come over

     and help me run my school.  But until they had their own

     house in order, I felt that we were doing at least as well

     as they were, if not a little better.  Now I might not have

     made that remark with ________________, maybe if I was in

     Podunk I couldn't make the remark of 150 schools, but to me

     the good suburban schools in the (city name) area and (city name)

     area, are good and they do a good job.  Little town (state name)

     has a totally different job and I don't know what you do

     about that but -- what they're saying to me is that old

     concept that private is good, public is bad, and I think I'm

     a principal ________________, three university degrees, I've

     gone to good schools, I've had a lot of experience, I've

     been in a lot of good places, yet there are times when I am

     not able to come up with the right answer.  I don't know and

     the fact that I have people who are better trained than I am

     in certain areas at the district level, Dr. Bob TTT, I

     frequently call on him because he's so much more of an

     expert than I am, that I value what he tells me.  He's

     really helpful.  I'm not a particularly great researcher.

     We have Dr. GGG in the research evaluation department.

     Sometimes I have called him and asked him to instruct --

     here's what I want to know.  Can you help me?  Because I

     work here and I'm one of 55 or 60 principals in the

     district, my cohorts on the district level are somewhat --

     when it relates to business matters, I call and say, "I've

     really got to have this; I've really got to have it, and I'm

     not getting anyplace with those maintenance guys."  But this

     is important.  I have a great regard for our business

     assistant superintendent -- he is the best business man I

     have ever seen in a school district.  He's superb.  I call

     him once or twice a year.  He knows I never call unless it's

     really a problem and he is just great. At a little private

     school, I don't have some of those researchers to call on.

     I couldn't afford to bring in some of the training programs

     that we supply for our teachers.  I couldn't afford to bring

     the two Johnson guys in; I just don't have that kind of

     money.  But the district can bring them down; they can take

     key teachers in this building, train them, and then send

     them back to help their colleagues.  It's interesting,

     because they're so well-received that I am more and more

     inclined to think staff development by peers is the best

     type of development.  A teacher in this building that they

     really respect comes in and says, "Hey, I was trained in

     that area.  You can come to my classroom any time you want

     to and see it.  I'll show you how it works."  Those are

     things that a public school can, by size, you know, you can

     do some good things.