Last week I had the good fortune to participate in a principal-led tour of Asa Mercer Middle School on Beacon Hill in south Seattle.  The school serves 900 eager young students, ages 10 to 14, mostly from immigrant, low-income and minority families.  Twenty different languages are spoken at the school.

Impressively, Asa Mercer Middle School earned an “Exemplary” rating on Washington’s respected school accountability index, scoring a 6.69 on a 7-point scale.  Student learning, especially in math, has improved dramatically in recent years, with 78% of sixth-graders passing the state math test in 2010-11, up from 37% in 2007-8. 

How was this accomplished? 

Paul Pastorek, former superintendent of Louisiana schools, observed at our education event in February that the current centralized structure of schools is not designed to help superintendents or principals deliver for students.  Under a highly-controlled system mediocrity is the norm, but it is possible for heroic efforts of individuals to achieve great things for students.

Mercer Middle is one such example.  Principal Susan Toth is leading her team of dedicated teachers to deliver great instruction for kids living in one of Seattle’s culturally diverse low-income neighborhoods. 

It is admirable how Principal Toth and her professional team have overcome bureaucratic obstacles.  Here are some examples. 

Managing Money

Principal Toth, like all Seattle principals, only has limited control over the resources Central District staff sends to her school.  She has skillfully used separate pots of levy and federal dollars to create an after-school math institute for students who need extra help. 

Mercer Middle receives $6,835 average school funding per student (all funds), for a total annual school budget of $6.08 million.  Yet the Seattle School District receives $11,843 dollars in revenue per Mercer Middle student, but sends only 57 cents of each dollar to her school’s students.  If Principal Toth controlled a higher percentage of Mercer Middle’s revenue, she could create more services, hire more teachers and direct public education money in ways that would most help her students.

Managing Staff

Principal Toth reports she puts a great deal of effort into selecting her team of teachers.

She has to.  State law makes it so costly to remove a bad teacher from her staff that she has to be exceedingly careful in her hiring choices.  State law also severely limits the pool of teaching candidates to individuals holding paper credentials, so a retired college math professor, for example, is barred from teaching math at Mercer Middle.  In contrast, state law allows private schools to hire any qualified teacher available, without restriction. 

Principal Toth must also take on teachers who are “force-placed” at her school through the union’s collective bargaining agreement.  These “forced” teachers must be kept in the classroom, even if they have a negative impact on student learning. 

Not Allowed to Reward High-Performance Teachers

State law does not allow Principal Toth to award performance bonuses to her staff.  If she could, like any leader, she would use these incentives to keep the best teachers at her school year after year.

Paul Pastorek told the WPC audience that after Katrina, Louisiana school officials made it a top priority to place responsibility for educating students where it belongs: on the principal.  The state’s Recovery School District does not try to control what the principal does.  Instead it oversees the principal’s progress towards meeting each school’s learning goals.  The Recovery School District model cuts back on the controlling role of the central office, and sends more dollars to principals.  Eighty percent of schools in this district are independent, tuition-free charter public schools.  If they fail to meet student achievement goals, they are closed and replaced with better schools.  

Imagine what Susan Toth and her great team of teachers could accomplish if Washington law, the Seattle School District and union collective bargaining agreements were structured to help, not hinder, her great work at Mercer Middle.  Imagine what principals in public schools across the state could achieve if they were given a chance to soar.