The educational system needs better leadership.

Principals

Today's principals seem to have strange jobs.

• They assure that a warm body is standing in front of every classroom
• They show frustration towards children who are sent to them for disciplinary reasons

Principals should also demonstrate educational leadership. The principal should be a respected (but not feared) role model for the teaching staff.

Parents level

Parents' associations have a great deal of control in some schools. This is not always beneficial.

There should be a distinction between involvement and recommendations. Teachers should not feel threatened by parents. A teacher's job should be limited to effectiveness in the classroom, not to her ability to defend herself against hostile parents.

What is the job of school professionals?

An effective teacher may be very hurt by the need to defend herself against the administration, the students, and the parents. She was taught to teach, and she is certainly not granted the salary of a defense attorney.

An effective principal should strive for the best education in the school. He should not have to pacify noisy parents who may have their own agendas.

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Very often principals reach their position because they want to advance from teaching. It is questionable whether this is really an advnace but it does mean more money and generally it also means investing more hours of work every week.

However, very often principals do not fulfill their main function which is to lead the staff. The real goal of the principal's job should be to lead the entire school and the real goal of supervision.

Leadership should be demonstrating either by the principal or by others how to teach well and showing how to lead a class so the class follows, how to make a presence, and the other things that a leader does to create charisma.

If the principal is able to do this then he will have succeeded implicitly in many of his other tasks.