Kentucky legislators make professional education administrators impotent leaders

The School-Based Decision Making (SBDM) Law (KRS 160.345) relinquishes too much decision power to part-time administrative amateurs. Kentucky has systemic problems in its schools.

Name one other organization that has a crucial mission with severe consequences if it fails that hands over critical top management planning and decision-making to three non-management employees and two customers. Think about it.

Even though Kentucky’s school councils know there are problems, a special report documents achievement gaps are not being closed with any sense of urgency. It’s a tough job to turn a school around. It is next to impossible with Kentucky’s legislative edicts and union constraints.

There is another way. Kentucky could give total control and accountability to experienced, proven leaders that taxpayers are paying for but getting no real leadership from.

The Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education at the University of Virginia offers the opportunity for successful school administrators who have earned at least a master’s degree to also earn a professional credential in educational turnaround management. Successful candidates are established leaders who are dynamic, committed, strategic, data-driven and results-oriented. Moreover, they will have demonstrated success at mobilizing resources and motivating people to elevate student achievement in a time-compressed manner.

There's no comparison between the criteria to enter the Darden/Curry education management turnaround program and that required to serve on a Kentucky school council. Kentucky kids deserve the best at every Kentucky school.

It’s time to can the SBDM theory and implement a proven responsibility and accountability chain of command to get needed results with a sense that time is of the essence.

Getting results is what big education spending is all about - not management experiments and just getting along.