PAUL A. GARCIA: It's a pretty complicated relationship

Published online on Saturday, Oct. 03, 2009

A friend of mine once told me that becoming a high school principal was a lot like getting married to the school. Both require an unselfish commitment of time, unconditional dedication to children and untiring efforts to build rapport and relationships.

Unfortunately, the urgency to reform schools means there is no courtship period, engagement or honeymoon. Reform efforts require close examination of existing practices, implementation of new ones, and the cultivation of a family to adopt a common vision.

Some school practices need nurturing, while others require nourishment. School leaders cannot be adverse to taking risk or making bold changes. Research on successful school reform has found these leadership qualities effective.

The urgency to reform schools is magnified by an achievement gap that has persisted over the past four years. Since 2006, Latino students in the Fresno Unified School District have trailed white students by about 28 percentage points in language arts and 16 percentage points in mathematics.

In her new book, "The Latino Education Crisis," Patricia Gandara argues for improved efforts to make more congruent the ethnic/racial background of teachers and the students they teach.

Dr. Gandara claims teachers from similar communities as their students possess unique knowledge and sensitivity to the language and culture of students. Certainly, teachers and administrators from the students' own community are more likely to understand the issues that students and their families face.

Unlike teachers, the tenure of school administrators is tenuous. School principals operate under one-year contracts, therefore, it is extremely precarious to create change.

Consequently, when principal contracts are not renewed, it is difficult to determine the motive or grounds for the divorce. To what extent was it ineffectiveness, discrimination or philosophical differences with the district office?

It is even more disconcerting when released administrators are from the same ethnic or racial minority background that reflects the school community. An analysis of districtwide trends indicates an alarming pattern where the ethnic and racial background of the school administration differs drastically from the student population.

Data from the California Department of Education indicates that over the last five years, there have been no increases in the representation of ethnic or racial minority administrators in our schools.

Since 2005, Latino administrators have constituted 21% of all administrators compared with a student population that is 60% of the district. Even a 1% annual increase in Latino administrators would require 40 years to bridge the administrator and student ethnic background gap.

The analogy of marriage to school leadership is especially instructive when discussing organizational culture. An institution like marriage has defined values and belief systems that are sanctified by rituals, ceremonies, and traditions.

These acts strengthen the vows of marriage into the cultural and social landscape. School districts are not institutions, but systems of policies, procedures and practices. However, structures can be implemented in systems to sustain a culture of equity, excellence and cultural diversity.

These qualities of high performing school districts are not orthogonal to each other. Indeed, Fresno Unified has adopted core beliefs to this effect, but seem divorced from practice. There is little evidence that for school leadership, the school district promotes ethnic/racial diversity, cultural relationships, or community commitments.

Efforts are needed to develop, recruit and retain qualified individuals who represent the school community they serve. Call it marriage counseling, trial marriage, or renewing one's vows. The concept remains the same.

There has to be a better system for all school leaders to take risks, foster change and craft improvements without fearing the arbitrary termination of their contract.

Until all school leaders are guaranteed equal treatment, Latino students will continue to attend schools where leadership role models are absent. More significantly, school reform will be slow and cautious and the achievement gap will continue to be correlated to the ethnic/racial disparity between school administrators and the students they serve.

Today, the most urgent challenge for the American educational system has a Latino face.