Focus On Administrative Leadership Leads to Lack of Innovation In Our Classrooms.

In our country today, many companies are faced with intense overseas competition, lower pricing power and higher labor costs. In attempts to counter these threats, United States companies have focused on lean manufacturing and operational excellence. But as they emphasize excellent performance in order to create a route to continuous improvement, other nations and systems are still beating the United States in terms of innovation and quality leadership.

Comparisons can be made to assess similar issues and potential resolutions within our very own K-12^th grade education system. All over the world, other countries are outperforming our students in science and mathematics. The ability of our education system to successfully instill this knowledge in our children is directly related to future scientific innovation within many industries. Likewise, lack of innovation in the classroom fails our children and will hand-down to them a country that is behind in the race to compete on a global scale.

As a response to these failures and shortcomings, we’ve been focusing on empowering principals to self manage schools. While this empowerment is a great leap in school-level accountability, the metrics we hold principals accountable to - NCLB standardized tests – is not conducive to future innovation within the classroom. It is important to note that principal performance, as with any profession, can be determined through a bell curve analysis. There are many good principals and some bad. I believe that you get what you pay for. Hence, principals are directed, in the words of Adam Smith, “by an invisible hand” to pressure their most valuable workforce (teachers) to teach to the test.

I founded Applebatch (http://www.applebatch.com/) because I believe that teachers need a venue to connect with a diverse group of colleagues. Through the support and encouragement nurtured in such connections, innovative ideas can surface. By empowering teachers with the resources and knowledge they require to be successful, they can meet the needs of our children and guarantee them a brighter future in the developing global economy. The key is to develop methods that foster and spread innovation throughout our school systems; enriching the careers of teachers and improving our student’s outcomes.