That doesn't inspire hope

Karl Lang who was principal at Hillwood High until last year was just named principal at McGavock. The state removed/demoted him last year. The state also inserted a new principal at McGavock last year. WSMV-TV is reporting that violence at McGavock prompted new school's director Jesse Register to turn to Karl Lang to tighten up that ship. Lang's reputation is that he was responsible for getting things squared away at Hillwood.

I don't have direct experience to say definitively that getting Karl Lang back to running a school is a move in the right direction, but my sense is that he is a capable leader, competent to maintain order. Without a sense of order nothing much positive is going to happen at a school. So it is not the re-emergence of Karl Lang that doesn't inspire confidence but rather the situation that gave us this sort of musical chairs at Metro high schools. The state was making decisions (it would be nice to know who precisely got rid of Lang at Hillwood). That, expanded state authority, happened of course because Metro schools failed to achieve adequate yearly progress. The problem is that authority to make decisions moved in the wrong direction. The state got more authority and parents got less. A large part of the struggle to correct such perverted processes is that so many in positions of influence do not, or have not, send their kids to public schools. They, including many public school teachers and administrators, maintain control over their own education consumption decisions by virtue of their relative affluence. They, like many, opt out of the public system. They tend to lack confidence that those with lower incomes are as competent to make such decisions for themselves. And, even if they believe that parents are the best suited to make such decisions they lack the intensity required to push dramatic reform; inferior school environments don't have a direct impact on them. Yes, of course the teachers' lobby stands in the way of expanding parental choice but that is just the proximate cause of reform failures. Leaders who don't have kids in the public schools have no stomach for a fight against an entrenched and powerful lobby.