Superintendent Accountability
The board holds the superintendent accountable for district performance
The previous three components deal with the board’s responsibility to provide guidance: individual board members receive boardsmanship guidance from the full board; the full board receives (gives itself) governance guidance; and the superintendent receives management guidance from the board. But providing guidance is not enough by itself. We need to assure that the guidance results in successful performance. Assurance of performance is the purpose of accountability, and the board is responsible to hold three entities accountable: board members as individuals in the performance of boardsmanship; the board as a collective whole in the performance of governance; and the superintendent in the performance of management.
This post will describe Superintendent Accountability, the first of three components of the board’s responsibility for Accountability. Superintendent accountability is the eighth component, board accountability is the ninth component, and board member accountability is the tenth component of effective governance.
4a. Superintendent Accountability
Because board members assume a strategic role and usually aren’t educators themselves, they’re in a poor position to objectively assess an educational program’s effectiveness. But the programs’ outcomes (as reflected in student achievement data that reveal the degree of progress toward meeting school district goals) are fair game for board questioning. The board doesn’t so much assess educational programs as it challenges school staff to justify their effectiveness. ― Mark Van Clay and Perry Soldwedel1
Outcomes are fair game for the board. In fact, they should be the board’s number one concern. Making judgments on behalf of the community about whether its desired outcomes have been achieved is a board rather than a superintendent responsibility, because superintendent accountability depends on board assessment of district progress toward those outcomes.
A new board member learned a lesson about superintendent accountability for total organizational performance through the wisdom of another, more experienced board member’s definition of a good school board:
Soon after joining his school board Bob attended a conference and found himself sitting at a table filled with colleagues from around the state. He asked, “What is your definition of a good board?” After several others at the table offered their thoughts, Fred, a prominent businessman and at the time already a thirty-year veteran board member, added his own: “A good board meets once a year. At that meeting the only agenda item is a motion to fire the superintendent. If the motion passes, the board immediately begins a superintendent search. If the motion fails, the board adjourns for the year.” The table erupted with laughter.
Of course, Fred was exaggerating to make a point. His own board complied with state law that required school boards to meet at least once a month and perform mandatory duties such as approving employment contracts, signing off on financial transactions, etc. Yet his advice is reflective of a fundamental role, perhaps the fundamental role, of the board: ensuring, on behalf of the community, that the school system through its chief executive is held accountable for results. Most of what passes for board business pales in comparison to the duty of assuring that the school system works in terms of delivering desired outcomes for students. Everything else is secondary and usually serves as a distraction from this essential duty.
The importance of this task. As chief executive, the superintendent is accountable not just for her individual performance, but for the collective performance of all schools and staff in the district. She accounts to the board for the organization’s progress in delivering results desired by the community. She also accounts for the district’s compliance with federal and state law, as well as community expectations and values that are expressed in board policy.
The board emerged from a four hour long executive session to discuss superintendent evaluation, and all were exhausted by the ordeal. During that time they had struggled, exchanging hurt feelings, bottled up resentments, surprise revelations of information and opinions previously unknown by the majority, accusations not previously shared with the superintendent or board colleagues, plus some serious examination of district performance and in-depth discussion of what the district was doing to promote continuous improvement. Toward the end, members realized with some irony that much of the conversation was positive and productive, the very kind of serious discussions that would have been greatly appreciated by the public, whose support and trust were needed. Most of the personally directed remarks and the tension generated by those remarks might have been avoided had issues been dealt with one at a time and in a timely way. Instead, they ignored or deferred dealing with those issues as they sprang up during the year, allowing them, like weeds, to grow untended, in some cases for nearly a year after the previous end-of-year evaluation conversation. “There has to be a better way,” the president groaned.
Many school boards pay only passing attention to superintendent evaluation, holding brief, often very personal conversations behind closed doors at the end of each year. Some boards skip such evaluations entirely for several years at a time. Most treat superintendent evaluation as a strictly personnel matter, failing to connect the success of the organization with that of its CEO. Such a disconnect easily leads to confusing situations, such as repeated positive evaluations in the face of lagging organizational performance, or (more confusing) criticism and even termination of the superintendent when the district as a whole is very successful. This confusion is a symptom of a highly dysfunctional concept of accountability and is the legacy of an ineffective (or even dysfunctional) board.
The effective board regards superintendent success as equivalent to district success and sets clear expectations for district performance. It monitors performance based on those expectations. And it takes action based on that monitoring, affirming success where it occurs and responding to the need for corrections and revisions in guidance when appropriate.
Indicators. The following indicate that the board holds the district accountable for performance.
The board establishes criteria defining success in terms of desired student outcomes
The board monitors by comparing data with explicitly stated criteria
District Accountability consists of 3 elements: Setting Expectations for District Performance; Monitoring District Performance; and Responding to District Monitoring.
Van Clay, M. and Soldwedel, P. School Board Fieldbook, pg. 30.
Source:
A Framework for School Governance (2018) Rick Maloney