Lessons to be learned

As a former principal in the Regent Park area of Toronto, I believe many of the factors you have highlighted about successful schools get to some very important issues in education today. The question of food programs, parenting centres, an open-door policy to parents and community, etc., are key factors to creating the kind of learning environment that can make a difference in marginalized communities.

But I believe focusing on the principals can lead to somewhat misleading conclusions. While no one would discount the pivotal role that leadership plays in inner-city schools, it is untrue that leadership on its own can turn schools around. More importantly, an analysis that places the entire success or lack of success of a school on the principal's shoulders allows systemic barriers in our education system and society to go unchallenged.

The province provides school boards with the Learning Opportunities Grant, which is meant to provide schools in economically challenged communities with the extra resources necessary to create a more equitable school system.

Unfortunately, the education ministry does not hold school boards accountable for how they spend this money. Thus, at the Toronto board, the $100 million a year
Wasn't holding school boards responsible for their actions part of the battle that ogre Mike Harris fought with the teacher's unions, the school boards and the schools? He lost that battle and I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Kugler wasn't one of Harris' detractors.
received from this grant is spent to meet other needs, such as the heating of buildings and teachers' salaries – both of which the province still underfunds. As your articles point out, principals matter. But principals work in a context shaped by school board and provincial policy. Surely they should be better supported in their educational mission by the province that holds the purse strings.

Jeffrey Kugler, Executive Director,
Centre for Urban Schooling, Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education of
the University of Toronto