ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 17, 1997 TAG: 9701170061
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
ABOUT WAYNE Harris, whom the Roanoke School Board wisely signed this week to another four-year term as superintendent, we could say many good things.
He does not sweep problems under the rug (example: the city's high student-absentee rate); he addresses them. He does not jettison good starts made by others (example: the city's magnet-school program); he tries to build on them. He has made changes (example: extensive personnel changes, including appointment of 13 new principals and reassignment of seven others); he has made them without engendering the turmoil that can often ensue.
And he has taken a hands-on approach while eschewing meddlesome micromanagement. On the one hand, Harris during his first four years in Roanoke has made it a point to know what's going on at each school in the system. He visits all of them on a regular schedule: in all, more than 600 visits. The Roanoke schools chief clearly understands that the point of public education is to teach the young, and that this occurs not in central administrative offices but in classrooms and labs and playgrounds.
On the other hand, Harris has given individual schools greater budgetary and other flexibility. Under such site-based management, principals and teachers are held accountable not for how closely they adhere to detailed bureaucratic procedures but for how well they do in meeting measurable goals.
The results speak for themselves: higher student scores on academic-achievement tests, better attendance, fewer dropouts, higher fitness-test scores. To those, you could add reduced administrative costs, on-schedule progress toward bringing teacher pay to the national average by 1998-99, upgraded computer technology throughout the system.
An appropriate goal for Roanoke would be to have one of the nation's leading urban school systems. Under Harris, that goal has been brought closer to sight.
LENGTH: Short : 39 linesby CNB