Edmonton's Entrepreneur Won't Tolerate 'Dumb Rules'.

Emery Dosdall knows the critical decisions--those having any connection to student learning--aren't the ones that usually get settled in the superintendent's office.

This explains why his work log in Edmonton, Alberta, has averaged 290 distinct visits to schools in his district during the past two years, why he redirected $20 million in spending from the central office to school sites and why he insists that all 206 building principals report directly to him.

"I tell the principals, 'When parents call, I don't have any more wisdom or creativity than you do, so I'll expect you'll handle these [matters]" says Dosdall, Edmonton's superintendent since 1995.

Dosdall, who started his career as a teacher in Edmonton, is seen as an imaginative school leader who has little tolerance for lockstep thinking. Shortly after coming to Edmonton following a 13-year stint as superintendent in Langley, British Columbia, he created a "dumb rules" committee to flush out any custom-bound practices that interfered with improving what happens in classrooms. "It's freed up people's minds," he says. "It's like asking 'Why don't the giant elephants ever break their chains?' It's a mental state."

Edmonton's principals, who control annual budgets ranging from $600,000 to $9 million, have long enjoyed autonomy, stemming from the breakthrough decentralization work of Dosdall's predecessor, Mike Strembitsky, now a consultant to school districts. But the site administrators are feeling more accountable than ever today for producing better student outcomes.

"I've never had a one-on-one with [Dosdall] where we didn't talk about student achievement," says George Rice, a high school principal who earlier served as one of the district's associate superintendents. Adds Sandra Woitas, a principal in her eighth year: "I'm responsible for everything from ordering the toilet paper to achievement results. I'd never go back" to the previous way of doing business.

Under Dosdall, the Edmonton district has opened dozens of new schools, partly in response to Canada's fledgling charter school movement and the threat of tax-supported vouchers. The Ottawa Citizen recently declared that the nation ought to model public education's future on Edmonton's commitment to parental choice and alternative programs.

Today, nearly one in five students attend a specialty school--several of which had been proposed as charters before Dosdall and his staff marshalled a rapid response to develop them as regular public schools under the district's umbrella. The new programs include a pair of junior high schools for girls only, traditional instruction in a Christian context, mixed-age groupings and on-line instruction for home-schooled students.

Though the impact of choice on districtwide achievement results remains inconclusive, the superintendent is convinced that more expansive options are the appropriate direction for the district. He says disaggregated data shows students in choice schools are scoring at 2 to 3 percent higher levels than students in assigned neighborhood schools.

"I believe if a parent chooses a particular school and a student chooses a particular school and a teacher chooses to work at a particular school, you're going to be more successful," Dosdall says.

Word has gotten out where the action is and isn't in the 79,000-student district, Alberta's second largest. In one of the many areas that he personally monitors through data collection, Dosdall notes that the central office fielded 250 calls during one 3-week period last year, a welcome decline from the 1,120 received during the same span two years earlier.

Recognition of his leadership is gaining among U.S. educators. Dosdall delivered a featured presentation at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development convention last winter, and he has consulted with representatives from Milwaukee and New York City on developing school choice options.

Asked, then, why so few U.S. school districts offer such a wide array of curricular offerings for parent choosing, Dosdall says it comes down to systems thinking. "People will look at a district and take one piece, be it decentralization or choice or whatever. Yet everything's interrelated. You change all the pieces of a system. That's what's lacking."

Jay Goldman is the editor of The School Administrator.

BIO STATS: EMERY DOSDALL

Currently: superintendent, Edmonton, Alberta

Earlier: superintendent, Langley, British Columbia

Age: 56

Greatest Influence on Career: The move toward site-based decision making in Edmonton in the early '70s, which enabled staff, parents and community to become involved in decisions about providing education.

Best Professional Day: At an award ceremony in 1995 to recognize my work over 13 years as superintendent in Langley, British Columbia, I was overwhelmed by the number and kind of honors I received--from the provincial principals' association, the provincial teachers' association, union leaders, the parents' association, the mayor and the minister of education.

Books at Bedside: Change Forces: The Sequel by Michael Fullan, Building Leadership Capacity in Schools by Linda Lambert, Conceptual and Practical Issues in School Leadership by Vivian Williams

Biggest Blooper: I had just started as superintendent in Edmonton and was participating in one of my first public board meetings there. I was trying to impress the nine trustees when I inadvertently addressed the chairman of the board, George Nicholson, as "Madame Chairman." This of course caused great amusement.

A Reason Why I'm an AASA Member: I am keenly interested in keeping current on educational issues and trends in North America.