LETTERS.

Doubting Client Evaluation

While Richard P. Manatt ("Feedback From 360 Degrees: Client-Driven Evaluation of School Personnel," March 1997) seems to feel quite comfortable with an evaluation that solicits input from a wide variety of people, I have some doubts.

How does an anonymous, client-driven evaluation ensure a superintendent protection of his or her due process rights? How does such an evaluation prevent the superintendent from engaging in maintaining popularity at the expense of doing his or her job? How can someone evaluate another when they have had no input into the goals and objectives of the position?

Superintendents typically work for school boards. Board members should collaboratively set the goals for the superintendent's job performance. How can someone who never had to deal with a case of teacher sexual abuse of a minor evaluate the superintendent? It certainly would be hard to imagine that the miscreant teacher would be giving the superintendent an objective evaluation.

I sincerely share Manatt's hope that everyone involved in the 360-degree evaluation would have the purest of motives--the improvement of the superintendent's performance. However, I am not naive enough to believe that there isn't just a little perversity in human nature.

The best way to treat client-driven input is to direct it to the superintendent for his or her edification only. Let the superintendent decide whether to provide a summary to the board of education, whose members ultimately must evaluate the superintendent based on the goals and expectations they have drafted with the superintendent.

GORDON E. CASTANZA

Superintendent,

Chatham School District,

Angoon, Alaska 

More 'Fosterisms'

Like James A. Sandfort, whose guest column ("The Best Advice I Ever Received," April 1997) I read with keen interest, I think Dick Foster has touched more hearts of administrators than any individual in our nation.

As someone who has sat at his feet, I believe "Fosterisms" someday will rank with the fractured witticisms of baseball's Yogi Berra, and like Yogi, Foster will receive credit for creative quotations just because the words sound like his.

In the spirit of expanding Sandfort's list, I offer these additional Fosterisms:

* Reason for being: "To create change in a system that does not want to change. The system plans to ignore you. If you persist in changing, they will attack you. It doesn't mean you are right ... you just tipped the system."

* On your first year: "Do a lot of listening, do very little talking. Bring someone with you."

* Rules of the game for meetings: "Do not belittle in a meeting. Do not talk about people after a meeting. Leave all the problems behind after the meeting."

* On declining a job "Never turn down a job. Just say, not now."

* On public comment at board meetings: "When the public speaks on an issue, thank them for the advice. If you act on first speakings, they have learned how to circumvent the process."

My favorite of all time: "Think fast and move slowly!"

JOHN GORDON

Superintendent,

Wenatchee School District No. 246,

Wenatchee, Wash.

Pediatricians Stand Ready

I very much enjoyed the May 1997 issue, which focused on the role of educators in child advocacy. I read the issue from cover to cover and will use information in it at a presentation I am making on integrated school health services.

As former chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on School Health, I was especially delighted to see the Focus article ("Tap Pediatricians in Your Community as Health Resource") by Dr. Howard Taras. I hope you continue to involve pediatrics and pediatricians in your magazine's coverage. The AAP represents 53,000 pediatrician child advocates, many of whom are involved in school health services.

JOSEPH R. ZANGA, M.D.

Vice President,

American Academy of Pediatrics,

Elk Grove, Ill.

A Skewed Perspective

Kati Haycock's article ("Eliminate Gross Disparities Under Your Control," May 1997) was a surprise to those of us working on behalf of educational reform in the Newark, N.J., Public Schools since the author did not provide readers with the full context of what is occurring in the district.

Your readers should know that the Newark district was taken over by the state of New Jersey in 1995 when I was appointed state district superintendent. It was an action that had long been debated: Thirty years ago, in the wake of the Newark riots that transfigured this city, the Governor's Select Commission on Civil Disorder reported that Newark's public school system was in a state of educational crisis" and called for the state takeover of the city's schools.

Remaking a system that has been in decline for decades will not happen overnight. In the past two years we have introduced all-day kindergarten for all Newark children, more algebra classes for 8th-graders and more professional development opportunities for teachers and principals. As Haycock observed, the secondary schools are one of our greatest challenges. Nonetheless, we are committed to restructuring our schools, from kindergarten through 12th grade.

One hopeful sign that we are on the right track: The cumulative attendance rate from September 1996 to January 1997 was 90.5 percent, a substantial gain over persistent declines over the last five years.

I hope Haycock will pay the Newark Public Schools another visit. My staff will be happy to share some of the triumphs and challenges we have experienced so far in our two years of administration.

BEVERLYL. HALL

State District Superintendent, Newark Public Schools, Newark, N.J.