Principal Recruitment Another Move in Reform

"I don't like it," said ninth-grade student Williams Perry, 15, as he reported to the main office because of his jeans and a black T-shirt. "But she's doing a good job."

In addition to the District, other school system leaders are trying to improve student performance by improving principal performance. Prince George's County public schools recently announced that administrators and teachers in several schools would take part in a voluntary pilot program that provides extra pay for improved academic achievement. Other school systems have considered that idea, and it has been implemented in Anne Arundel County.

In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein launched the Principals Leadership Academy, a nonprofit organization that receives public and private funds to train principals. Since 2003, the academy has offered mentoring and coaching for new and experienced principals. "We're trying to solve a pipeline program," said Sandra J. Stein, the academy's chief executive. "There's more demand for principals to hit the ground running."

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who leads the District office of New Leaders for New Schools, a national principal training program, said she has offered to help Rhee develop the DCPS academy. "We have a track record for the identification, recruitment and placement of principals," Byrd-Bennett said. More than 55 graduates from the D.C. program work as principals in D.C. schools, with more than two-thirds in the school system and the others at charter schools, according to Byrd-Bennett.

One graduate, Michelle Pierre-Farid, worked at Tyler Elementary in Southeast for three years, and oversaw a 24-point gain in reading her first year and a 20-point gain in both reading and math in her third year, she said. The school received cash bonuses from Rhee and Fenty in December for those improvements.

"I didn't come in and say, 'Yup, 10 percentage points this year,' " said Pierre-Farid, who leads Friendship Southeast Academy, a charter school. "We just worked to make sure the students did well -- and they did."

Database editor Dan Keating contributed to this report.