Over the weekend, a furor arose in our little ed. leadership community over an article by Fenwick English listing the names of the The 10 Most Wanted Enemies of American Public Education’s School Leadership. One of the named individuals, Rick Hess, called them out on it - and rightly so. It was a bad move.
Over the past several years, UCEA has sought to better engage the policy arena - thinking that by doing so we can increase the quality of leadership preparation, the leaders they produce, and thus our schools. This is a valid and noble goal as the quality of some preparation programs is highly suspect.
But, UCEA must walk a fine line when it comes to advocacy of positions or criticism of others. Being a member of UCEA now for many years, it is absolutely no secret that it has a position - a highly liberal one. But, UCEA is a institutional membership organization, not an individual membership organization. Meaning, my university and most other research universities around the country are the real members, not the professors. And, I would imagine, there is a substantial divide between the positions of institutions and the positions of ed. leadership professors. How many university presidents would create such an enemies list?
If we (and I am still very supportive of UCEA) are going to enter the advocacy arena in a bigger way, it must be done with class - even if the opposition lacks it in your opinion. We fancy ourselves as scholars and believe in the power of ideas, let us permit those ideas to be our positions.