New York City’s and the nation’s economic recession will hit hard, however. Barbara Freeman, principal of Don Pedro Albizu Campo School in Manhattan, asked from the floor, “If education is to remain a priority” of the Bloomberg administration, “what would you suggest principals do to cut budgets?” Walcott suggested principals review staffing budgets and consider the benefit of collaborative teaching and teacher mentoring, but also said, “I wouldn’t pretend to tell you where to do it, but I will tell you that it’s going to be necessary.”

 

Panelist Jeffrey Scherr, an educational consultant and former principal of Francis Lewis High School in Queens, got a reaction when he suggested that principals aren’t getting enough support from the central office under the new system. “People need feedback,” Scherr said, not just in the form of test scores, but “about the tone of each building, the overall progress” of each school. “My concern is that the lack of supervision leads to the possibility of failure before the test scores come in.”

 

But to some in the audience, “support from the central office” meant too much control by the Department of Education. “When they stopped telling me how to do bulletin boards,” said one principal who wished not to be identified, “my [students’] scores went up.”

 

Dusty Miller, a member of the audience and principal at the New York City Museum School, said she was concerned that, visits from the central office or not, “we may not be able to define what is quality instruction. Without a conversation about what we believe about instruction, it’s very difficult to develop a vision.”

 

Walcott said the chancellor’s office was taking steps to improve dialogue with principals, and the conversations needed to be about “system-wide standards and accountability.” And responding to a question about over-emphasis on testing, Walcott said he believes that “testing in the right way—preparing kids to be tested in the right way—is the greatest thing in the world. We are a test-driven society. We are tested every day. I am being tested right here tonight. I think delivering content and then testing on that content is a good thing. It’s about holding the system accountable.”