One reason for unreturned books, at least on the high school level,
was the significant number of program changes that took place early
in the semester for a variety of reasons: summer school results, test
results, human error or computer glitches. Mr. Chen’s staff was adept
at dealing with these issues so that one week into the semester, almost
every child had the correct program. But, knowing that about 10 percent
of the students would have changes during the first week, he withheld
book distribution and made use of the uniform plans (see chapter 1).
There was no loss of instruction—and no loss of books—when students
changed classes.
Mr. Chen had learned his lesson from the transportation pass incident.
All students had a book before they left school that day. His assistant
principals went into the storerooms and found obsolete texts and gave
each student one. (Heaven forbid one throws out a book, even if it is a
science text from twenty years ago. A neighborhood watchdog would be
sure to see a school disposing of books and report the school for wasting
taxpayer money.)
He then projected ahead. Would he get a call in a day or two when he
withheld new texts from students who had not returned texts from the
previous semester? One of his assistant principals provided the obvious
solution: The school was not withholding any books since the students al-
ready had books, albeit from last year. Just to be sure, this principal called
the superintendent and ran this idea by her. She loved it—and informed
other principals about this creative solution to the media-created problem.
Of course, credit for the idea went to the assistant principal.
Let’s move on to something completely different. For an assistant prin-
cipal to earn tenure back in the 1990s—and still today in many school
districts—he had to submit a large portfolio that included a myriad of
documents to prove he had performed satisfactorily during his probation-
ary period. In addition, the superintendent would visit the school and
spend part of the day with the assistant principal. She would review the
documentation and then she would accompany the assistant principal on
visits to many of the teachers he supervised. Before entering the room, the
superintendent would ask him what he expected to see in the classroom;
after they left, she would ask for his evaluation of the instruction and, if
appropriate, his plan for helping the teacher improve.
Give the Credit; Take the Blame 41