Editorial | Don’t let principals off the hook

Stacey Reynolds clearly has a point. Examination results are not the measure by which to judge schools.

But she must know that it is an important part of the matrices by which to judge educational outcomes. Unless, the principal of Mount Alvernia High School for Girls in Montego Bay is being coy on the back of her school's jump to sixth in the latest ranking of Jamaica's secondary schools by the organisation, Educate Jamaica.

Those ratings are based on the performance of students in the Caribbean Examinations Council's (CXC) Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams. The critical benchmark for schools is the percentage of their entire grade 11 cohort who, after five years of secondary education, pass at least five subjects, including maths and English, in a single sitting, of the exams.

Generally, only around 40 per cent of Jamaican students achieve that benchmark, although the top 20 or so high schools, or 12 per cent of all secondary schools, can be expected to have more than 90 per cent of their cohorts achieving the target, considered the basic requirement for matriculation to higher education.

In more than 70 per cent of Jamaican high schools, at least half of their grade 11 students don't pass five CSEC subjects, including maths and English, at a single sitting.

'False narrative'

Ms Reynolds is concerned that these schools should be branded as "failing" and suggests that it is perhaps a false narrative to compare the schools with extremely poor outcomes with high achievers like her own.

"The variables are different," she said. "... I don't believe that a principal is bad because the school is ranked way down, or that the school is bad because you are not getting 100 per cent passes in CSEC."

The more important measure, she suggested, is the quality of students received by a school at the start of his or her education and the value the institution is able to add after five years. "You may be able to add value in the form of CSEC," Ms Reynolds said. "Somebody else may be able to add value by teaching the child a trade."

Those are not unreasonable observations, given the fact that many of Jamaica's children, especially those who attend state-run institutions, complete primary schooling ill-prepared for secondary education. Remedial work takes place at high school.

But there are two points on which we take issue with Ms Reynolds. One is the seeming hard bifurcation of education - between a child's capacity to perform academically and his or her learning a trade. Being a competent carpenter or motor mechanic requires the capacity to undertake sometimes complex calculations and to articulate ideas and concepts.

Tradespeople problem-solve. Further, being a bricklayer isn't incompatible with the ability to exercise the creative imagination. Ms Reynolds, we hope, is not cynically seeking to slot people who work primarily with their hands into some predetermined education box, by taking secondary education institution off the hook.

Second, we are concerned that apologists gloss over the role of skilled and transformational leadership in schools, preferring to whinge about the low-performing students bequeathed to them.

It need not be that way. Take the case of Rayon Simpson, who took over as principal of Belmont Academy in 2014, with only 14 per cent of the students passing five CSEC subjects. By the time he left, three years later, the rate, inclusive of maths and English, was 93 per cent. He had a clear vision and strategy for the turnaround, which he executed. The children who were entering Belmont started with low grades.

There are lessons to be learnt from people like Mr Simpson at all levels of the education system.