Half
of NY State School Principals to Retire
in Five Years: Survey Confirms Crisis
An
independent survey released recently reveals that 48 percent of
the state’s current school principals intend to retire by the
year 2006 and 74 percent by 2011, validating education leaders’
concerns of the looming crisis facing the schools and communities
of New York State.
Conducted by a research team at the University at Albany and sponsored
by the School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS),
the report challenges state leaders to attract quality educators
to the principalship to fill the emerging gap.
“With
three-quarters of current principals planning to retire in the
next 10 years, the report strongly calls for strategies to encourage
and support a younger, more diverse group of educators,” said
SAANYS Executive Director Richard Thomas.
The 142-item survey was sent to a random sample of 1,485 New York
state principals (excluding New York City) of elementary, middle
and high schools, with 45 percent responding.
Other findings include:
•Nearly
all the principals (96 percent) said they were increasingly held
accountable for student achievement and test scores.
•More
than 80 percent said they were increasingly involved with the
use of data to improve student achievement.
•85
percent reported increased involvement with safety and crisis
management issues during the past three years.
•75
percent indicated that the “fragmentation” of their time was a
“high” concern.
•71
percent indicated moderate to high concern over funding for and
integration of technology into instructional programs.
•City
school principals spent nearly twice as much time on student supervison
than their rural counterparts.
Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel:
(212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of
the publisher. © 2001.
|