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As a recently retired School District principal with an insider’s perspective on school reform efforts for the last 17 years, I am happy to be offered the opportunity to join the Notebook's roll of bloggers. I believe that in a modest way I can provide a more nuanced and realistic perspective regarding the challenges and successes of public education than what has often been characterized in the media in recent times.

My career as an educator has been rooted in the belief that the work of a teacher is a vital public service. I am an unabashed supporter of public education. I see our public schools as the means through which we support our children in developing the skills that will assist them to be successful and productive adults. Further, I see our schools as community centers that unify us as a people and prepare our children to be active and responsible citizens of our democratic society. I believe that school based K-12 educators need to speak out on the issues that confront us.

I have been a educator for 36 years and principal of Meade Elementary School for 12.5 years. Before taking leadership of Meade School, I was the assistant principal at the neighboring Vaux Middle School. Nearly half of my career has been spent in one North Philadelphia community learning much about the schooling of children who live in low-resourced neighborhoods.

The school turnaround advocates who currently dominate the NCLB school reform agenda claim that dramatic increases in student test performance can occur in a short period of one to two years. My years of experience as a school-based teacher and teacher leader have taught me that real educational change is a slow, complex, and sometimes grueling process. Yet it is one that has a much greater significance on the future successes of children than increasing test scores on a standardized test.

It is time to start to set the record straight about what it takes to achieve true measures of school reform. I look forward to fully and openly participating in the lively dialogue that the Notebook site generates.