Back to Square One

Shared leadership takes a troubled high school to new heights—until the powers-that-be knock it down again.

When the district board and the superintendent fired Ballona High School principal Harriet Alonzo, it must have stunned anyone who had witnessed how her leadership had turned the school around.¹  In just three years, from 2003 to 2006, with coaching from UCLA's School Management Program, Alonzo fashioned a leadership team of teachers who worked with her to transform Ballona High School from an academic failure to a smashing success. Ballona ranked among the top schools in California for its meteoric rise in student test scores, drop in student disciplinary cases, and increase in teacher satisfaction. Equally stunning was the board's and the superintendent's decision in 2006 to replace Alonzo with a principal who recentralized decision-making authority in his office, reversing these achievements.

What happened? Why would the board and the superintendent undo the actions that had produced such remarkable results? After studying the school carefully, I concluded that it was because district leaders were blinded by their conviction that top-down control is the only way to run schools. They didn't understand that sustaining successful reform requires teacher commitment and leadership.