HGSE News: Strong Training for Leadership (Sean T. Bennett profile)

When Sean T. Bennett graduated from college with an engineering degree, he had no ambitions of working in education, let alone teaching. After-school tutoring, however, changed his mind; as he now says, "I didn't choose education; education chose me." Bennett found that he spent all day at his job in the technology industry looking forward to working with kids after work. He explains, "I realized that it was time to turn things around." Even then, it took time before he set his sights higher. Teaching for seven years, Bennett insists, "you could have asked me during the first three years if I wanted to go into [school] administration, and I would have said no."

Sean T. Bennett, Ed.M. candidate in the School Leadership program

Now, Bennett is an Ed.M. candidate in the School Leadership program (SL), on the principal certification track. Teaching both elementary and middle schools in the Rochester City School District bolstered his interest in administration. "Over time," Bennett explains, "I saw that the policies and programs weren't looking internally at the kids in them. The vision for the school and its programs comes from the school leader; I had to do it."

Strong Training for Leadership
Bennett believes that HGSE and SL provide the best training ground for a school leader. "A lot of education schools offer training programs [in administration], but they focus more on process instead of seeing the big picture. [SL] has a consistent emphasis on looking at the field from different perspectives," Bennett offers. He does his fieldwork at Boston Renaissance Charter School as an administrative intern, working on ways to better provide mentoring services to its middle-school grade students by getting all adults at the school involved in connecting with students.

SL's appeal continues to increase. Enrollment in SL has risen from 32 to 48 students in the past year, and this year's number of applicants is expected to rise. SL director Thomas Hehir believes that the program attracts students interested in all kinds of school leadership (from principals to teachers to entrepreneurs) who are more committed to "an intense year of rigorous coursework, where they are field-based and are being exposed to the home of some of the top people in education." Hehir also offers that the success of the program comes from the students themselves. In fact, SL expanded to accommodate a greater and better applicant pool. "We have a really terrific group of students," says Hehir. "We didn't want to say no to people we knew would make great principals and leaders!"

Diversity and Reform
For his part, Bennett sees Rochester and Greater Boston as similar climates in terms of a focus on standardized testing, and the problems of segregation and dropouts. Having taught in inner-city schools, he is more pragmatic about segregation; while working for the long-term gains of integration, the needs of minority students now in segregated, under-resourced schools must be met: "We need to show kids now…to achieve in spite of things [they] can't control. Education is about understanding obstacles and then getting around them. While encouraging diversity, we do have to work with what we've got."

About the tumultuous situation of principals in reform climates, Bennett is cautious but hopeful about standards: "Standards-based reform as the potential to be a good thing, but the verdict is still out. If the information [used from testing] is used to cut off funding [to a school], that is a bad thing." He believes that such reform must not become a game of quick incentives. "Many schools with poor records will have smaller gains," he offers. "A short-term reward/punishment system is wrong."

A Realistic Context for Urgent Demands
To Bennett, being a principal is a long-term job. Unfortunately, many principals are hired with expectations to produce quick results, and are often fired if they fail. Bennett argues for a realistic context to such justifiably urgent demands: "There is no limitation on education rhetoric, but you can't focus so intently on just that. You have to be a marathon runner here, and giving a principal one year—when you're really there only five to six months with testing by February—it's really unfair to judge them. A new principal's short-term goal is to first change the climate [of the school]," and that takes time, Bennett offers.

Sean Bennett came to HGSE not only to better understand school leadership, but also leadership itself. To him, SL provides a reflexive atmosphere where teachers and students stand on both sides of the learning dialogue. "The professors are your cohorts," Bennett explains, "involved in the process with you. [By] talking to classmates and what we share in class, I'm learning more about leadership from hearing others' experiences. The biggest challenge any leader has is knowing when to listen, when to change and adjust to make things work."

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