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A New York Times analysis finds that schools led by principals trained through non-traditional routes “have not done as well as those led by experienced principals or new principals who came through traditional routes”:

The Times’s analysis shows that Leadership Academy graduates were less than half as likely to get A’s as other principals, and almost twice as likely to earn C’s or worse [on the city's grading system for public schools]. Among elementary and middle-school principals on the job less than three years, Academy graduates were about a third as likely to get A’s as those who did not attend the program.

This kind of analysis has the potential to redraw battle lines and unsettle ideologies held by educators and reformers across the political spectrum.

For one, it raises big questions about more than just the city’s alternative certification program for principals. It also reinforces doubts about New York City’s grading system for schools. The Leadership Academy’s website features research that seems on the surface at least to call the city’s grading system into question: Academy-trained principals, the site claims, can boast greater student achievement gains in certain areas than their traditionally-trained peers can. Indeed, the city’s grading system has drawn criticism for showing inconsistent results from year to year—and for producing results that flat-out contradict those of state and national accountability structures.

If anything, the Times analysis should remind us how challenging it still is to evaluate schools and teachers. (That’s a heretical position in some quarters.) New York City’s system aims to value schools’ growth as well as their absolute performance, but some still question its fairness. According to the Times, Leadership Academy executive Sandra Stein dismisses the grades as an unfair measure of her graduates’ achievements, because “it takes time to reverse a downward trend.”

This all puts the New York City Department of Education in an awkward spot, because it pits one favorite reform (alternative certification of principals) against another (value-added accountability measures). City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s assessment of the program seems a bit pinched: “I think our batting average is quite good…. Could it improve? I’m sure it could improve.”

So what lessons can we draw from the Times analysis?

• Let’s not discount experience out of hand. Too often, the rallying cry of some alternative certification advocates seems to be: “Don’t trust any principal over 30.”
• Evaluation and accountability systems still need work. People who object to pay-for-performance systems, for example, aren’t necessarily champions of the status quo or enemies to accountability. (Dan Willingham just released a thoughtful video critique of pay-for performance plans.)
• Education reform demands humility as well as passion and vision. Even non-traditional reformers will eventually have to contend with evaluation or accountability systems, good or bad. Perhaps that will remind members of both the “reform” and the “establishment” communities* that we’re all in this together.