Education Week: Leadership lessons from Donald Rumsfeld. Seriously.
Imagine the unlikely scenario in which the president of the United States singles out education in the State of the Union address as a model for all other institutions to emulate because of its great success and achievement. The military has inspired that kind of admiration.
In his 2012 State of the Union address , President Barack Obama left little doubt that, in his opinion, success can be built around the processes that the military uses to achieve its goals. He said: "These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America's armed forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences." (And, despite the fact that the president didn't offer the same accolades about the military in this year's State of the Union address, he did say we will maintain the best military in the world, a plaudit that should be the same for American education.)
President Obama's salute to the military started me thinking about military leadership in the context of education. Research supports the notion that school leaders are an important school-level factor in student achievement, so I considered the potential benefits of learning from diverse leaders with different perspectives. I decided to interview former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. I know that many educators would question that decision, but a chance meeting at an...
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/02/20/21kimmelman_ep.h32.html
You have to laugh or you'll cry.
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