New Nonprofit Will Recruit and Train 40 School Principals in 4 Years

A national nonprofit organization headed by a former education adviser to President Clinton will recruit and train 40 school principals in New Orleans in the next four years, officials announced Monday, backed by $4 million in donations, including $2 million from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' philanthropic foundation.

"You can't gave a great school without a great principal," said Jon Schnur, founder and CEO of New Leaders for New Schools, an organization based in New York that has placed 230 principals and assistant principals in six cities nationwide and is training another 100. "We believe now is the time, and New Orleans is the place to see that education transforms to meet the needs of every child."

During an announcement at Green Charter School in Central City, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she promised to ask the state Legislature for $1 million, on top of the $4 million in private money already raised. The group needs $5.35 million to run the program in New Orleans during the next four years, Schnur said.

Since its inception in 2000, New Leaders has received 5,000 applications but selected only 7 percent of those for a regimen that includes six weeks of training and a year of residency in a school, supported by a mentor and additional training. The program, which typically adds one city a year, works in New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Memphis, Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Bay area.

While the results are mostly anecdotal, Schnur said two of their greatest successes are in the New York City region, where 80 percent of students who entered Northstar Academy, a charter school in Newark, N.J., headed by a New Leaders principal, have gone on to college as freshmen, compared to 10 percent at other public schools in the area. An elementary school with one of their principals in Bronx, N.Y., meanwhile, has increased students' proficiency in reading and math from 10 percent three years ago to 45 percent today, he said.

Schnur cautioned that a school turnaround takes, on average, three to seven years before its accomplishes measurable successes.