The director of the Principals Academy at Teachers College looks at the presidential candidates through the prism of education and doesn’t find much that he likes.

A former administrator writes: The response among opponents of this administration to credit recovery is about politics, not about students. To be sure, there were some principals and teachers who corrupted credit recovery efforts in their schools by lowering standards. But the Department of Education’s restrictive new rules permitting students to receive incompletes for no more than a few courses will invariably take its toll on the most vulnerable and marginal youngsters.

A former deputy schools chancellor writes: ‘For the first time in nearly two decades, the next mayor will likely be a Democrat. As a life-long registered Democrat, I look forward to that prospect. However, there are vultures circling this contest who would once again reduce our schools to the patronage mills of yesteryear, when no one was accountable for what happened to our kids.’

State education officials should be setting performance standards for private and nonprofit companies that provide tutoring services to children in low-performing schools, instead of trying to get the federal government to let them use tutoring funds for other services, the writer says.

As Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg and the teachers union debate how best to evaluate teachers, a former deputy chancellor for the city’s Department of Education proposes a peer review system for teachers, where they could learn from each others’ observations.

A former deputy chancellor writes: “It’s long past time to agree that failed organizations never reinvent themselves, no matter how much money we throw at them. The rules, roles and relationships that develop in schools over years, sometimes over decades, have historically proven impervious to change.”

When school leaders share their authority with teachers, parents and even the students themselves, they widen the circle of those who are responsible, and ultimately accountable, for student success.

Effective leaders awaken the leader within each member of the organization, and other lessons from a former deputy chancellor at the city’s Department of Education.

A former deputy chancellor recommends that principals embrace ‘creative non-compliance’ and refuse to ‘allow the central office to set the agenda for your schools. That’s your responsibility, and theirs is to hold you accountable for student outcomes, not to tell you how to get there,’ he writes.