A superintendent from West Virginia is speaking up after two months on the job about changing the role of principals.

Superintendent Michael Martirano's "robust vision plan" also includes "bolstering reading instruction and increasing the number of high school students who take rigorous classes," said an article on WVAGazette.com.

“There are 281,000 young people in our public schools in West Virginia,” Martirano said. “With a fierce level of urgency, we are working to ensure they’re college- and career-ready.”

According to the article, Martirano spoke to the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability, and said "school principals should no longer be consumed with daily minutia that sways them from instructional leadership.”

“All of us would agree that we want to ensure all of our students have a quality teacher in front of them every day, but…we need to talk about redesigning the role of principal from building manager to instructional leader," he said.

He also highlighted that "he would like to see more high school students taking rigorous Advanced Placement classes," the article said.

“We have a lot of young people sitting in classrooms who have the potential to be in rigorous courses who are not taking the courses, and that’s very disconcerting,” he said.

Martirano also said the he supports Common Core educational standards, according to the article. "West Virginia is one of 46 states to adopt the national standards, though Republican legislators in several states, including Tennessee, have recently tried to repeal the standards."

“The curriculum is still a local control issue for our teachers and state to develop,” Martirano said. “The standards build from year to year to ready students for college and careers.”

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Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor