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It's not exactly clear what's gotten into Superintendent Beth Everitt and Albuquerque Public Schools, but all we can say is . . .

More, more, more!

Everitt's move this week to alter her vast lineup of principals for the 2007-08 school year is a fabulous one - a long-overdue statement to employees, students, parents and taxpayers that the superintendent, so often on the defensive, is determined to change the status quo in the state's largest public school district.

It's predictable, and understandable, that not every move will be received with joy. Change is hard. When it comes to education, and a shuffle of up to 25 principals, change is excruciating.

But Everitt hit the right notes in explaining her decision this week, simply saying APS needed to improve its instruction in the classroom - and that changing principals was the quickest and best way to get that done.

Next up, Everitt more than hinted, is a potential switcheroo for teachers, with some of the best possibly going to schools that score, well, the worst on standardized testing.

Here's where the rubber will really meet the road. Everyone at APS, from the Board of Education on down, talks a good game about doing what's right for kids. A move that involves sending the best instructors to schools that need them most would be tangible evidence.

It also would define a new era for Albuquerque education - moving the debate about performance away from semantics and politics and closer to classroom teachers and the students they help.

The mere possibility is enticing, exciting - and most assuredly, controversial. But it has the potential to do something Everitt and many of her predecessors have been unable to accomplish: convince the public that the district's leaders, including the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, are willing to try whatever is necessary to make schools better.

For decades now, APS superintendents and the boards that oversee them have engaged in a kind of bomb shelter mentality - recoiling, if not cowering, at the first sign of criticism from the public, the mayor, the governor, the media. That's made them tentative and slow and unimaginative.

A big and risky move like this creates a change in karma, and this district could use one. A wholesale, what's-best-is-best rationale would indicate to the public that the district is willing to devote every corpuscle of energy toward the classroom, not the boardroom.

Everitt might be shocked at the buy-in she'd receive from the public if a determined "It will help kids" was her answer to the predictable questions and criticisms of sweeping personnel moves.

Do such changes mean Albuquerque schools will rocket to the top of the standardized-testing rolls? Probably not. It's never that simple - particularly in a city with serious and largely unaddressed poverty issues that so often are a predictor of students' performance.

Nevertheless, a change in the district's often glacial pace would give the public some assurance that struggling schools and students have the chance of improving. And improvement is what education should be about.

Everitt, who made her mark in education as an able teacher and principal, understands this point intrinsically. She may never be the show woman that some see as part of the superintendent's job, but she grasps teachers and principals and the students who follow them.

That, in essence, should be her North Star as the district looks to the future. If moving people around makes kids better, do it. If doing anything makes kids better, do it.

Albuquerque Public Schools may find the view is quite nice from outside the bunker.