Recent Comments
Category Archives: School Bureaucracy
How Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde Ganged Up on Me – A Lesson in Bureaucracy
His mother glared at me. She struggled to control her tone… Continue reading
School Reform and the Demise of the Bureaucrat
Summary: The transformation of Foster High School into a functioning academy for a largely immigrant multicultural population, with improved graduation rates, strong math scores, and a peaceful campus is a study in how communication and respect can melt away the … Continue reading
Posted in At Risk Students, School Bureaucracy
Tagged administrator leadership, at risk students, communication in schools, counselor role, empowering teachers, immigrant students, low-income students, relationships in schools, school bureaucracy, school funding, school reform, teacher overwork
Leave a comment
School Bureaucracy: Behind the Walkout at Garfield High
Summary: The common practice in school districts that adjusts student-teacher ratios a month into school retards the learning process, distracts teachers and counselors from more important work, and in the end simply harms students, some more than others. The practice … Continue reading
School Bureaucracy: Lessons from the VA and GM
Summary: The current debacles at the Veterans’ Administration and General Motors, and the parallel inability of upper management to solicit data from grass roots workers, may well mirror the deaf ear of too many senior school administrators to teacher point … Continue reading
School Reform: Once Again A Tale of Teacher Power
Summary: Amid the relative merits of “direct instruction” and “inquiry” approaches to curriculum, a narrative emerges that suggests teacher empowerment may be the more important variable. In the ongoing assault on school dysfunction, debate rages between those who advocate “direct … Continue reading
School Reform and Bureaucracy: The Washington State Charter Battle
Summary: A lawsuit challenging Washington’s new charter school law on constitutional grounds may be embarrassingly in the end a defense of a dysfunctional status quo. I believe in teachers. Not the Type A’s that reformers would like to attract from … Continue reading
School Reform: Teacher Entrepreneurs Need Not Apply
Summary: Innovation and entrepreneurship by teachers tend to be dead on arrival because of a broader school culture which favors hierarchical directives. How are teachers to be established as the cornerstone player in a decentralized school culture, as I argue … Continue reading
Posted in School Bureaucracy, School Reform
Tagged administrative style, communication in schools, empowering teachers, entrepreneurship and teachers, flat oranizations, innovation in schools, school administrator training, school reform, teacher morale, teacher motivation, teacher professionalism
2 Comments
School Reform: The Education of a Reformer
Summary: In an echo of assertions in recent posts that school district leaders need to listen deeply into the ranks in their effort to reform failing schools, we take a look at the current arrival point of the career of … Continue reading
Posted in School Bureaucracy, School Reform, Schools and Politics
Tagged administrative style, communication in schools, empowering teachers, flat oranizations, Michelle Rhee, relationships in schools, school leadership, school reform, StudentsFirst, superintendent style, teachers' unions
2 Comments
Schools, Bureaucracy, and Politics: Parent Power and Teacher Professionalism
Summary: Restiveness by parents in Los Angeles and teachers in Seattle reflects the tendency of educational bureaucracies to ignore voices from the grass roots level. Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles is poster child to the desperate academic struggle in … Continue reading
Posted in School Bureaucracy, School Reform, Schools and Politics
Tagged administrative style, at risk students, communication in schools, Crenshaw High School, empowering teachers, Garfield High School teacher boycott, low-income students, MAP testing, parent power, school reform, teacher morale, teacher professionalism
Leave a comment
Schools: A Changed Perspective
Summary: On the cusp of the end of a career in schools and the onset of a blog infested retirement, some meditations on the changed perspective the shift in life imposes. And a plea for stories, please. This summer I … Continue reading
schooldog 