Category Archives: School Bureaucracy

Return with me now to our state’s high stakes achievement testing, the High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE), the backbone of No Child Left Behind in our state. As the counselor to this year’s juniors, I watch the results of my … Continue reading →

My sister-in-law, Tricia, who is an elementary teacher in another state, tells a tale in which administrators require that teachers post objectives each day in the classroom and advise students why they are doing what they are doing. Makes sense, … Continue reading →

Allen was the vice principal I worked most closely with last school year. He and I shared stewardship of the class of 2012, then juniors, and had since Allen had been hired when the class members were freshman. In his … Continue reading →

As promised a couple of weeks ago, here be a couple more examples of consciousness on part of both grass roots workers in schools, and of upper level district administrators, that can be critical to countervailing the rotten wood of … Continue reading →

The multitudes of you reading out there may start to weary of my apparently incessant whining about bureaucracy, politics, and the inadequacies of our youth. Me, too. It is well enough to identify problems – if we do not clarify … Continue reading →

Here be another rant. Though regarding a detail seemingly limited in its significance, the frequency of such events as that below over time deadens the initiative of school building based personnel. As I have a dysfunctional habit of doing, I … Continue reading →

We had for years lamented that kids didn’t make it to after school tutoring, whether peer or teacher provided, and which many needed. Particularly our targeted at risk kids didn’t make it, certainly not of their own volition. Finally our … Continue reading →

A follow up to the recent “Meditation”: Pronouncements from higher levels – district, state, feds – are broad reaching and apply across large numbers of schools and therefore scenarios, and tend to treat them as the same when in fact … Continue reading →

Let’s start with assumptions. Bureaucracies need to measure in order to report. Reports are often quantified. Test scores, in particular. No Child Left Behind does exactly that. Scores on previous years divide real students into boxes. Passed this test. Did … Continue reading →

So I just shot my mouth off, intemperately, manifesto like (blog 2/23/11 “School Bureaucracy – Is This a Manifesto?”), and am now suffering a bit of seller’s remorse. A reader might think from my tone that I have labored in … Continue reading →