School Administration--a Bar to Improvement?

There is, understandably, a great deal of talk about education and the cases in which our schools fail students. I suspect that such a debate has gone on for the entire history of public education and rightfully so. Much of the attention in recent years, as a result of No Child Left Behind has been on students and teachers. This focus, while not unexpected, has led to some positives, i.e. better reporting of test scores for all socio-economic groups, and some negatives, specifically matters relating to "highly qualified teachers" and the variations of proficiency among the states.

But in all the hubbub surrounding education reform, have we failed to look everywhere for ways to improve education? Naomi Schaeffer Riley has a story about Barak Ben-Gal, who until recently, successfully headed the budget office of the Oakland school district. What Ben-Gal brought to the table has been referred to as "results based budgeting" which has become a case study at the Univeristy of California-Berkley's business school. But coupling the changes in the academic and teaching regimes will ultimately prove fruitless without some changes in central administration and that is why people like Barak Ben-Gal are worth their weight in gold.

[A]s standards-based education has become more prevalent thanks to No Child Left Behind, "some people may think that the problems in our schools are going to go away," says Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. In fact, he explains, all that information we're collecting about student achievement won't be helpful "if we can't figure out what specifically is improving student achievement and how much it costs."

Hess is right, just having the data means nothing if the data points to a methodology that is too expensive to implement system wide.

But when superintendents take over struggling school systems, particularly in troubled urban districts, what they face is not only academic challenges but institutional ones as well. As Michelle Rhee, the new chancellor of the DC school system will tell you, and as the Washington Post detailed, years of mismanagement and poor infrastructure leads to dated, 1950's era management incapable of providing the necessary support that front line educators, like teacher and principles need. Central office bureaucracies tend to be even more calcified than teachers' unions. Or as Ben-Gal discovered:

And the clerical union is like the teachers' one. Seniority, not competence, gets people promoted. Mr. Ben-Gal reports, "There were people in accounting [who] didn't know the difference between a debit and credit." And the administrators? As Mr. Hess explains, administrators are almost entirely former classroom educators. "There is nothing in their background that would lead you to believe they'd be good managers of teams of adults." Mr. Hess, who has done extensive studies of the way principals are trained, says that they are not getting any kind of education in these areas once they move out of the classroom, either.

So what is an superintendant to do?

First, hiring competent managers must be about more than simply experience in education. There are some fabulous principals out there who were also good teachers, but simply being a good teacher does not a principle make. Likewise, there are some central office administrators who are very good at their jobs, but would make lousy managers. The key is in finding those people who are technically proficient and pay them well to do their job, but don't ask for more from them. To do so damages not only their career, but the schools' mission as well.

Second, superintendents need to look at their central office not as an administrative burden to teaching but as a force multiplier to make the lives of teachers and principals easier. Central office bureaucracies should be only as big as needs be to ensure responsiveness and responsibility for taxpayer funds. Multiple layers of bureaucrats overseeing purchase of textbooks, safety equipment and other supplies should exist only to the extent to ensure that taxpayer funds are not wasted. In my mind that means two levels with a regular audit. No more is necessary and the lowest level of bureaucracy needs to be empowered to make things happen. If a school needs new fire extinguishers, the bureaucracy needs to respond immediately, not wait for say so from the three levels of bloated bureaucrats to get back to them on their schedule.

Third, administrators need to be able to track the progress of each and every request for service, supplies or information. An administrator should be able to within five minutes know what the status of any request is. There are multiple tools out there for tracking such information and it is not an expense that should be spared the budget axe. For example, in my office, if I have a request for an action that I cannot complete for what ever reason, I can look up in tracking software exactly who is currently responsible for working on teh issue and I can aks for an immediate update. Most school systems are incapable of such responsiveness.

School administrators are necessary, but really, do we need to have as many administrators as we have teachers--or more administrators than teachers? I once read about the opening of a school near my home where the local superintendent crowed about the hundred or so new workers who were going to be working at teh school, half of which were teachers!! My immediate reaction was what are those 50 non-teachers doing. Admitting to the need for a principal, a couple of vice principals, a guidance counselor, a nurse (which is probably party time), a dozen or so cafeteria workers, a custodian or two, and maybe 10 bus drivers, the best I could come up with was an "administrative" staff of 24 to 30 workers if I am being charitable in my HR allocations.

If school systems are going to improve their academic achievement, it will not be done by simply focusing on what is happening in the classrooms. Superintendents need to look long and hard at what is happening in the offices around them. Do the people in central offices play a role in education, absolutly and that role needs to be one of an enabler, not an obstacle.