Administrative bloat in US public schools

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Monday, March 11. 2013

Administrative bloat in US public schools

In the public education world, it's considered a promotion to get out of daily teaching.

When I went to prep (boarding) school, all of the administrators taught at least one course, including the Headmaster and the coaches. My Headmaster taught Calc. - and, being an Episcopalian priest, also conducted the daily chapel service where he taught the word of God. Preaching to adolescents works, but it takes about 20 years to sink in.

A good guy. Eagle Scout, US Army vet. He had pet otters that followed him around campus. He was also the Varsity Hockey coach, had been Captain of the Harvard team in his youth. We had serious hockey. He checked me quite hard one time in a student vs. faculty game. Three outdoor rinks, and one under a roof. Each faculty person also had to coach a sport, but we had tons of intramural sports. A daily sport was required of all. Morning classes, afternoon athletics, then chapel, dinner, and study hall. A Spartan life-style, with no chicks around for distraction other than the deliciously-appealing and refined faculty wives with whom we all fell in love.

But I am getting a bit off topic. Here's the link: Administrative bloat in US public schools

Posted by The Barrister in Education, Our Essays at 13:44 | Comments (13) | Trackbacks (0)

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Years ago our public school system purchased word processors for the sake of efficiency. Within two years a new bureacracy emerged headed by it's director-The Director of Word Processing. You can't imagine how efficient that department has become-or can you?

#1 Thalpy on 2013-03-11 14:05 (Reply)

It's even worse than that. Many of these administrators barely touch down in an actual classroom and you can get a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from big name schools as a commuter student with little teaching experience. Promotions go to those administrators willing to push Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theories of classroom interaction whatever the outcry. And the more aggressive the willingness to push, the faster the promotions and the serious increases in salaries and benefits come.

So the promotions are not grounded in what you know and can do but rather on what you are willing to foist on children. No matter what. Needless to say that attitude breeds the kind of corrupt anything goes we are seeing in so many urban and suburban districts.

That's why the cuts are never in the Central Office. They think like the Soviet nomenklatura. Determined to do whatever it takes to live their lives at someone else's expense.

#2 Robin (Link) on 2013-03-11 14:22 (Reply)

I would think a lot of the admin bloat is driven by Dept of Feb requirements and funding that require compliance oversight. From my experience with two kids in public schools, I see absolutely no value in those Feb programs and resulting admin bloat. ZERO, no less than ZERO.

#3 phil g on 2013-03-11 14:31 (Reply)

Public schools do not have people like that, or, if they do, not many.

#4 Bird Dog on 2013-03-11 14:51 (Reply)

But consider the fabulous improvement in children's education that we have achieved as a result. What are you, some kind of penny-pinching conservative that wants the orphans to eat gruel?

#5 Texan99 (Link) on 2013-03-11 15:30 (Reply)

There was a reason that historically teaching was a trade. Expert craftsmen concentrate on making something useful and better. Be they a machinist or a teacher.

The academic on the other hand has their theories and assumptions about how the world works. They certainly don't need those kids around disproving their dissertation or undermining the thesis of their book. More importantly, working with the raw material, kids in this case, requires flexibility and open-mindedness as each piece of stock has its own nature that reflects the traits of the whole while often requiring unique efforts to mold those characteristics into something useful and beautiful.

The trouble is we have all these over-educated graduate and Ph.D degree holders whose very being demands they find something transformative. The flaw in that plan is that kids haven't changed that much and the skills that educated them a hundred years ago are still the same skills we need today. Once something works, changing it is the height of folly given the slow evolution in the nature of the raw material.

#6 JKB on 2013-03-11 15:53 (Reply)

Modern-day educators = modern-day economists? Lotsa learning, no place ta go.

#6.1 jma on 2013-03-11 16:12 (Reply)

The trouble is we have all these over-educated graduate and Ph.D degree holders whose very being demands they find something transformative. The flaw in that plan is that kids haven't changed that much and the skills that educated them a hundred years ago are still the same skills we need today. Once something works, changing it is the height of folly given the slow evolution in the nature of the raw material.

As a former teacher who came to teaching as a second career, that was my observation about Ed Schools. There have been over 2000 years of formal classroom instruction, which gives enough evidence about what works and doesn't work in teaching.Ed School professors are always trying to find the next big education theory which will revolutionize teaching. And it is, until the NEXT big education theory comes around.

Instead of being brainwashed with the newest education fad, which will be discarded five years hence, prospective teachers should learn what has worked in education.

#6.2 Gringo on 2013-03-12 00:43 (Reply)

This came up before - can't find the quick link, but my youngest's public HS (he's long gone) had 69 non teaching employees (full/part time, etc) for 2,000 students.
Amazing (and not in a good way).

#7 Jess1 on 2013-03-11 16:41 (Reply)

The problem now is that they aren't totally stupid and they've figured out how to mess with the figures. Say you want to know what the teacher/admin ratio is for the school district. You call up and they give you a ratio. It doesn't sound great but maybe not too bad.

Ha ha. So go check out an elementary school with 7 grades and four classrooms per grade. 28 classes, right? Now look and see how many "teachers" (if you can find the numbers). 28? 35? 50? 60? Do a little research and you won't believe the numbers. Then poke around and find out how many of those "teachers" aren't even working in the building. They are down at the central office! Teaching!! Hee hee. YMMV.

#8 Larry Geiger on 2013-03-11 17:26 (Reply)

Which prep school?

#9 Questioner on 2013-03-11 23:56 (Reply)

Beginning with 7th grade and continuing through 12 th grade my daily routine was this:
1. Catch a public city bus (0800) that carried me across town to school.
2. Begin school at 0830 and listen to lectures/engage in Q/A of the subject for 50 minutes.
3. At end of 50 minutes gather things and change classroom be in seat in next classroom in 10 minutes.
4. We did this six times a day.
5. One of those "time periods" was a gym class. It went like this:
arrive in dressing room--change from street clothes to gym clothes which were kept in my locker in the dressing room. Be on the gym floor ready for exercise in 10 minutes. Do floor exercises (warm up) for 5 minutes then play a sport for 35 minutes. Run into gym strip, shower, re-dress, put gym clothes back in locker get to next class. In retrospect it was not a lot of time to play a sport--but the discipline of every day, five days a week, of going through this route gave us something these kids don't have. Dilligence!
We also had home economics for girls and shop for boys. We had two semesters a year. Each semester had one or the other class for girls--either sewing, or cooking. For the boys the semester classes were either auto shop, or wood working.
Each day during one of those 6 time periods we would go to a class that taught a basic skill: girls would either cook or sew. Boys would either tear apart and rebuild a car, or learn to do wood working.

These days if you ask a kid to come to the tutoring table and bring a pencil and paper they whine and complain. They absolutely cannot do figures without a hand held device. Not even the simplest of math. on and on and on and on

#10 another one on 2013-03-12 10:47 (Reply)

yes, well I remember those days, in the jesuit prep school. mandatory latin, greek, higher mathematics, beatings. compulsory sports; polo was "optional" but woe unto any student who couldn't ride like an apache and spent hours in the riding circle under the watchful eye (he had only one) of Fr. Wrangler.

#10.1 wirraway on 2013-03-12 13:49 (Reply)

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Monday, March 11. 2013

Administrative bloat in US public schools