community involvement - decision making

assuming that by community involvement we are talking about community involvement in decision making; there obstacles to overcome.

at its heart, decision making represents the exercise of power. implicit in shared decision making is shared power. the natural tendency is that power is not shared of free will.

power finally accumulates in the hands of people who want to accumulate and control power. their natural tendency at that point, is not to share. the leadership in the aps is about personally accumulating control over as much power and resources as possible. he who dies with the most power wins.

it's the way they roll.

the most important decision a group can make, is to decide how decisions will be made. it must also be their first. unk

more than a decade ago, the decision making paradigm in aps schools changed. finally recognizing the experience and expertise of teachers and community members; the administration of the aps made them part of a formal decision making process. but not really.

when the first groups got together; it became apparent that any decisions the group made, were subject to the final approval of the administration. everyone but the administration served the decision making process in an advisory capacity. it was a sham. and that is why the experiment failed, overall.


if you believe that decisions should be made at the lowest possible level, and as close to the educational interface as possible; then you also believe that control of decision making power should be as close the interface as possible as well.

and that is where it stands. the powerful will continue to control the power and resources; they will continue to outfit their uptown palace; and they will continue to defend their indefensible position by stonewalling.

and the community will continue to decline advisory involvement in decision making in their schools. and they will increasingly decline enrollment in their public schools; forced instead to form charter schools or home schools.

and those would would be excellent teachers will continue to decline employment in a situation that fundamentally disrespects their education and experience.

99 percent of the control of power is in the hands of those with 1 percent of the legitimate need or use of it.

those with 99 percent of the need to spend power and resources, have 1 percent of the control over their spending.

the situation is indefensible.

one of the greatest privileges of membership in the privileged class is that, a member cannot be compelled to justify, explain, or even acknowlege their membership.

one of the privileges of membership in the leadership of the aps is that, they don't have to justify, explain, or even acknowlege their failure to move the power and resources to the educational interface. they failed to use the power and resources that have been entrusted to them, in the best interests of students, parents, teachers, and the community.