According to Wikipedia; "The Generalized Peter Principle states; anything that works, will be used in progressively challenging applications until it causes a disaster."
The plan of the leaders of the APS, is to individually control as much decision making power and resources as possible in order to make decisions that affect as many people as possible. It is an approach that perpetuates the need for powerful administrators that is justified only by its existence, and not by the need for its existence.
It is a circular argument, we need powerful administrators to make global decisions in a system that makes global decisions because it has powerful administrators.
If asked, they will say that their plan works; even in the face of compelling and ever mounting evidence to the contrary.
A headmaster makes the most sense in a one room school house. It makes less sense in a school with a hundred classrooms; less sense still in a cluster of a dozen schools, and no sense at all in a district with one hundred and twenty three schools.
In situations that do not vary in their essential characteristic, a unified approach makes sense.
The essential characteristics of individual schools in the APS vary immensely. A unified, one size fits all, approach to decision making may well do more harm than good.
APS is too diverse, too large, too complicated to be run by one person; or by seven.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Site Based Management and the Peter Principle
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4 comments:
Site based management has caused several problems. Talk about no accountability. Principals are doing whatever they please with their budget and no one at the top wants to tell principals how to run THEIR schools.
There's no structure, no checks & balances ... this is why so many people are transferring to other schools.
Site based management is not princpals running schools, it is schools run by a group of stakeholders.
The idea doesn't appeal to everyone. I have worked with teachers who would rather be told what to do; and let someone else take the heat if things go wrong.
But if you have staff that is willing build and support consensus; the experience can be quite productive and satisfying.
"Site based management is not princpals running schools, it is schools run by a group of stakeholders."
That sounds good but the reality is that there is no management or mandate that holds Principals to it. APS says, "here's your budget" and stakeholders are rarely informed or included and therefore not involved until after decisions are made, in some schools.
I know they already do site based management. Not that I know them all, but I don't know a single parent who knows their schools budget ... much less, was involved in making any budget decisions. Is this Site Based Management, or Principal Management? I honestly don't understand the process.
It seems to me that adminstration lets each school do whatever, as long as it's within their budget. Stakeholders may be able to voice their opinion, but in the end no one wants to tell 'Principals how to run THEIR school.'
I would argue that there is not really site based management any where in the APS.
There are principals that respect the input of stakeholders and may actually make decisions that reflect stakeholder input ever over their own personal preference.
But is it always at the administrators whim. Like the leadership of the APS commissioning a public safety commission and then , in the end, overriding their recommendation.
As long as the bottom line is; you're input is welcome but you don't really have a vote; there is no site based management.
Thank you for your kind attention to the issue and thoughtful comments.
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