Public Schools Lack a Just System of
Checks & Balances
In 2006 former Mayor of New York City
Michael Bloomberg and former Chancellor of The New York Department of Education
(aka Board of Education) Joel Klein announced the implementation of an “Empowerment”
program in our public schools, where principals are empowered to “run their
schools the way they see fit”. Upper management completely “washed their hands”
from intervening and dealing with the issues that precipitate within the
schools. The consensus held that if anything were to go wrong in a particular
school, the principal of that school will be held solely responsible. On the
other hand, principals are given monetary rewards for “achievements” in their
schools, indicated by test scores.
There are two monumental problems
with this empowerment program:
(1) Said allocation of power is, and
was, never properly supervised nor tamed from potential abuses. This
unfortunately paved the way to a culture where administrators today incessantly
engage in blatant harassment, intimidation, and smear campaigns against anyone
who raises questions and challenges their unethical and immoral business
practices and dare to advocate against the abridgment of the basic
constitutional rights of teachers, students, and parents.
(2) Administrators are not, and have
not been, properly held accountable for this conduct unbecoming of a leader to many
children and to what is supposed to be safe and nurturing learning
environments. Instead, administrators have been openly rewarded and conditioned
to continue their reign of abuse.
Today, with the new Honorable Mayor
Bill de Blasio and the new Honorable Public School Chancellor Carmen Fariña,
there is a push to return to the “old-school” way of doing things where upper
management (District Superintendants) will be “re-introduced” into the power
scene with the hope that they will properly supervise principals and with the
hope of better identifying who should be held accountable for what problems.
The setback with this current approach
is that we have “been there & done that” and moved away from this caliber
of power distribution because conditions were deplorable.
In the mean time, we continue to
neglect to incorporate into this distribution of power one of the most
essential and fundamental assets to the Department of Education (Board of
Education); The Empowerment of
Educators.
Such empowerment of educators need not
consist of allowing teachers to “run their schools the way they see fit”. This
would be irresponsible.
Such empowerment of educators can be
actualized by hiring, training, and supporting administrators well versed in
content areas, planning, conflict resolution, and people skills so that they
can provide some level of intellectual stimulation, support, and inspiration to
their subordinates.
Such empowerment of educators can be
actualized by hiring, training, and supporting administrators to genuinely
place the interest of children and the process of teaching before any personal
and/or social political agendas.
Such empowerment of educators can be
actualized by hiring, training, and supporting administrators to reframe from
blindly following and enforcing rules that make no sense, are not in the best
interest of the children and that are dictated by higher administrators that
only know our students, parents, and teachers as mere numbers on a page.
Such empowerment of educators can be
actualized by hiring, training, and supporting administrators to be advocates
against the infringement of the basic human rights of the people which they
once took an oath to serve in good faith.
Such empowerment of educators can be
actualized by creating strong laws, policies and procedures that will protect
educators from any form of retaliation for engaging in good faith
advocacy.
Such empowerment of educators can be
actualized by having a strong transparent training and disciplinary system that
holds all levels of administrators accountable for abuse of power and deceptive
malicious practices design to muzzle, harass, and get rid of well intentioned
educators that advocate.
Such empowerment of educators can be
actualized by making teachers a crucial part of the decision making process
that goes into creating policies and procedures for the public schools.
Such empowerment of educators can be
actualized by Creating and enforcing a strong and transparent democratic system
of “Checks & Balances”, similar
to our three-branch-government. Instead of having the three current
pseudo-branches, (namely, 1- The Governor/State Department of Education, 2- The
Chancellor/Department of Education/Board of Education, and 3- The
Principals/Administrators/District Superintendents), whom typically
deflect accountability by pretending to be oblivious to what the other
pseudo-branch is up to,
We should actually –
merge pseudo-branches 2 & 3 into one official branch and honorably and
officially appoint the remaining branch of this governing body to the very
people in the public school system that are the closest to the needs of our
children, Honorable Educators. Thank you.
