Escaping Accountablity: selecting the "right" scapegoat.

It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat. -- Richard Hofstadter Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963)

Not many years ago I heard an interview on National Public Radio during which the guest, to the apparent delight of the host, expressed the view that it was time to "hold colleges and universities responsible for the failure of their students to graduate on time."

"Public colleges," he explained, "have never been held accountable for, that is, given state appropriations in proportion to, the success of their students. The have received funds merely on the basis of the number admitted." Things had to change!

Excuse me! Is this a person who has ever worried about grade inflation? Or about "empty diplomas?" Should "party-school" graduates number among the most successful? Will medical schools, in the long run, also, be held to this notion of accountability?

The provost of a local college in Philadelphia, strapped for funds, recently informed the faculty that all their classes will begin to be "bimodal." What is this? Well, in the past, there were two groups of students identified by the admissions committee: those who met admissions standards; and, those who failed to meet them. The former group had, on the average, higher high school and SAT averages than the latter.

To increase university income, both groups will now be admitted. It is up to the professors to "individualize instruction according to the unique needs of the student" in order to that No Student (tuition payment?) be Left Behind.

Professorial reaction has been muted to the point of indiscernibility, much as that of many public school teachers was, when No Child Left Behind was vaunted as a "school reform."

I learned from my mentors many years ago when I was pursuing licensure as a school principal that the first, the Primary, Rule of Administration was CYA, Cover Your Asse(t)s. You practice the first rule by putting to use the Second Rule of Administration.

The Second Rule of Administration -- I have learned through experience -- is, Theorem: "Pick on the quiet, the long-suffering. Otherwise, "Never Scapegoat the Squeaky Wheel."

Lemma: "Dump on the Humble, the Self-sacrificing and the Patient, but not if they are protest-prone." (Also, available for bullying are those stupid enough to believe that it is "unprofessional" to protect their own interests.)

For references and to examine these issues further, see Buffering: Enhancing Moral Hazard in Decision-Making?"



Cordially, EGR

Desertion? Or, Moral Assertion?

edited 5/29/20

Superintendent Ackerman of the School District of Philadelphia had “never seen anything like it.” 100 teachers who signed contracts to teach in the school district were deserters, no-shows who had given no-prior notice of their leaving. (Philadelphia Inquirer of Sept 4, 2009)

Chorusing her esteemed leader, Human Resources Chief for the District, Estelle Matthews, who “comes from the corporate world” claimed that “You don’t run a business like this.”

Stuff and Nonsense. First of all, if Supt Ackerman had never seen “anything like it,” she wasn’t looking hard or long. In many of the twenty-five plus years I spent in the School District of Philadelphia, we often started the year short of teachers; or, lost new teachers by the dozens after the first month of school. Secondly, corporate practice is a strange thing to try to chasten educators with; it normally involves no little abandonment of responsibility as convenience dictates.

Ackerman and Matthews indulge in much huffing and puffing expressing dismay about “desertion” alluding to such notions as the sacredness of contract and the like. Three considerations reveal their hypocrisy:

a. even though the teachers’ union, PFT, negotiates the contract, individual teachers are induced (seduced) to sign up for a school placement on the basis of misinformation spread by principals whose main concern is to capture enough warm bodies to cover their classes;

b. in that “corporate world” that Matthews invokes, a contract is only as strong as the willingness of an injured party to assume the expense of taking it to court.
Administrators’ lies morally vitiate any “sacredness of contract” that might exist.
c. Administrators in Philadelphia public schools have long been rewarded for practicing a kind of “leadership” that involves stultifying, undermining, frustrating or disregarding the teachers’ contract when it suits the administrator’s desires. This, too, vitiates, the moral force of the contract.

For practical purposes, each individual teacher must shift for himself or herself, when it comes to deciding whether to stay or go. Stay in a bad situation and you give the school district everything it wants – a warm body in the classroom that satisfies legal necessities.

Ignore that balderdash about providing children with an education! That is all-too-often political hyperbole for public consumption. Anyway, in a bad situation education of any kind is very unlikely to be doable. Or, instead of asserting yourself, you can suffer and make kids suffer with you by going in to work and putting in official complaints which the union, normally swamped with such, will take weeks or months to handle.

Walk out and you save your dignity and your sanity, at least, and very possibily spare the kids the ministrations of a teacher who is unhappy being with them.

To read more about this situation see Cannonfodder: Preparing Teachers for Public Schools

Cordially,

-- EGR