Joe Lacey, in his interview with DaytonOS, projects himself as a Dayton Board of Education member who is well meaning, sincere and deeply concerned about Dayton Public Schools (DPS). Lacey says he is currently outnumbered on the DPS School Board by a margin of six to one. Because of his frustration at his minority status on the Board, Lacey, in this Nov. 6 Board election, is actively supporting three Board candidates. The three Board candidates that Lacey is supporting are Sheila Taylor, Nancy Nerny and Shirley Crisp.
If Lacey’s candidates win, it looks like DPS will move to save some historic buildings now due for destruction. The buildings Lacey mentioned in his interview, for possible renovation rather than destruction, are Roosevelt, Wilber Wright, and Julienne. And, if Lacey’s candidates win, according to Lacey’s interview, it also appears that the DPS Board will begin to assert more control over the DPS budget and will become more reserved and reasonable in the magnitude of its requests for new money from the public.
One of Lacey’s goals is to get DPS to focus on hiring, supporting and retaining high quality teachers. Lacey’s goal — to focus on teachers — is certainly a good goal. But, stating a good goal is the easy part. Articulating a workable plan, by which goals have some chance to succeed, is the tough part and this is the part that is missing. Board candidates often say that their goal is for all students to achieve their potential. But again, the hard part is articulating a plan that has a reasonable chance to bring goals into reality. To talk about empowering quality teachers or to talk about helping students achieve their potential simply amounts to wasting time in wishful thinking — if there is no plan to back up such talk.
The problem is, the organizational structure of schools is fatally flawed. It is the organizational structure of schools that doom schools to failure. Any plan that must fit into the current organizational structure of schools is, therefore, also doomed to fail. What is obvious is that, for any plan to have a chance at long term success, the current organizational structure of DPS must become transformed. Supplying DPS with more money, of course, would help DPS. But voters seem to be sending the message that they don’t believe that the solution to the problems at DPS can be solved via greater funding. Voters, I feel, want to see a plan for profound system change.
School organizational structure is so ingrained in the tradition and practices of schools that, regardless of inherent and obvious weaknesses, the organizational structure of schools is difficult to challenge. The embedded theory of school system organization, in almost all public schools, says that quality comes from heavy regulation, bureaucratic processes, uniform contracts, equal compensation via a master contract, and rewards and punishments meted out via hierarchical control. It is a fallacy to think that this fatally flawed school organizational structure somehow produces quality in any schools. Quality in schools happens in spite of the flawed organizational structures, not as a benefit of these structures. All citizens — including those whose local schools are rated “excellent” — should wake up to the reality that public school systems, because of the way they are currently organized, are failing even those students deemed high achievers. (See my recent comment.)
Americans generally say that systems are best organized to achieve quality through free markets, through fair competition designed to inspire individual initiative and through the opportunity for individuals to be rewarded according to their ambition and according to market forces. Schools are organized in a way that is quite opposite of what Americans say they believe in.
And so here is the big question: what would a school system look like that would align with American beliefs about how to organize a system for quality? And if such a system could be designed, then what would be the steps to progressively transform the currently fatally flawed system into a better system?
Lay leaders of a board cannot be expected to be experts in organizational or educational theory. But elected board members can and should be expected to be experts in telling the truth, and experts in creating meaningful opportunities/venues where truth can be explored and recognized. A good and positive suggestion that I hope Joe Lacey and other Dayton Board members will consider, is that he and the rest of the DPS board begin a process to explore this central question: How should the DPS system be organized to produce quality efficiently? To make such an exploration, one idea is that the DPS create a Request for Proposal (RFP) process designed to create opportunity for individuals or foundations to present their best thinking. The idea would be that an RFP would create a process that would invite thinkers from the area and, in fact, thinkers from the whole country to contribute ideas as to what organizational transformation should look like and the processes by which organizational transformation could be attained.
Joe Lacey’s thoughts concerning the DPS seem sound and reasonable. But Lacey and the entire DPS Board need to be challenge to bolder thinking. They need to be challenged to tackle this central problem of organizational structure — a challenging problem that demands authentic leadership not just for Dayton Schools but all public schools. Joe Lacey and the new DPS school board can provide a great service not just to DPS but to public education in general by taking the risk of leadership and dealing authentically with this central educational system problem.
