A fine thank you
An article in the Wisconsin State Journal says the budget-cutting exercises put on by Madison School District Administrators target the administrators the most, especially curriculum research and staff development. The administrators themselves are not that surprised and neither am I.
Cutting administration costs is on par with people saying cut waste and fraud in government. It sounds so easy and sometimes it is, but often it is not. There may indeed be cuts that could be made to administration costs, but we have to make sure we know what is being cut. The word administrator brings to mind someone that sits behind a desk and doesn't have much to do with actually teaching kids. I'm guessing that is not the case most of the time.
Wisconsin school teachers are consistently ranked in the highest categories of teacher qualification. In fact, according to the Associated Press, 98.6% of Wisconsin teachers meet the standards for being highly qualified under the No Child Left Behind law. That is the highest percentage in the nation. That doesn't happen without support staff.
We are already asking our teachers in Wisconsin to keep this number one ranking for qualifications despite being ranked only 23rd in the nation for pay. We should be careful about what else we asking them to do without.
posted by whatsleftwi @ 8:16 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
You're right about the importance of administration, Carrie.
I work in administration at the university-level, which is different than K-12, but there are similarities. The time of single-room schoolhouses where a teacher and a bunch of kids meet up each morning is long gone.
The bureaucracy of K-12 education is largely dictated by the bureaucracy of university education--which, in turn, is largely dictated by the bureaucracy of employment and our capitalistic environment.
Due to the notion of linear progression we have in western culture there is a necessity for processes that can sort through the millions of students who are moving through our educational systems each year. And educational administrators are the ones who shape, coordinate, and operate those processes.
To challenge the existence of administrators is to challenge the very linear progression that serves as a foundation for our society. It can certainly be done, but the discussion needs to consider far more than simply whether or not to cut administrative positions.
Thanks for the information. Your're right, education is a lot more complicated now because the world is a lot more complicated. And really, a lot of the administrative tasks comes from the Bush team mandates of No Child Left Behind.
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