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They need DATA? Really? This is smoke and mirrors. Data is often cooked, especially when it is filtered through teachers unions, administrators and government hippies. Don’t be fooled, very few in the administration ranks of teaching (State, Federal and local) are interested in making kids smarter. Their first loyalty is the teaching profession (their jobs). Measuring success is actually VERY simple. So why does it seem so complicated?

(This might get long now that I think about it)

I have observed, the effect of great leadership and effective management across several industries (Construction, Real estate, Retail and Manufacturing). I have also been amazed at the detrimental affects of poor management and leadership. Actually, I am more amazed that failures are not weeded out of the positions of management sooner or at all. But I have identified a credible reason why and how this happens. This is only observations based on my own experience.

Organizational Mediocrity becomes and infestation and spreads like a virus through organizations. From here it only gets worse as incompetence fails to recognize incompetence. The side affects are excuses and absurd rationalizations. In government there is no fix because their is no accountability or consequences for failure or success. When just a couple (or handful based on the size of any organization) folks are promoted to executive level management positions that are not qualified to manage others, they often take on an insecure persona. Insecurity breeds animosity towards high performers. Management feels threatened. As more and more mediocre middle managers take up positions and a bureaucracy grows, a bench mark for expectations and success fades to gray and becomes obscured by some status quo. As the failures mounts, the mediocre middle managers close ranks to protect against accountability and the focus will change to their own preservation.

In the education system, mediocrity prevails as a result of teachers unions where teacher performance means very little. It’s so bad, they can’t even fathom a way to measure teacher performance (its the students fault, its the system, there’s not enough money, we don’t pay enough). Because greatness can’t be measured or rewarded, there is little aspiration to excel or even exceed any expectation. Passionate professional teachers (of which there are many) are demoralized by “a system” that is so concerned with the general incompetence that they have to enact “zero tolerance” rules, regulate who and when parents should be contacted, submit discipline issues to a discipline board, etc.

In all other industries, good managers and leaders have their pulse on the individuals that are accountable and responsible for delivering results. They make sure all know what they are accountable for and what is expected of them. Their work ethic, character and performance are measured in objective AND subjective ways. If a high performer routinely pisses off customers, a good manager intervenes to correct the problem or reallocate that company resource. WE do not have leadership or strong management in our educations system (generally speaking across the nation).

Obvious Solutions that nobody has the guts to talk about:
1) Make teachers unions (actually all government worker unions) illegal. There is nobody to collectively bargain against.
2) Abolish the Department of Education and all associated state funding and let the states manage their own schools.
3) States should hire a CEO of education, pay them well and let them run the state’s education system per an annual budget. This person should be appointed by the Governor as the Governor is an elected official.
4) The CEO compensation is performance based relative to test scores (or changes year to year) and budget targets.

Alternatively, the states could privatize and make all schools “for profit” under contract with the states that are also incentive based.

Sorry for the long post.