A school system, like any system, functions best when there is mutual trust among its members.
Present day school systems exhibit a mutual lack of trust among the State Departments of Education, School Boards, School Administrators and teachers.
Nobody seems to trust anybody else to do his job. The amount of paper work imposed by each level is one indication of this lack of trust.
When things do not work, everyone points a finger and disclaims responsiblity.
As a result, instead of looking deep into the structure of school systems in order to solve the ever-present crisis in education, each level in the hierarchy makes recommendations for change at the level below but not at its own level.
Since teachers are lowest in the hierarchy, the burden of change, deserved or not, falls on them.
A recent example of lack of trust, reported in the HOME NEWS, was the response to a bill before the New Jersey Legisla- ture which, if approved, would have given teachers the right to negotiate such things as class size, transfers, grade-level assignments, student disciplinary codes and curriculum. The bill passed, 59-14, in the assembly, but was reconsidered and defeated when the New Jersey School Board Association opposed it as an "assault on the public's ability to govern its schools."
Since teachers are lowest in the hierarchy, the burden of change, deserved or not, falls on them.
The list of opponents they rallied to defeat the bill is impressive: the state Business and Industry Association, the state Chamber of Commerce, Association of School Administrators, the Principals and Supervisors Association, the Association of Counties, the League of Municipalities, the Conference of Mayors the Association of Chiefs of Police, the State Commissioner of Education, Higher Education Commissioner, the Public Advocate the Middlesex County College President, and the Mayor of Edison. The reporter ended the article by noting that the teachers left the Senate gallery as if they were leaving a funeral home, while the administrators left as though they were leaving a ball game that had a happy ending.
Any system would have difficulty functioning with that much lack of trust and the ensuing adversarial relationship between the teachers and apparently the rest of the world.
I do not suggest that the bill was desirable, but I do ask why teachers feel the need of this kind of protection.
A recent example may be illuminating.
Chicago teachers, who have recently ended a strike, were being asked to give up contractual limits on class size.
Current limits are at the threshold of being unmanageable, 29 in elementary schools and 32 in secondary schools.
The Chicago teachers, no doubt, were acting in their own interest for a smaller workload. The Chicago School Board, no doubt, was acting in the interest of taxpayers to lower the budget.
Who can be trusted to act in the best interests of the Chicago schoolchildren?
The rash of teachers' strikes, of which New Jersey has its share, emphasizes the problem in trust.
Most teachers go into the profession for altruistic, not financial, rewards. They know they will never get rich teaching, but they do expect to be treated fairly.
Strikes are clear evidence that teachers do not trust the School Boards to be honest with them about the finances of the district.
The extent of the problem in New Jersey can be judged by the fact that in the beginning of September, 23% of the 591 districts did not have signed contracts.
Several districts eventually had teachers' strikes, clear signs of failure.
These failures, strikes and adversarial relationships among teachers, administrators and school boards, are damaging to the children we are supposed to be serving.
If we, the adult role models, cannot function in this microcosm, the school system, with dignity, respect and trust there seems to be little hope that the children will learn to do so.
When a school system loses the quality of mutual trust, its ability to function well is compromised for generations. It is like the poem we used to write in the autograph books in school:
Friendship (trust) is like china,
Costly rich and rare.
When broken can be mended,
But the crack is always there.
First published in 2001
Permalink: https://www.cassandrasclassroom.com/columns/mutual-trust-in-school-systems-administration