All it takes to get a $10,000 Raise...
In 2000, the voters of School District 11 passed a mill levy override question for the district. Within this question was a mandate for a detailed performance review of the district to be conducted once every 2 years by an outside agency. In the case of D11, the Quantum Performance Group (QPM) has performed the reviews. QPM noted during its reviews that D11 staff would always provide lists of tasks that were being accomplished, but never lists of results from these tasks. QPM correctly noted that these tasks were meaningless unless they resulted in improved performance by the district. After all, the mission of a school district is to educate kids.
The Sunday Gazette carried two articles on the performance of D11 superintendent Terry Bishop. The article noted that Bishop had a list of 25 tasks that he wanted to tackle as superintendent. The article also noted that after his first year on the job, Bishop has managed to tackle exactly one of these tasks. For this one accomplishment, Bishop receives a salary of $130,000 plus benefits and bonus. Nowhere in the article was the academic performance of D11 mentioned after Bishop’s first year at the helm. The reason might be that the overall performance of D11 declined slightly last year.
While no one would expect that Bishop and his massive staff of bureaucrats would accomplish all 25 of his tasks, one might expect that they would accomplish more than one. The tax payers might also be interested in understanding the academic goals attached to each of those tasks. By contract, Bishop was required to present the school board with specific performance goals by mid September of last year. One year later, this list of goals has still never been created.
One of the most disturbing accomplishments of Bishop to date is his dismantling of the site based management system. When he was hired, Bishop publicly announced his full support of reducing the bureaucracy to push more funds to the classrooms where they were needed most. Bishop quickly reneged on this promise in favor of hiring more administrators to continue the growth of an ever expanding central administration.
Bishop claims that he needs a strong central administration, but he confuses “big” with “strong.” The reality is that a large bureaucracy is actually a weak governing instrument. Large bureaucracies place layers of interference between the principals and the superintendent, diluting any possibility of strong accountability. Bureaucracies suck money from the classrooms and impose meaningless mandates on teachers. Above all else, bureaucracies are extremely inefficient.
D11 has always had a large central administration. By choosing to stick with this governing model, Bishop has chosen to tell the public that although the district is in decline academically and in numbers of students, he will remain wed to a system that has proven beyond doubt not to work.
If anyone wishes to see the results of the power of a decentralized school system, they need look no further than New Orleans. Due to a catastrophe in the form of Hurricane Katrina, the school district opted to do allow neighborhood schools to function without the bureaucratic oversight of a central administration. In one year’s time, these schools have performed miracles because the teachers and staff have been given the power and authority to do what it takes to educate their students. They have been given funding based on their student populations with no skimming off the top by overpaid administrators.
Bishop claims that it is inequitable to fund D11 schools based on their student populations. Is it really equitable to give a school with 150 students the same funding as a school with 600 students? Schools with low populations should not be subsidized by schools with large populations. The whole point of a site based funding system is to make the schools responsive to their public. If schools need more students, then they should work harder to provide the academic excellence that will draw students to their buildings.
The D11 school board now has to determine whether Bishop receives a performance bonus for his first year as superintendent. Based on the lethargic performance of this board to date, it is likely that they will grant Bishop 100% of his bonus for completing one of 25 tasks. Sure, this board has not been fighting, but that is because they are not fighting for the public for whom they are supposed to serve. While the student population in D11 shrinks, the D11 administration continues to grow.
The Sunday Gazette carried two articles on the performance of D11 superintendent Terry Bishop. The article noted that Bishop had a list of 25 tasks that he wanted to tackle as superintendent. The article also noted that after his first year on the job, Bishop has managed to tackle exactly one of these tasks. For this one accomplishment, Bishop receives a salary of $130,000 plus benefits and bonus. Nowhere in the article was the academic performance of D11 mentioned after Bishop’s first year at the helm. The reason might be that the overall performance of D11 declined slightly last year.
While no one would expect that Bishop and his massive staff of bureaucrats would accomplish all 25 of his tasks, one might expect that they would accomplish more than one. The tax payers might also be interested in understanding the academic goals attached to each of those tasks. By contract, Bishop was required to present the school board with specific performance goals by mid September of last year. One year later, this list of goals has still never been created.
One of the most disturbing accomplishments of Bishop to date is his dismantling of the site based management system. When he was hired, Bishop publicly announced his full support of reducing the bureaucracy to push more funds to the classrooms where they were needed most. Bishop quickly reneged on this promise in favor of hiring more administrators to continue the growth of an ever expanding central administration.
Bishop claims that he needs a strong central administration, but he confuses “big” with “strong.” The reality is that a large bureaucracy is actually a weak governing instrument. Large bureaucracies place layers of interference between the principals and the superintendent, diluting any possibility of strong accountability. Bureaucracies suck money from the classrooms and impose meaningless mandates on teachers. Above all else, bureaucracies are extremely inefficient.
D11 has always had a large central administration. By choosing to stick with this governing model, Bishop has chosen to tell the public that although the district is in decline academically and in numbers of students, he will remain wed to a system that has proven beyond doubt not to work.
If anyone wishes to see the results of the power of a decentralized school system, they need look no further than New Orleans. Due to a catastrophe in the form of Hurricane Katrina, the school district opted to do allow neighborhood schools to function without the bureaucratic oversight of a central administration. In one year’s time, these schools have performed miracles because the teachers and staff have been given the power and authority to do what it takes to educate their students. They have been given funding based on their student populations with no skimming off the top by overpaid administrators.
Bishop claims that it is inequitable to fund D11 schools based on their student populations. Is it really equitable to give a school with 150 students the same funding as a school with 600 students? Schools with low populations should not be subsidized by schools with large populations. The whole point of a site based funding system is to make the schools responsive to their public. If schools need more students, then they should work harder to provide the academic excellence that will draw students to their buildings.
The D11 school board now has to determine whether Bishop receives a performance bonus for his first year as superintendent. Based on the lethargic performance of this board to date, it is likely that they will grant Bishop 100% of his bonus for completing one of 25 tasks. Sure, this board has not been fighting, but that is because they are not fighting for the public for whom they are supposed to serve. While the student population in D11 shrinks, the D11 administration continues to grow.