Knowledge Is Power
It’s a familiar story: a gifted public school teacher comes up with a new way to motivate or teach students, only to be quashed by administrators who say the idea can’t be expanded. Did you know that’s what happened to the first Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) class? I’m not making this up:
The first year went well. They doubled the number of students passing the state tests. But they were denied permission to expand the program at Garcia.
KIPP is now one of the most successful charters out there, and it’s coming to St. Louis this year.
If this doesn’t make people reconsider teachers’ good ideas that don’t have research (yet) behind them, I don’t know what will.
Administrators are bureaucrats. They are ruled by precedent and the status quo. Change is threatening and uncomfortable. It is also a potential point of failure. What if it doesn’t work? What if it gores the sacred cow of a more senior bureaucrat? What if it works and makes jobs redundant? My Job?
Budgets are good. They apportion money for established programs. They are a source of stability. They are inflexible and it is too much trouble to go to the finance committee and alter them just because something might be a good idea. A person could get a reputation as a free-thinker, ‘not one-of-us’. Quash new ideas for now. Safety first!
(One day, when I am a senior bureaucrat, I may be asked to be innovative, forward thinking and progressive, to introduce new and exciting programs. It will be a good idea to have a few possibilities up my sleeve at the time so I’m not caught short. If I’m not asked, no great loss. We already perform well enough. Why change?)
Mediocrity rules.
Comment by Ian Titter — June 16, 2009 @ 10:43 a.m.