[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6910-S6911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                UNSHACKLE LEADERS OF AMERICA'S EDUCATION

 Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, the results of the 1998 Stanford 
9 tests--better known as the SAT's--are now available. Overall, the 
results are dismal. No matter what improvements may be noted here and 
there, the bottom-line numbers reveal a failing education system that 
shortchanges the students and parents who rely upon it.
  In each of the four categories of performance--below basic, basic, 
proficient, and advanced, the story is the same. As a group, the kids 
fall farther behind as they progress through the system. That's the 
case with regard to both math skills and reading.
  That disturbing news is all the more reason for those of us who are 
committed to structural reform of this country's schools to redouble 
our efforts, especially in providing education alternatives for low-
income families.
  In the process, we should not overlook the need for sound management 
in our schools. Indeed, managerial reforms, implemented on the State 
and local level, will be crucial to the success of education reform. 
That is the point made by Donald Bedell, Chairman of the Bedell Group 
and a long-time consultant in management and organizational structure 
for major corporations.
  Mr. Bedell has outlined his thinking along those lines in a brief 
paper that exhorts Congress to ``unshackle leaders of American 
education.'' His insights are on target, and I ask that they be printed 
in the Record.
  The material follows:

                Unshackle Leaders of America's Education

       The never-ending and often contentious national debate over 
     the future course of public education disguises the negative 
     impact excessive administrative control exerts on student 
     academic achievement. How?
       It concentrates on finding ``solutions'' in Washington and 
     in state capitols, year after year after year, for each of 
     the endless number of individual school functions that yearn 
     for assistance. Yet, bureaucracies in all four management 
     levels unnecessarily complicate and slow decision-making, 
     cause costs to rise, burden classroom teachers with 
     intolerable administrative burdens, and share responsibility 
     for student academic scores that have stayed flat for a 
     generation. The overhang of irresponsible mandates continues 
     to plague efficient management efforts.
       A detailed study of Indianapolis public schools budgets 
     (IPS) by the Friedman Foundation, for example, indicated that 
     annual cost per student was $9,886, (double the U.S. 
     average), school enrollment between 1990 and 1996 dropped 
     from 52,000 to 43,000, while administrative costs rose from 
     $370 to $500 per pupil and little more than 30% of its budget 
     paid for teacher salaries. Its student scholastic record, 
     compared to state, national and IPS results, an average of 
     10% below the national average, 25% below the state results 
     and 35% below the Catholic school average in Indianapolis.
       It seems clear that The Friedman Foundation, and Mayor 
     Goldsmith, believe that the IPS current condition demands a 
     thorough management restructuring including reduction of 
     administrative overhead, including additional voucher 
     programs and turning over several dozen non-education 
     support services to private sector contractors. On any 
     professional cost-benefit analysis, development of 
     effective managers and leaders wins by an overwhelming 
     margin.
       Meanwhile, attention of many leaders has been diverted from 
     focusing on laying the foundation, and nurturing it, for more 
     efficient school organization structures at all four levels--
     each state, local school boards, district superintendents and 
     school principals. They are the management ``balance wheel'' 
     function that must be charged with primary responsibility for 
     improved education--not Congress, not the Education 
     Secretary, not the President.
       Those four entities alone bear the total responsibility to 
     deliver an improving body of high school graduates--not 
     curriculum experts, not standards experts, not teacher 
     selection experts, not police surveillance of students. On 
     the quality of public school leadership and management, as in 
     the business community, rests the future of public schools, 
     in the words of the Educational Research Service as early as 
     1992.
       Unfortunately, organization and management matters are 
     still viewed by some as an overpowering, fearsome, 
     inscrutable, unchanging and monolithic structure manipulated 
     by unknown backroom shadowy characters. Nonetheless this 
     command and control management culture survived world wide 
     for 100 years! Initiated by the King of Prussia in the 1880s, 
     it has served America's military and business organizations 
     well through wars, depressions, industrial revolutions and 
     bloody foreign revolutions. It got the job done and brought a 
     successful conclusion to World War II that left America at 
     the top of the heap in international economic and political 
     affairs.
       But, beginning in the 1960s, the emergence of the most 
     stunning and enormous revolutions in the volume and depth of 
     all scientific inquiry, improved product manufacturing, 
     expanded global trade and investment, and vast communications 
     demands, swamped business operations. It forced business 
     management to devise new operational procedures that adjusted 
     to this new reality. It demanded a new flexibility to manage 
     the data, and, to provide opportunities for individuals to 
     increase their contributions to a more productive society.
       Organization structure became organic and specific to each 
     institution and its purpose. In business historian Alfred 
     Chandler's words, ``Structure follows strategy. But it must 
     be flexible to allow for changes. Organization design and 
     structure require thinking, analysis and a systemic approach. 
     The new organization paradigm turns a monumental relic of the 
     past into a living current organism.''
       What are the dynamics of such new flexible structures? 
     Maximize personal and financial resources. In Peter Drucker's 
     words, leaders can't allow organization structure to remain 
     static, or ``just evolve. The only things that

[[Page S6911]]

     evolve are disorder, friction, malperformance.
       What then is the driving force of strategy and tactics? 
     Recognition that all institutions, including public 
     education, are subject to competition. There is no specific 
     structure to strategy development that leaders should follow. 
     But not until a decision is made at the top of the four 
     levels of management to construct a well-articulated purpose, 
     and then to accept discovering, understanding, documenting, 
     and exploiting insights as a means to create more value than 
     competing organizations, can be solid basis of strategy be 
     laid.
       Would the education sector face the sometimes painful 
     adjustments of restructuring as the private sector? Not 
     necessarily. Once a long range schedule and target 
     established, the time frame could extend over 5 or even 10 
     years, taking advantage of personnel attrition and 
     retirements and the influx of new students. Firing 30% of the 
     District of Columbia central office, announced recently, in 
     one fell swoop, could easily be avoided except in severe 
     financial crises.
       What are possible Congressional education strategies?
       (1) Encourage state governments to unshackle state 
     education leaders by deregulating school boards and by re-
     invigorating school district superintendents, school boards, 
     principals, and teachers by releasing them from state 
     mandates, statutes, rules and regulations, as former Motorola 
     Chairman Galvin suggested.
       (2) Promote an ``Executive Scholarship Fund'' for 3,000 
     eligible education sector managers at various levels each 
     education year, for 5 years, for training in business 
     management practices. The cost? At $5,000 each, maximum cost 
     would amount to $15 million to be borne 20% by grantees, or a 
     net $12 million.
       (3) Promote a ``Teacher's Management Improvement Fund,'' 
     for 12,000 eligible teachers each school year for 5 years @ 
     $1500 for a total of $18 million to be borne 20% by grantees 
     or a net of $14.4 million.
       (4) Continue to consider funding a wide variety of 
     education programs to states and local entities, despite 
     continuing evidence that student academic remains flat or 
     worse.
       (5) Withhold support for a $22 billion 2-year federal 
     funding program for local school building programs, and a $12 
     billion plan over 7 years to hire 100,000 teachers as 
     proposed by the President.
       On any credible professional measurement, the development 
     of effective managers and leaders wins by an overwhelming 
     vote. They can and do make mistakes, but without them, 
     society wanders about in an amorphous atmosphere of confusion 
     and indecision--without positive results. Such an environment 
     would contribute nothing to the development of 
     America.

                          ____________________