School Boards and Stupidity

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards." 
                                                            -Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

I frequently hear concerns expressed about American education.  I hear parents agonizing about the toxic environment students encounter at school.  I hear young people concerned about the quality of the education they are receiving.  I hear pundits offering opinions from the practical to the ridiculous.

I hear a lots of talk and almost no intelligent action.  As a former educator, I know what works.  Real education takes place when someone is prepared to learn and someone is prepared to teach.  It sounds simple.  It really works, but we have added layer on layer of nonsense.  These layers are now crushing the life out of the classroom.

It is critical to focus on the classroom where students and teachers make education happen.  Instead, we have focused on buildings and technology and educational initiatives.  We have too many administrators and not enough good teachers.  We spend too much money on non-essentials and not enough on essentials.  Why?  Decision-makers are not making good decisions.

I love history and the little nuggets we can mine from history.  Military science tells is that soldiers must have officers to lead them.  Inexperienced soldiers do, but history shows us that by the time the Army of Northern Virginia got to Gettysburg, they did not need officers.  They knew what was at stake.  These battle-hardened men knew combat first hand.  They knew what needed to be done and would have done it with or without officers.  I believe this is true of good, veteran teachers.

Dedicated, experienced teachers do not need administrators above the principal level.  For most teachers, school boards and superintendents and supervisors contribute nothing to the educational process.  In many ways they interfere and block quality instruction with paperwork and red tape.  In so many ways, the administration of American education is absolute idiocy.

This is true at the macro and micro levels.  Last year a western Illinois school district hired about 50 teachers with federal stimulus money.  This spring they are firing about 60 teachers.  This is nothing more than short-term thinking in a long-term business.  Also, at the micro level I see so much absolute stupidity.  Last Friday, the Ladue District in St. Louis interrupted class for five teachers and asked them to step out into the hall.  These teachers were then told they did not have a job for 2011-2012.  This is an amazing display of administrative incompetence.

In fact, this is inexcusable behavior.  Classes were disrupted.  Teachers were traumatized in the middle of the day.  No one was counseled or allowed to expressed concerns.  The superintendent later said, "In hindsight perhaps it should have been handled differently."  No kidding.  In fact, this is a great example of stupidity.

I have a suggestion:  Why not just fire the superintendent and district administrators?  Why don't we fire the bottom ten per cent of teachers we know to be incompetent?  Why don't we focus all our attention on essentials?  Why not make a few intelligent decisions for a change?

Oh, for a moment I forgot I was writing about intelligence and school boards in the same sentence.  Sorry!  Again, Mark Twain has it right.