A Bounded Decision
Erin Peters
EDUC 802 Leadership Seminar
Dr. S. David Brazer
For
several years, Arlington County Public Schools has tried to find ways to
support its three county-wide goals: to
improve student achievement, to reduce the achievement gap between African
American students and white students, and to reduce the achievement gap between
Hispanic students and white students.
Arlington County Public Schools’ senior staff, a group including the superintendent
and the leaders in each administrative department, evaluates schools’ progress
toward these goals by monitoring the Virginia Standards of Learning Assessment
scores. Over four years, the senior
staff noticed that the reading scores on the Grade 8 test were not improving at
the same rate as the other content tests.
When the implementation of the No Child Left Behind
Act became active, four of the six middle schools in
The reading scores in Arlington
County Schools have been leveling off for several years, but the implementation
of the No Child Left Behind law forced the senior staff to take action
immediately to remedy this problem.
Consequently, the senior staff had limited time in which to make the
decision. I wonder if this limitation was self-imposed and a
bit phony. If the problem had already existed for a while, then it
makes more sense to give it careful consideration rather than rush into
something. Easy for me to say, I know. The test results from the 2002-2003 school
year was were the
baseline measurement from which Adequate Yearly Progress was measured by the No Child Left Behind
law. When four of the six middle schools
in
The solution chosen by the senior
staff was not based on current educational research but rather on the personal
experiences of the senior staff members.
The
senior staff brought their personal beliefs and experiences to the table, and
in doing so failed to inform themselves of a variety of possible
solutions. By attempting to view the
problem only through the perspective of the members of the senior staff, they
oversimplified the problem. A & Z apply here. The members of the senior staff each drew
from their repertoire of rules established by their experience, but did not
turn to outside sources for information.
In order to make decisions and take action quickly, people utilize their
habits of mind to permit for appropriate retrieval retrieve
an appropriate of a possible solution. The habits of mind the senior staff had
available were limited by their familiarity with Arlington County Public
Schools. Additional possible solutions
could have been generated if the senior staff had referred to current
educational research instead of their own limited experience. Is
this behavior part of an organizational output or rotines or SOPs in some way? The information regarding the possible
causes of the leveling off of the reading scores was gathered exclusively from
a brainstorming session which limited the information available to the senior
staff. Routines seem entrenched.
Why not at least talk with teachers?
The senior staff examined the
composite scores of Herbert Simon, humans have a limited
cognitive capacity and will reduce the size of a problem in order to shape it
to the resources that are at hand. The
problem identified by the senior staff was that the reading scores of middle
school children in
Since humans cannot possibly
conceptualize the number of solutions to a problem and choose the best one,
humans choose the first solution that is adequate. In this way, humans find a way to reach a
reasonable decision, a term Simon calls satisficing. The senior staff of the mostan adequate
solution. Several members of the senior
staff had experiences where highly qualified reading teachers improved the
reading strategies of students. Their
decision was not based on research, but on the residual concept that if
qualified reading teachers were placed in the program, reading could be
improved. The staff placed the reading
teachers at the 6th grade because the scheduling of the 6th
grade core classes could accommodate an extra period for reading instruction. A classic rationale. Since all conditions of the problem were met,
the senior staff was satisfied that they had made a reasonable decision.
The changes required for implementation of the new reading initiative had several negative unintended consequences. One of the more influential changes included shortening the core subject time from 51 minutes per period to 43 minutes per period to accommodate an additional period for reading. The English teachers had been informed of the impending changes, but due to the somewhat departmentalized nature of middle school, none of the teachers from the other core areas, science, math, or social studies were informed in a timely manner. The science, math, and social studies teachers found out about the schedule changes only three months before the school year and were required to alter their curriculum in order to fit their delivered instruction into 43 minutes. One of the unintended consequences of the senior staff’s decision was that the science, math, and social studies curricula were truncated, and a portion of the time given to for all subject matter instruction was eliminated. Routines seem important here, too. The routines of the other subject teachers were rendered obsolete with no alternative offered, apparently.
Another unintended consequence of the senior
staff’s decision to add reading teachers was the unnecessary changes to the
curriculum for the two schools in the county that had high reading scores. Of the six middle schools in felt believed
that they were already accomplishing the task of preparing
students for high achievement in reading and considered the addition of reading
teachers unnecessary to their programs. Yup, I would agree. As a
parent it would make me mad, too.
All English teachers across the county were instructed by the
administration to give the reading activities to the reading teachers. Since the English teachers at the high achieving
schools had previously incorporated reading in their curriculum, they were left
with a void in their sequence of lessons. In an effort to remain
consistent across the county, Why
is this important? the senior staff made
a decision that caused two of the schools in
In the rush to make a decision, the senior staff created another unintended consequence, the lack of a scope and sequence for the reading curriculum. Due to the need for a rapid response by the faculty in order to implement the decision, there was not time for teachers to construct a detailed reading curriculum. Michael Fullan discusses the downfalls of hasty decisions in his book, Leading in a Culture of Change. He states that in cases where the problem is complicated, then decisions that come from rapid decision making do not suit the problem. In this case, the decision was made in the spring and the teachers only had four months to develop a scope and sequence, given that the teachers were hired immediately. Teachers were given time over the summer to develop curriculum, but the product was hastily constructed and delivered to the reading teachers several days before classes were scheduled to begin. Each reading teacher was given a loose structure of reading strategies, but no set scope or sequence. The decision to have additional reading teachers by the 2004-2005 school year may have been well-intended, but the senior staff did not consider the schedule of implementation in their planning process. Do you know yet about consequences for the quality of reading instructions?
The combination of shortened
instructional time, the implementation of unnecessary programs and the
condensed timing of the development of the program caused communication
problems among the teachers. The reduction
of eight minutes of class each day caused the teachers to be territorial about
their class instruction time. Teachers
on teams no longer were cooperative about giving extra time to other core
subjects for special projects.
Collegiality was no longer the dominant attitude among the 6th
grade teachers. They adopted a
competitive nature, and carefully protected their class time by not allowing
any interruptions to the class. The
teachers at the low achieving schools felt that the extended exposure to reading
class was beneficial, but the teachers at the high achieving schools felt that
their system was working. This caused
animosity between the English teachers and the reading teachers at the high
achieving schools and eliminated any future knowledge sharing or relationship
building that may have occurred. The
reading curriculum was so loosely defined, that the administration required the
English teachers to give their reading activities to the reading teachers. That’s
weird. Seems as though English teachers would think, “Why do
we need these folks if I’m giving them curriculum?” Previously, English teachers used novels to
teach vocabulary, grammar and reading comprehension. As they were required to give the novels to
the reading teachers, they had no baseline text from which to teach. . (If you’re interested,
I think we had a model at my high school that would fit here and solve the
problem of the novels being taken away from English teachers.) The mandate from the
administration that English teachers were to give their reading materials to
the teachers caused an animosity toward the reading
teachers that evolved from the system, not from individual interactions. The senior staff’s decision required the
teachers at the 6th grade level to condense their instructional time
and to change their curriculum caused communication problems among the staff.
The senior staff’s decision to
add three reading teachers to the 6th grade program was limited by
time because they were informed of a deficiency in AYP in the spring, and
needed to take action to implement a program for the following school
year. Their decision was limited by
information since the senior staff decided to brainstorm using only their
previous experience rather than be informed by educational research outside of
their restricted community. From the
list of possible solutions, the members chose the most familiar solution, not
necessarily the best solution. Had the
senior staff defined the problem with more detail, they may have been able to
choose a solution that was more than adequate.
The problem could have been defined according to the needs of each
school, rather than defined as an
In the Rational Actor Model of
decision making, the group making the decision must be informed of the goals,
consider the possible inputs to reach the goal and analyze the possible
outcomes in order to choose the maximum possible output for the decision. Perhaps the senior staff did not
consider all of the possible logistic or interpersonal complications that could
arise by adding staff to an already full curricular program. Ok, but
don’t forget that Simon and A & Z agree that they would be incapable of
doing so. If they had
defined the problem more clearly in the beginning, then their list of possible
solutions would have been different.
Having defined the problem more accurately, the possible solutions to
the problem could have attempted to incorporate the complications of serving a
diverse population across the county and eliminated barriers to communication
between the reading and English teachers.
The senior staff understood their goal was to raise the reading SOL
scores, and that one possible input to increase the chances of reaching the
goal as the addition of reading teachers, but they did not fully consider the
consequences of their actions.
You’ve done a very good
job with this paper,
Thesis: 6 Developing Arguments: 5 (left out one or two important ones) Conclusions: 6 Grammar & Mechanics: 2 Total = 19