DeKalb Schools receives $3 million to grow central office in an attempt to figure out what the Soviets could never figure out, how to make centralization work.
According to a DeKalb Schools News Release, “The purpose of the initiative is to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools by providing more effective instructional support to school level leaders.” The Wallace Foundation grant is born from Rethinking Leadership, a report commissioned by Council of the Great City Schools, which came to the conclusion that schools don’t have enough central office staff managing and supporting schools.
The four goals stated by the initiative are
- Restructuring central-offices and reducing the number of principals supervisors oversee
- Re-writing regional superintendent job description to emphasize instructional support for principals
- Decentralizing financial resources and authority to the regional level
- Assessing the effectiveness and effects of these activities across the districts
I’m not sure how adding central office staff and moving authority from one part of the central office to another will improve academic achievement. I’m concerned about growing central office and supporting these new positions once the $3 million runs out. This is a textbook example of how government programs grow.
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“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”