Do one of the following: 1) Describe a deliberative or decision-making process you have witnessed in an organization. Discuss this process making uses of some of the models and concepts that you read about in Graber and/or Spee and Jarzabkowski (eg. phases of decision-making, decision-making errors, strategic planning). Either make a recommendation for improving the process or explain why the status quo worked well. 2) Read this article about the history of decentralization and re-centralization of the NYC school system. Comment on how these restructurings have affected decision-making within the system and whether this has been for the best or not.
56 thoughts on “Deliberation in Organizations”
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It appears to me that decentralizing schools puts greater authority and decision making power in the hands of local residents and figures where as a centralized system relies heavily on more politicized figures making key decisions or appointments.
I would like to believe that a more centralized system protects the school districts from corruption and relies more heavily on accountability for those who have the ability to make decisions. While a decentralized system may be more representative of what the local community may want, they are not necessarily the best people to make decisions for their school district. It is for the best have a more centralized school system in place because it ensures uniformity among practices about faculty employment and student achievement. Allowing individual schools to make decisions regarding their school district in a decentralized system guarantees efficiency, but lacks oversight and accountability. With a centralized system in place, politicians and appointed officials have the ability to make the same changes a decentralized system could make but with improved accountability and an organized procedure for going about addressing the issues.
You make very good points. While watching the video lecture, I was wondering when a centralized model would ever be the better choice. It just seems like decentralized would be so much more helpful in getting everyone’s voices heard. But you are right. Sometimes those voices aren’t informed or powerful enough to get a say or to effect real change. When there is a smaller, more powerful team working on something, uniformity where uniformity matters, there is a better chance that a school system will produce the desired results.
I agree. I think there are other ways, though perhaps more artificial, to decentralize the needs of different communities without decentralizing the administration of the system. There can never be a perfect system, but rather than harm students who are a product of a system without accountability, have representatives advocate to a higher body for the specific needs of those schools.
I think the debate between centralization and decentralization maybe somewhat misplaced because the power only moves back and forth between school principles and the NYC Schools Chancellor. The distribution of power is not visible at the level that matters most: students, parents and teachers. Here is an example from a few month ago of another power change that is generally meaningless, practically speaking:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-schools-chancellor-boosts-superintendents-clout-1422023365
You made some great points about the strengths of a centralized governing system, and basically the protections that a centralized system can afford against fraud and corruption. Also your argument that a centralized school system provides greater accountability made me wonder whether the school-based management system that the author discusses can also provide accountability an oversight. Since the parents and community representatives have input and decision-making authority, does the involvement of parents and community representatives also mean more oversight on the schools?
From your experience, it seems that the application of Garber’s process was effective at assisting your company in developing a product. I would be curious to learn more about the make up of the initial group of users. Were these individuals diagnosed with TBIs, the age range of the people testing your product, and was the video game effective at achieving the goal of cognitive remediation even though it was confusing to the initial users.
How did this company use the user feedback provided to adjust their video game design as well as was the process implemented in developing this game used again in moving forward with this project?
Before beginning at Baruch, I worked in NYU’s Health Center. While I was there, they began strategic planning for a center-wide reform. I had many problems with the way that the Student Health Center was run, but I was blown away by the strategic planning process. I saw distinctly the different stages. We followed the mission statement to create goals based off of the SHC’s current environment and where management envisioned it going. As a staff, we had 250 member staff meetings dedicated to strategic planning. When I left, the plan had be drafted many times and then finalized. The SHC is currently focusing on many health center-wide quality improvement projects.
Though I knew that I was at the bottom of the totem pole, and that my contributions were both uninformed and unimportant to the larger picture, the management staff did do all that they could to ensure that if I wanted to be a part of the project, I could be. All staff members had to fill out an extensive form listing different areas where the SHC could improve. There were QA groups formed for both the strategic planning and, later, the quality improvement projects. There was also a very impressive webpage created so that all staff members could follow each theme and each project of the strategic planning to get updates on the progress and completion of those projects. It was pretty great.
That does sound interesting! This sounds like a very involved process – did you ever feel like this extensive decision making process took away from the time you had to complete other tasks at the Health Center? In addition to surveying in-house, did the Health Center survey any of their constituents?
I remember you spoke about your work at NYU during our initial group work meetings. Going through the long, convoluted process that you describe above seems very stressful and/or strenuous at times. Did you every wish that perhaps the process was less demanding and comprehensive in order to decrease the length of time it takes to move forwards with the project? I think its great that your thoughts and opinions were considered and included in the planning. Do you know how the project has progressed since you’ve come over to Baruch?
I’m always an advocate for staff involvement in strategic planning for an organization. I’m curious if plans for reform in this instance were advanced beyond the planning phases. This is a great example of how time consuming a decentralized model might be–250 staff meetings had to take up a lot of time. However, the process would surely give ownership of the mission to its staff.
That sounds really great! At my old corporate job, my bosses couldn’t even remember to sit down with me for my annual evaluation. Your input may not have been perceived as equally valuable to what came from the higher ups, but it is crucial to at very least maintain interest from staff by allowing them to contribute. Certain workers may themselves be more disposable than others, but their jobs are in place for a reason, and wouldn’t a head want to boost moral by making employees feel important.
More than that, who is to say your contributions didn’t matter? It is less likely that a lower level employee offer a valuable insight, but it is still likely that at very least, leadership benefited from a consensus of opinion, or a standout claim.
Dov, I agree with your idea that boosting moral is a critical element in the functioning of an organization. Unfortunately, when it comes to corporations, specially big ones, contributions by low or even mid level employees are not as valued because they don’t have access to as much information as top leadership, so the thought is, “what can a low level employee contribute if he/she knows nothing about our financial goals?”
In addition, in a situation where decision making is centralized, it is hard to get input from so many different employees, or groups, or departments. Upper managers may attempt to understand all issues by consulting other managers who in turn may not be able to rely every piece of information or concern.
Emma, that strategic planning process sounds wonderful! I’m curious if the culture at the Health Center isn’t as collaborative as the strategic process was. Was this part of an effort to move towards a culture of more inclusion, or is the Health Center generally this inclusive of employee feedback for more every day matters?
Emma, that really sounds like a great way to get everyone involved. NYU provided an innovative/ creative way to involve their staff in decision making abilities. I know that working for Mount Sinai staff members even managers have little to no input on how things are run. In my year and a half at the hospital they sent out random surveys about what should be improved but never actually followed up with those. Though the process does sound lengthy and time consuming it is nice to have that option and to know that you can participate. I don’t think that you being at the “lower end of the totem pole” as you put it, would make your opinions or opinions of your peers count any less. It seems like if they are giving these options then they want the feedback in order to improve.
It was great that you had the opportunity to work in an organization that valued the input of all the employees, and encouraged such active participation. It is also impressive that there was such transparency in the planning process, and everyone was apprised of the updates.
First of all, this project sounds very, very cool. What an amazing cause!
It is interesting that you believe the garbage can model was a fortunate choice in this case, and I agree! This sort of development can be costly, and also very creative, two things that can make a final product difficult to reach. It was lucky that you reserved time and energy with the creation of the first model. Do you think that if you used a different style of decision making, that the end product actually wouldn’t have been confusing? Maybe a more purposeful process would have created a better testing product, but also maybe not!
That sounds really cool, Annette!
I’m interested in how long the process took – where there any aspects of the decision making process that you thought were rushed or focused on for too long? Your hindsight observations are also interesting. Was there any point during the process that you felt the group had lost sight of it’s ultimate goal (bettering the lives of those with TBI) in an attempt to make a universally popular game? How much experience did the group have with TBI patients and families?
The organization I work for is currently in the process of rolling out a new national fundraising event. After assessing the efficacy of the fundraising events that the organization currently utilizes, members of the national staff began to research other models that work in similar markets on a national scale. Higher ups in the national staff discussed these new event ideas and settled on one concept. This aspect of the planning followed the rational choice method, since the decision was made based on cost-benefit analysis.
After announcing the decision to create a new fundraising event, the national staff asked the regional staff to assist with logistical decisions. Since the event will be piloted in a few markets before being rolled out nationally, the regional staff is responsible for connecting with community partners to form committees and ask for recommendations to make the event successful. The next phase – that we are currently in – is branding. The national staff has picked out a few names and other aspects of the program, but they have opened up a survey to all staff, organization constituents, and individuals not associated with the organization. To me, this seems to fit the aggregative model, since may different interest groups are being consulted.
Although the nature of the event is finalized, not all aspects of the program are complete. In seeing the decision making process so far, I would suggest the earlier involvement of outside interest groups (eg, setting up a survey for the event type within the organization). I believe that would create more local ownership of the event if regional staff members had the opportunity to vote on ideas that were selected by the national staff (and were cost-effective).
I would agree with your assessment of the need for more regional involvement in the beginning phases of planning. A greater sense of ownership and solidification of authority might have been realized earlier if there was more involvement in the decisions for a new fundraising model.
During my work with a leading veterans advocacy group, the deliberative decision making process involved many stakeholders—leadership, staff, and our membership. One example involves an annual report and strategic plan for advocacy.
The problem analysis phase began organizationally, with staff and leadership coming together in groups to discuss policy options and presenting problems to the entire staff with recommendations for organizational priorities in the upcoming year. From here, the various problems—issues that are of most concern to veterans—were analyzed from survey data from our membership. The survey is designed around the problem analysis phase with input from all staff and various policy options presented for strategic plan. Veterans and their families complete the survey nationwide, providing the option exploration phase. Results are gathered and leadership develop an initial annual report and strategic plan based on the feedback from our members. The organizational priorities are brought back in front of all staff for discussions using rational choice and incremental bargaining models for most decisions on how to move forward.
The end result becomes our published annual report with organizational priorities for the upcoming year. The process is repeated every year following a set timetable, while staff continue follow-on action of the prior year’s plan. The feedback phase comes in the survey data received the following year. Analysis of the data reveals the successes and failures of the prior year’s policy agenda and organizational priorities while giving direction for the future.
It is a great model for integrating a feedback loop from the individuals who benefit from the organization’s advocacy. The vision of leadership is maintained while allowing for deliberation that recognizes a realistic expectation of staff.
Ryan, this sounds like a stark contrast to the organization that I was involved in. Did you find that the structure helped you? It seems like the vets also knew that responding to the survey was beneficial to future policy concerning their needs. I saw a lot of that where I worked too – we got a lot of feedback because people realized the issues concerned them, we were looking for solutions to their problems.
I wonder how the analysis happened? Were there competing interpretations, or a formulaic response? I can’t imagine too many competing visions beyond the leadership’s decisions.
Ryan, this sounds like a very fluid model for bridging the communication gap between the vets and the leadership. the publication of the annual reports is especially interesting.
since there are so many advocacy groups for vets, was there any communication between the one you worked for and others?.
If there was, did the multiple groups benefit from this dialogue and interaction?.
I currently work for a Charter School Network and we are currently going through a strategic planning process. We are a fairly new organization; having started operations in 2011. As we continue to grow, the executive team wanted to ensure that the organization’s work is focused on accomplishing our mission. Hence, they decided to create a strategic plan that will both clarify our organization’s mission and culture and chart our growth for the next five years.
Our executive team used an error avoidance strategy. They used the Delphi Technique and hired a consulting firm to lead the discussions that needed to happen between our board, executive team, and staff members. For example, in this planning process we questioned whether certain programs contributed to our overall mission. I think that if our organization’s President had directly asked this question to our Program Manger, she would have felt targeted by her supervisor. This question coming from a consultant took on a more neutral tone.
It’s also possible that our President would feel uncomfortable asking our Program Manager this question directly and he could have completely avoided this conversation all together. I think that using a consultant ensured that difficult conversations can happen and prevented information from not being shared.
Though we are in the middle of this process, I can tell that the final decisions behind the shape of this plan will be formalistic; made by our three top executives. The consulting firm has made an effort to include the lower level staff in some of the strategic planning meetings. The entire staff was invited to attend the first introductory session with the consultant. Then, our Executive Team attended other meetings that lower level staff was not invited to. A couple of weeks ago, the entire staff was invited to attend a session to deliberate on three possible mission statements that were created through conversations amongst the executive team.
My peer colleague and I felt unprepared to contribute in a meaningful way to this deliberation. This meeting was the first time that we were seeing these mission statements. And in fact, we both made very little comments during the meeting. I think that the process could be improved if the executive team had presented the rest of the staff with a report detailing what topics where discussed during the executive only sessions. This transparency would have helped us prepare for that mission statement deliberation. This preparedness would have also made me feel more connected to the strategic planning process.
The top-down management system is definitely effective sometimes. The role of the consultants is interesting, they’re almost like a party that seems to bring the upper level staff together with the rest of the team.
Your last paragraph brings me back to last week’s session; getting the information through to the staff would have led to constructive discussion. So despite the presence of the consultants, because there was no summary of decisions, there was nothing to build on for everyone else. Do you think the ultimate decision will be as credible as it would be if there was an actual open deliberative process? Will staff buy in?
Dianna, I really enjoyed reading your post! Fascinating stuff. It’s interesting to hear about some of the positive roles the consultants are playing during this strategic planning process (consultants haven’t been that helpful for the few projects I’ve worked on with them). It’s a shame the entire staff wasn’t prepared for the mission statement meeting. I feel like that’s so counter productive! I’m assuming that didn’t add to staff feeling truly involved in the process. Is this something you/someone on your team feels comfortable approaching management about for future input meetings? Thanks for sharing!!
Dianna, this is a very interesting model that the charter school you work for explores. It seems like the executives try to hire these consultants to do the dirty work for them. It looks like instead of trying to communicate directly with managers and the lower level employees, they are hiring other people to come in and fulfill that role. I think even though executives are including the lower level employees in some of the decision making, they as you mentioned are not providing enough backbone in order to get a meaningful response from the employees who are dealing directly with the issues at hand. I find that as a prevalent issue in many businesses, executives believe they know more, but they are usually not dealing with the day to day and therefore, maybe in this situation they can listen and sent out surveys and find ways to better communicate at issues where input from the day to day operations staff can be better heard.
Your employers using consultants to have difficult conversations on their behalf can feel a bit like a cop-out, but simultaneously, I totally understand why they decided to use the Delphi method. By using consultants, they are able to maintain a certain relationship with their employees, and that is incredibly important.
It sounds like having some sort of agenda or report of how the execs came to their decisions regarding the three mission statements would have certainly been helpful. Was the deliberation generally helpful? Were decisions made because of this deliberation?
Craig, interestingly we discussed this topic of centralization of the NYC school system in my “Governing NYC” course last week.
In our discussion we talked about how centralization of the school system under the leadership of the Mayor has injected politics into the management of it. Politics in turn can inject ulterior motives behind a Mayor’s policy decision on education, which is not the best for the school system.
At the ethnic-cultural organization I used to work for, everything was limited: time, resources, capital, staff. You name it, I’m sure it was limited.
But one thing we always kept a lot of on hand: meetings. The apparent theory was that the meetings would make up for a lack of everything else. That those brilliant individual moments would arise, and things would get resolved. The meetings did generate many ideas, and then a sort of race would start: who would resolve a problem, and how? In that environment, we operated on a mix of competitive and collegial structures.
Sometimes, if someone liked a particular idea fielded by another employee, they would team up to tackle the issue. At other moments, someone would take a resolution, deem that it needed some improving, and embark on a (often hopeless) crusade to one-up the initial idea. Generally, the problem would get solved, but sometimes people would refuse to work with one another on the next round.
At certain moments — like our annual fundraising event — groupthink would pop up. The question “why” was avoided in favor of doing things the way that they had always been done. If one person felt a strong way about a change, the rest of the group would enter the conversation, and naturally other voices would offer reasoning that often tended to concur with the initial antagonist’s sentiment, because the group was more influential than the person with the new idea.
Often, employees felt that re-structuring (and modernizing) methods of fundraising was more intensive than continuing the old way of operations. But, if resources were available, the problem may have been navigated…for while. The old feeling would eventually return, and staff members would revert to the garbage can model – because that sentiment often seemed to carry over from the top down.
The collegiate model used by President Kennedy, and outlines in Graber’s work, is a great decision making model, in my opinion, for many nonprofits. An oft-lack of funding requires leaders of such organizations to seek advice from as many workers, board members, and members as possible. Without outsourcing, this method allows a greater number of resources to an organization’s leadership despite a more crowded deliberative process. Further, nonprofits often have specific areas of interest that are also shared by all of those that are involved. The collegiate model allows for the input of multiple ideas, but all coming from similar if not identical perspectives. The 92nd Street Y’s Bronfman Center focuses on enriching the lives of Jewish New Yorkers through establishing far reaching religious and cultural programs. Recently, the organization hosted a benefit concert for a program relating to young children. The fundraising, marketing, religious influence, audio visual setup, and hiring of musicians were all the responsibility of one officer. However, this officer used resources available to her to accomplish all of her tasks. Delegates from each team at the Y represented ideas from their respective offices, and other members of those offices were sometimes called upon in meetings for further discussion. The process worked, and the concert was a success. Had tasks been assigned to only one member from each of the offices detailed above, the head administrator would have benefited less from other members of the team. Additionally, the direct contact between the administrator and other team members was clarifying in a way that may not have been possible through the representation by only one delegate.
Hi Krzys,
I think that in the end, our staff will still buy into whatever decision is made.
Our office is pretty small. There is a team of 4 Executive Staff members and 4 lower level staff members. Overall communication between the executives and my peer colleagues happens often. And we often feel very comfortable approaching them with any questions that we may have.
We have a very high opinion of the executive team. Therefore, I think that in the end we might not agree with the entire strategic plan, but we will still respect it because we highly respect their opinions.
I witnessed a lot of decision making processes closely while I was working on Hurricane Sandy recovery for a City agency. I won’t pinpoint one decision-making process specifically because I think most policy changes and bigger picture decisions were treated similarly by management. Even though there were A LOT of rules and regulations NYC had to comply with under HUD/other federal agencies, movement on the program was glacial (as evidenced by the thousands of people who still haven’t received help repairing/rebuilding their homes). Every decision was caught up in multiple levels of bureaucracy. As Graber puts it, “The hallmarks of bureaucracy – hierarchy, specialization, and centralization – cause major information-flow problems…such as message overload and message distortion.” Often, the options exploration step was full of too many options, and when it came down for someone to make a decision, key players would shy away from pulling the trigger because they were scared of internal and public push-back. I think the organization could have benefited from using the incremental bargaining model by not only weighing the interests of agency heads and elected officials, but also by considering the interests of the folks on the ground way more. Also, policy options and standard operating procedures would change very often, exhibiting the individual decision making error of abandoning policy before fair test. The whole process was very disheartening.
I have attended both useful and useless meetings. What makes a meeting useless is lack of organization. When there is no agenda or talking points, people can talk for hours without accomplishing anything. The most useful meetings have an agenda, a time keeper or monitor, and an action plan for next steps. When everything is written clearly, it easier to reach goals and hold perpetrators accountable.
I dont agree with Graber’s notion that centralization causes communication problems because it is simply not realistic; there is no way every group member will know everything about each department. I find it useful to dicuss inter-department issues at length and then provide a brief for the group-at-large. In modern times, CC-ing colleagues on emails is an efficient way to keep everyone informed. Plus since it is writen down, an email serves as a great reference if doubts arise in the future.
Ysmeli, as I understand it, in the case of large organizations, centralization causes communication issues because those mankind the decisions – generally senior leadership or upper management – become “disconnected” from many smaller parts of the organization, and many decisions are made without considering how they will affect a certain department or group. The problem is caused because some parts of the organization are so far away from the center that they have no way of getting their concerns taken into account when decisions are being discussed.
Email communications are effective within smaller groups but it is not realistic to think that, within a large organization, they will be able to involve or inform everyone through email.
I agree emails may not be the absolute solution for communication problems, but they are certainly a start. There’s no way everyone will always be in the loop and honestly, not all information should be available to everyone. But, if the leaders of given departments check in which each other from time to time, via email or otherwise, then a wider audience can be reached via their respective representatives.
It was interesting to read about the history of the NYC public school system from a structural perspective. It seems that frequently a new mayoral administration, will implement a restructuring of the public school system just to show that he or she is different than the prior mayor, and more innovative. But there seem to be very few truly innovative reforms being made in public education: there are just mayors who decentralize, and others who re-centralize. But the measures of how schools are performing are seemingly not tied to the structural shifts that are forced on the system every 5-10 years: graduate rates are not rising, and standardized test scores do not consistently rise either.
I am not an expert in this area, but it seems that centralization makes more for a huge public school system like New York City has. The Principal of each school needs to know that his or her school’s performance will be judged, both publicly and privately, relative to other schools, and this can motivate each principal to push students (and teachers) towards excellence. This kind of phenomenon is often described as a “race to the top” and I think centralization is more likely to facilitate such friendly competition among school administrators. But in order for centralization to have this effect, it needs to be in place for longer than just 1 or 2 mayoral terms before the next mayor decides that decentralization is somehow more innovative or empowering for parents and communities.
That was an interesting insight. Frequent changes to the system can be chaotic for employees. I don’t think mayors are making changes simply because they have the power to do so. They sincerely want to improve our education system. If they and their advisors believe the system is broken, then they should certainly try to fix it.
The constant changes have created a vacuum of success. Nothing lasts because the system changes too often. The system is much better than it has been in the past, but still has a ways to go before it becomes a respectable institution.
When I started working for Mount Sinai Health Systems I accepted a union role in the billing department. As Mount Sinai had newly acquired Continuum Health Partners, there rose a big debate about whether Mount Sinai should keep the union since the contract was up, or if they should get ride of it and keep the employees working stricktly for the hospital. A model similar to Graber’s decision making was used in order for the union to fight with the hospital executives in order to keep the jobs and benefits as they are. During the first phase, we as union members had to collectively come together and weigh the options and identify what the problem was, and realized the need to fight to keep the union. We then signed petitions and went through rigorous contract meetings in order to figure out how we could propose to Mount Sinai that keeping the union would be beneficial to both them and the workers. During the third phase, union members actually threatened to strike and held peaceful sit-ins all throughout different hospital locations to show they would not back down. During the forth phase, Mount Sinai finally gave in and new contract negotiations took place, and both parties in the end made an agreement. This is a great example of deliberation because essentially Mount Sinai doesn’t benefit much from keeping union employees, however, they were not ready for the fight the union gave them. They were not as organized and did not have the means to fight back because the union was united with members, organized and prepared to fire back. This model is an example of how important following guidelines are to deliberation.
Anna, thanks for telling us about these union negotiations at the hospital. The deliberations between the new Hospital management and the union seems so mismatched in terms of bargaining power, that it surprises me that this deliberative process ended in a victory for the union. But it could be that because a hospital needs to keep operating 24/7, at full steam, this gave the union an advantage in negotiations since if the workers went on strike, it would be very difficult for the hospital to ensure the proper care of all the patients. This is different than when union workers at a factory threaten to go on strike, since Management could swallow a few weeks of stalled production and limited sales. I am interested in how long these negotiations lasted, and what specific tactics were used by the union to “win” the negotiation. Congrats on the union’s well-deserved victory!
The tactics lasted roughly for 6 months, the contract was updated in October of 2014, in about May/April of 2014 we as members started receiving correspondence from the union, strike dates were posted in July of 2014 and kept getting pushed, the peaceful sit-in occurred someone in August 2014. The contract was signed and went into effect in October 2014. The specificity of the tactics unfortunately I am not aware of. They union delegates were able to attend the meetings between union executives and hospital executives.
Anna, thanks for this example. It sounds like in this case, it was really important for union membership to come together as a whole and identify and weigh options. Did it come to an aggregative approach or majority vote of the membership to decide the union’s core demands? Or did you create a set of demands that could be in play through incremental bargaining?
The constant shift in New York Public school systems between a Centralized and decentralized model has left lasting impact on the structure and function of the NYC public schools.
In a centralized model, power rests with a small select group of administrators or governing bodies that decide the fate of thousands of kids, teachers and staff. The main purpose is to hold and maintain control of the schools and its staff, limit corruption, mismanagement and miss appropriation of funds. As good as this sounds, there are serious drawbacks. The pace at which decision are taken is slow, which sometimes proves counterproductive and valuable time is lost in bureaucratic challenges.
A decentralized model on the other hand allows for a much faster movement in decision making with the governing body usually consisting of teachers, principal and parents, decisions are likelier to be taken in the best interest of the pupils. However corruption, mismanagement and nepotism are real challenges.
In NYC, constant attempts to restructure has taken its toll inside the class rooms. Because these alternate structures were implemented more out of the need to take power as opposed to improving the lives students, its impact has been felt in the stagnant or event declining test scores and falling standards. During Bloomberg’s tenure the battle to take control of public school system ignited a fierce debate with strikes a regular feature in the debate. High school completion rate in NYC fell to as low as 53% during these turbulent times which for a city like New York is frankly abysmal.
When all these things are taken into account, one cannot say with certainty that these shifts have been helpful. Although today, the Public school system is in a better place then previous years, it is far behind where it should be with the level of money and funding that DOE gets for programs and implementation. through better allocation of resources including scrapping of ill devised programs like ‘rubber room’, i believe meaning full changes and be achieved in our public schools.
I am not very familiar with the way NYC schools work or the role of charter schools in the city. However, from the reading I can say that it would be ideal to find a balance between centralization and decentralization in the school system.
In this case, centralization is important to dictate a set of standards and expectations that all schools should adhere to: academic performance, curriculum, etc. In addition, as mentioned by some of my classmates, some centralization guarantees that there is no corruption in the system, and provides necessary oversight where needed.
At the same time, being that NYC is such a big and diverse city, a norm or set of guidelines that would work for a school district in the upper east side, probably would not have the same effects for a school district in the Bronx. Each community has its own needs and it is important to understand that a “one size fits all” approach is probably not beneficial for the system as a whole.
For this reason, some level of decentralization or independence – within the pre-established guidelines – would be ideal for a city like New York.
I work for a large private corporation that recently wen through some leadership changes and as a result, there was a general re-structuring. From the lecture, I identify some characteristics of the old leadership in making decisions: Groupthink, no information flow, following precedent. After many years of bad decisions and bad financial performance, new leadership was introduced to re-structure the company. Many decisions and changes have resulted in the past year, but many of them have not involved all levels of the organization. There is a strong tendency to centralize decisions, without thinking about the regional or local needs of individual departments. The fact that it is a large organization, it is hard – if not impossible – to expect that the ideas or concerns of a low level manager or employee will be heard or taken into account when making decisions about the operation of the company as a whole.
That’s unfortunate for your large corporation. I think that even in large organizations, McGregor’s Theory Y liberatory and developmental approaches to management can be effective for strategic planning and broad, long-term restructuring decisions. We read about several error avoidance strategies this week that could involve more stakeholders. If not engaging lower level managers and employees throughout the process in a more substantive way, the organization could at least engage them in giving feedback to a draft of the plan – kind of like Spee & Jarzabkowski’s noting of a strong process involving various stages of drafting, discussion, re-drafting and discussion before a final version inevitably emerges as a blueprint.
Maria, from what you previously posted and now this, it seems that you want to make sure all employees, regardless of position, have an opportunity to be heard. Is my assumption correct?
I do think all employees– especially those with innovative ideas– should be listened to. But it is difficult to apply the values of public management into the private sector. It’s a whole different world, where if an employee does not like the rules, he/she can simply leave. In private companies, it is easier to change an employee than the status quo.
The article pointed out how the school decentralization in New York City had some clear positives, such as bringing in new professionals to the schools who were not tied to the bureaucratic structure. These professionals, who were more independent had “a degree of competence and innovation” that had not been seen prior to decentralization. Having these new teachers in the decision-making process, whether it be in which curriculum to teach or input in how budgets should be created, allows new voices and perspectives to be involved. Also, since they lack ties to the central bureaucracy, there is more potential for change and debate.
Another strong positive of decentralization is that schools reported greater parental involvement and the community boards were able to implement innovative curricula. Specifically, for schools that implemented alternative criteria and programs, these schools saw improvement in reading scores. It is important to have parents involved in their children’s education, as it improves the children’s academic performance but also allows parents to be engaged in the classroom and stay connected to the teachers.
The article showed that there were mixed results in the effects of decentralization. The data on decentralized schools showed that for decisions affecting curriculum, instruction, staffing, teacher evaluation, and student testing, the process was in fact highly centralized.
The author also shows comparisons in other regions that experienced decentralization, such as the Chicago and California school districts. The author points out that for these states that tried the school-based management system, where the parents, teachers and principals were authorized to make decisions on budgets, programs and personnel, these school-based councils actually served as advisory boards to the school districts rather than acting as policy-making bodies. Additionally, the writer highlights how principals controlled the agenda, even though teachers and parents had equal participation. Also, because parents did not have to the same information as teachers and principals, they were left out of the decision-making process. The writer also says how in Chicago, where the community is school-based, there is more room for involvement for parents and community representatives. She makes the key observation that the important factor is “how large is the community that has control.” The author’s viewpoint also seems to be that what works for corporate restructuring is not necessarily applicable to reforming public school education, and that the focus should be less on changing the organizational structure of the school system, and more attention should be paid on decreasing class size, improving the quality of curriculum and classroom environment and increasing communication between the community, schools, and parents.
Overall, the trends in decentralization and recentralization have brought about positive changes such as increased parental involvement and the introduction of new curriculum. I think that as more studies are done on the effects of restructuring and as trends change in other parts of the country, other kinds of school reform will result.
I’ve been part of several non-profits that have used strategic planning processes as real opportunities to engage in serious organizational deliberation. They engaged stakeholders at all levels of the organization (eg board, executive director, staff, volunteer leaders, members/constituents, sometimes even external coalition partners and donors). In one case that reflected good practice, the organization created a multi-stakeholder team to oversee the full strategic planning process, in the vein of Garber’s “nominal group technique” bringing together thoughtful people from across the organization to run the process. Since the process was intended to create 3-5 year organizational roadmaps, this group treated it as a real opportunity for reflection with 3 organization-wide meetings spread over a period of 4 months, giving participants time to engage deeply in the weekend long retreats and periods to reflect in between. The group revisited and confirmed its mission, engaged in an environment/field scan, SWOT analysis, and a form of Garber’s “formal options strategy” to have a smaller internal committee develop multiple scenario options for the wider organization to choose from. Using a “formal options strategy” helped create organizational buy-in to formally shut down an existing program or campaign, launch a new program area, as well as restructure the organization (eg new membership structure, new staffing structures) to better support its ability to achieve its social justice goals.
What I gleaned from the article regarding the New York City Public School System, was that it just can’t get its act together. As the author concluded, the bot the centralized and decentralized system did not have any noteworthy effects on student performance.
Constantly switching between the two systems as well as semi-privatizing it, did not help students and probably hurt teacher’s performance as they were forced to deal with different governing bodies, demanding different things every few years.
The increase in community participation is definitely a benefit of the restructuring of the school system. The restructuring has usually focused on how to make the decision processes easier and safer but hardly focusing on what the students need in order to improve their performances. If the concentration shifts from decision making bodies to student performance improvements, the changes in the decision making process can definitely be a positive force.
It seems that the since the back and forth decentralizing and centralizing of school systems has not really increased the level of student education performance, administrators need to collectively look for other criteria as the article suggested such as extracurricular activities. There has been a study I read a few years ago that claimed the higher the art participation by students in schools, the better math and science grades go up as well. It seems like different approaches haven’t been looked at until recently and every time a new politician steps in he tries his approach to further his/her political agenda and legacy.
I like the articles idea that more focus has to put on what goes on in the classroom and improving the lines of communication on all levels. The needs os a classroom or school in the bronx are probably different than one in in rural New York.
To answer whether the restructurings of the school system over the years has affected decision making, I would say absolutely. Neither those favoring decentralization or centralization trust each other too much as ironically both have failed to show results and both blindly feel that theirs is the correct solution. It seems like a classic case of do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Or perhaps do the same two things over and over again..
Adam,
I agree that the increase in community involvement is a benefit of restructuring, and hopefully something going wrong won’t be blamed on community involvement instead of the root cause of the constant restructuring that seems to go nowhere.. I feel like the wrong things get fixed or blamed when something goes wrong.
It would seem to me that the smaller the districts the better the involvement from the community and parents but the chance of fraud goes up. This article definitely made me realize that administrative planning is clearly not working so a different approach needs to be attempted.
m. ravindran
I agree with your 2nd paragraph about parents having more involvement. As a parent, I know that about half of what a child learns regarding math and reading is done at home in the evening, and if parents don’t take the time to do this with their children, It doesn’t matter how good their school is rated or how low, the child will lag behind. Sadly, many people are single parents who work 2 jobs in an urban environment and can barely see their kids after work, and the child’s education suffers.
I have a lot of issues with the essay on centralization vs decentralization of schools. My biggest issue is that it completely ignores any social context when evaluating one method versus the other at different times in different places. The author does a fine job of outlining the inherent positives and negatives of the different approaches. Decentralization offers parents an community members a stronger influence in the decision making, and has had apparent success in bringing in teachers who are outside of a bureaucratic system that may have stagnated. However it can also be prone to corruption and nepotism as the author points out.
There are pros and cons to each system but the author fails to analyze them in a broader context. He speaks of Detroit’s public school system in perpetual chaos, but fails to take into account that Detroit’s overall population declined 25% in the same time period. He is also critical of any gains made through DDS in the 80s and 90s, but even modest gains in that period would be substantial considering the atmosphere of violence for youth in urban areas throughout that time period.
Social factors such as these would have a huge impact on how parents and administrators act within each decision making paradigm. Decentralization may give parents the most opportunity to be involved in decision making, and may benefit schools in a normal situation, but would be much less effective in the middle of an urban flight like Detroit is experiencing. Centralized decision making may be best for high need and/or poorer school systems, but may be too susceptible to graft and corruption in rural communities where there is insufficient oversight.
Decentralization is not a panacea. One cannot expect that quality of education to be automatically enhanced, or the education system to become more efficient or effective simply because of decentralization measures. Decentralization is complex a notion that needs to be understood in terms of the context of the culture of the place. We need to ask why we need to decentralize and for what purpose specifically. We may then decide what aspects of the education system need to be changed. The change may be one of a decentralization move, or it may be seen as a centralization move.
B Diamond
Great points you made, also seems like there are so many variables to consider, so when the author mentions that educational scores didn’t go up too much during a 10 year period etc., that could be due to many other variables like the one you mentioned, and I have a feeling that there are more to consider as well that are not easily seen at first.
oops , misspelled your last name….meant to write Dimond