Many worlds

POME immersed me into the deep pool of sociology, and I quickly became attracted to organizational theory and its cousin--institutional theory. This semester I'm in a different world with different assumptions; I'm taking a political science course, and sometimes I even feel unfaithful ;)

In polisci, folks are comfortable with assuming that people, cities, our nation, and the world work, for the most part, in rational ways. They talk about bureaucrats administrations accomplishing big goals and don't always mention the gory details involved!

But there's one framework from Kaufman that I like, and it could be useful for education and policy implementation. He mentions three approaches to bureaucracy:

1. Representativeness- We want to vote and have local control for everyone doing anything related to running/administering our government. I feel like some charter school supporters are in this camp.
   
2. Neutral competence- It would be a good idea to have people who have the appropriate skills and knowledge to work in government administrations and implement policy; don't even worry about their political stance. School reformers who want to train teachers till the cows come home ascribe to this.
   
3. Executive leadership-Should have someone controlling all the administrative units that are floating about. When we talk about the role of districts and particularly effective superintendents, I think we're commending them for coordinating and integrating efforts to improve schools.