Over twenty years ago, Bill Bennett popularized the term, "The Education Blob." The Blob is the seemingly infinite ocean of alphabet-soup organizations that lobby on behalf of educators and in opposition to any reforms that might upset the status quo. The teachers unions are the blobbiest of The Blob, but they have many allies in administrator associations, school board groups, professional associations, etc.
So to illustrate the intransigence of The Education Blob to adopt positive change, I hereby announce our new weekly feature, The Blobbiest Quote of the Week. And now, the inaugural winner...
Richard Flanary, the director of professional development services for the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP for short), who was quoted in Thursday's Education Daily (available to subscribers only, of which I think there are about 74) responding to John McCain's call for greater authority for school principals:
Certainly we support greater spending autonomy, but there needs to be more clarity on the criteria on which principals make these decisions. Principals already?? have very busy schedules, and I would hate to think that they would get caught in a situation where they are the purveyors of funds.
Yes, that would be terrible for the managers of large organizations (in this case, high schools) to "get caught in a situation" where they are responsible for making funding decisions! But why stop at schools? Someone should alert the private sector that it's stressing out its managers by expecting them to manage budgets. After all, managers already "have very busy schedules."
You get the point. This is the primary lobby for high school principals, and it's lobbying against giving principals more authority. Folks, most groups in Washington want more power for their members, not less. But if you think this is strange, you just haven't gotten to know The Education Blob.
Congratulations, Richard. We'll be back next week with another installment.
