edited by Edward J. Dirkswager
2002
In the world of management theory, the 1990s featured much talk of a workplace shift from "command and control" hierarchies to empowered high-performance teams. This ethos permeates Teachers as Owners. In the second paragraph we read, "The typical organizational structure of our school systems contains a rigid hierarchy of roles and decision-making power, with teachers firmly positioned at the bottom of this hierarchy. Very simply, teachers are employees, and like most employees in rigid hierarchical organizations, they have a limited range of decision-making powers." The book's thesis is that, by empowering teachers as owners of their own means of production, communities will see a rise in student achievement. Few would deny that teachers prefer to work in schools that trust them, empower them to make decisions, value their input, and invites innovation. Yet empowerment only seems to succeed when those being empowered are fully committed to the enterprise, highly skilled at its work, and able to be trusted at all times. Democratic models of employment quickly collapse when they encounter slackers or inept members. Once trust is lost, rules and regulations are created to prevent cheating by the minority that would wreak havoc if left to their own devices. This fact collides with the theory of creating leaderless systems run by equal partners. The editor of this book notes that teachers who work in teacher-owned schools "believe that 100 to 250 students is a desirable size. They believe that schools of this size are better able to create a learning community." If a school gets much larger, teachers cannot effectively regulate themselves and the slackers can successfully hide. One must therefore ask whether teacher empowerment is a sound reform strategy for many U.S. schools, particularly in urban districts where the average elementary school enrolls 500 students, and the average high school more than 750. The ideas in Teachers as Owners are definitely worth considering-and may be applicable in charter schools and some regular public schools-but one can't put the book down without noting the chasm between these ideas and the realities of most American schools. For more information, see http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0810843722.
