Plenty of decisions are made in education everyday. Some of them are reasonable while others are hard to understand. Oftentimes we are wondering how they came to decisions in education. Here are some examples we have heard:
- Closing a program based on the superintendent’s viewpoint
- Slashing the budget based on the school district’s assessment
- Offering good money for someone as consultants to do nothing for schools
- Changing the education programs based on the policy and administrator’s liability
- Changing the way how teachers teach based on the NCLB Act
- Closing the school due to inclement weather based on the bus company’s (or bus drivers’) judgment
- Saving a teacher’s position based on a few powerful parents’ requests to the school district
- Establishing a new program with a referendum
- Setting the curricula based on the text book companies’ decision
- Changing the teacher’s tenure policy and teacher benefits based on the state government’s decision
- Deciding the appropriateness of education based on the Supreme Court’s judgment and ruling (e.g., Amy Rowley’s case)
- Making new initiatives of education reform with every new president
The decision makers for education may include elected officials, state and federal bureaucrats, school boards, administrators, textbook committees, parents, teacher unions, and individual classroom teachers. Many powerful politicians don’t understand education but they are very influential in the decision-making process. We should ask, “Do these people have the best interest of students in mind when making decisions in education?”
