Bureaucracy in Schools

Learning Organizations versus Learning Communities

In education, learning organizations and learning communities are two major concepts in the contemporary bid to improve the educational system in America. Learning organizations is the academic adaptation of the ‘learning organization’ concept in the commercial world (Stephenson, 2013). The main premise of learning organization is the Thinking Entity concept where an organization develops a virtual brain where thinking is done and decisions made. In a school operating under the learning organization concept, teachers and administrators do not just follow rules, regulations, and standards (Stephenson, 2013). Instead, they work together to formulate their own rules, regulations and standards for the school under an indirect superintendence by academic administrators (DuFour, 2016). 

On the other hand, learning communities is a budding concept that has grown so wide and has become amorphous or incapable of singular definition. It entails the coming together of stakeholders in pedagogy such as teachers, local, state, and federal administrators with a view to sharing ideas and developing rules, regulations, and standards (Stephenson, 2013). Both learning organization and learning community concepts regard an informal system of developing a new approach to education in general and teaching in particular. However, learning organization leans towards schools operating in a more disentangled and independent manner while learning community seeks an informal way of ensuring school standards are developed in a relatively uniform manner. 

Whereas the learning organization environment is a great improvement from the traditional rigid system, the learning community environment is most ideal for the improvement of education standards. This is because a careful balance must be maintained between creating a tailor-made system of education for learners and ensuring that what they learn will enable them cope with other learners at the tertiary level (DuFour, 2016). Relating with other educators through a learning community will ensure that through sharing of ideas, a level of uniformity is maintained. At the same time, the localized format of the learning community will still ensure that education standards retain a level of local relevance (DuFour, 2016). 

Impact of the traditional education view on today’s learning environments and standards

The transformation of educational environment and standards has taken the approach of a review as opposed to an overhaul (Mayhew, 2014). Since the traditional system was never ruled out and replaced, it creates an avenue for it to still have a solid impact on the current learning environment despite the changes made. The traditional education system was premised on the concept of an omniscient teacher and a very difficult education (Mayhew, 2014). Learning was perceived to be hard in the traditional system that a perfect score was considered a marvel. 

Getting good grades was also seen as a major achievement for children. Since only a few children could succeed in this system, academic stages were created as bottlenecks with the next level being always exponentially smaller than the previous (Mayhew, 2014). This would accommodate the strugglers who found education as too daunting a task and gave up. These two major concepts continue to negatively affect contemporary education as the teacher is still considered as the supreme source of knowledge. Secondly, education is still considered to be hard and only for the very intelligent. Indeed, it is only a very small percentage of the Americans who join elementary education that pursue a tertiary level of education (Mayhew, 2014). 

Effects of Standards on the Quality of Education

Education standards denote both the level and quality of education envisaged in a learning setting and the mode of testing for the set standard (Ravitch, 2016). By extension, it can be defined as how learners are to be taught as well as how to evaluate what has been learnt. No matter how competent the teaching team is and how astute the learners are, the standards of education as set play a major role in the quality of education offered and received. The nature of approach to teaching, the magnitude of information set to be passed to the learners and the nature of assessment done are some of the basic standards. The nature of standards set will either supplement the efforts of the teaching staff or limit it (Wayne, Mathison, & Vinson, 2014 ). Further, standards can encourage the learners, discourage them or even create apathy towards education. From the foregoing, standards alone have a definitive impact on the quality of education. 

Personal Position on the Involvement Level of State and Federal Agencies in Standards

Before educational standards were established, education was a very private concept controlled and managed locally at the family or village level (Ravitch, 2016). With industrialization however, schooling became a necessity and a standardized formal schooling system was established. Standardization of schooling was important as learners from diverse backgrounds would places in a working or higher learning environment. With time however, standardization graduated into control by the local and state governments. Currently, the federal governments under the Obama administration have attempted to take over control of education standards (Ravitch, 2016). This is premised on federal funding for public school education. In my opinion, this is a wrong move since the federal government owns no monies, but only a custodian of taxpayer’s money. The philosophy behind federal agencies controlling education standards is therefore erroneous. Secondly, federal control of education standards will create uniformity in education standards nationally (Ravitch, 2016). This in itself is a fallacy as America is perhaps the most ethnically, demographically, socially and economically diverse nation in the world. It is impossible to create a nationalized education standard that will be effective in the affluent neighborhoods of Greenwich, Connecticut and a poor neighborhood in New Orleans contemporaneously. 

With regard to state agencies, diversity issues are still prevalent in the smallest states albeit in a smaller scope. Fixed state standards will, therefore, be impracticable due to the wide scope it would entail. However, it is also my informed opinion that some level of superintendence is necessary especially in education standards to ensure a level of uniformity. Therefore, federal and state agencies should play three major roles. The first role is the establishment of parameters within which school standards should be set. These parameters should be in the form of bare minimums. Secondly, federal and state agencies should play an independent oversight role and only intervene as and when necessary. Finally, they should equip, but not micromanage the learning community system to ensure the development of relatively uniform but relevant education standards. 

Ways to Find Mutual Ground with People of the Opposition 

The first fundamental means of finding mutual ground with the opposition is addressing the underlying negative issues in the proposer’s arguments (Wallenstein, 2015). This creates a sense of good faith with the opposition and also removes the issue of the opposition seeking for flaws in the proposal. Even the best planned, organized, and researched proposal will have a genuine flaw, and these are the flaws that the opposition will seek out and use as a point of focus in their opposition (Wallenstein, 2015). Finding the flaw as a proposer and seeking a mutual way of resolving it is a great way to begin negotiations. 

The second means of finding a mutual ground with people of the opposition is compromise (Wallenstein, 2015). When faced with opposition, it is very possible, even probable for the entire plan to fail in entirety. A good negotiator should know an aspect of the plan that can be sacrificed without interfering with the overall practicability of the whole plan. This part of the plan should also be part and parcel of the aspect of the proposal susceptible to the highest form of opposition (Wallenstein, 2015). By compromising on this part, the opposition will be assured of good faith and encouraged to compromise too. Mutual compromise will eventually create a mutual ground. 

The last point in finding mutual ground is avoiding the temptation to win at the expense of the other party through malafide tactics (Wallenstein, 2015). This is a preventative means to avoid barriers towards the arrival to a common ground. It is premised on the understanding that once the opposition doubts the good faith of the proposal, all the common ground established through the proposals above will be lost. The initial common ground for any opposition is that they are stakeholders in the endeavor (Wallenstein, 2015). Their concerns on the proposal, albeit mistaken is, therefore, valid. This implies that a strategy that uses guile to overcome opposition is bound to fail even if it seemingly garners interim success. Indeed, during negotiations, the opposition will be carefully looking for guile as an excuse to scuttle the process which would result in a success for the opposition (Wallenstein, 2015). 

Areas where my school district needs the most improvement and the solutions thereto 

Profound learning and solution

Profound learning also known as deep learning is a form of learning geared towards creating an understanding on the subject as opposed to merely memorizing facts (Macmillan, 2013). Profound understanding is fundamental especially for the STEM subjects and is continually emphasized in my school district. Unfortunately, the standards of testing undertaken in elementary education have not embraced profound learning. Most of the testing regimens evaluate the amount of the information the student has as opposed to the level of understanding. This problem has encouraged the students to memorize facts as opposed to understand them in a bid to achieve better grades. The solution to this problem is to overhaul the testing systems and make them conform to profound learning, in the very least with regard to STEM subjects. Albeit this process will be expensive, it is worth the expense. 

Superficial learning and solution

This is a form of learning which entails feeding of excess information to learners. Under the circumstances, the learners are forced to memorize the information as opposed to understanding it (Macmillan, 2013). Despite the continued emphasis on the move to reduce if not eliminate superficial learning in my district, it still thrives out of necessity rather than choice. The concept of tertiary education varying exponentially in quality has created a desire, and indeed a race to enroll into reputable tertiary level institutions such as the Ivy League universities. 

This has created a bottleneck in these institutions where only those who perform best in their examinations can gain entry. The bottlenecks force students with high aspiration to take up a wide array of subjects coupled with extra-curriculum activities. This limits time leaving students with no choice than to adopt superficial learning. The solution to this problem is twofold. The first is to improve local tertiary level institutions to eliminate the scramble for a few reputed organizations and enable students to concentrate on leaning not passing exams. The second solution is to overhaul examination methodology to avoid the need for too much information by the learners. 

Content Standards

Content standards refer to what the students should learn over a period of time or to have covered in a certain course (Macmillan, 2013). The content standards in my district have been undergoing a continued mutation according to the continued review of education environment and standards in the state. This has not only continually created an element of improvement in the system, but also created inconsistencies and confusion. The content standards have also seemed to vary albeit mildly from school to school yet testing standards are generally uniform. The solution to this problem is the creation of well laid down parameters within which content standards are to be set. 

Performance Standards 

These are the basic minimum standards that must be met for a learner to have accomplished a level of education (Macmillan, 2013). It involves the thresholds, requirements, and expectation that need to be appraised to reach the expected level of performance. In my district, the performance standards are well set out from the perspective of teachers. However, a very different regimen is used during the actual testing standards that are vital for the students. Therefore, the set performance standards are continually abandoned in a bid to prepare students for what really matters, which is the passing of periodical examinations. The solution to this problem lies on the establishment of secondary and valid testing and grading systems that correspond to the performance standards utilized during certification of the students. 

References

DuFour, R. (2016). Educational leadership: Schools as learning communities: What is a professional learning community? Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may04/vol61/num08/What-Is-a-Professional-Learning-Community%C2%A2.aspx 

Mayhew, B. (2014). Non-traditional education: A view from the market.  Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration ,  17 (2)

McMillan, J. H. (2013).  Classroom Assessment: Pearson New International Edition: Principles and Practice for Effective Standards-Based Instruction . New York: Pearson Higher Ed. 

Ravitch, D. (2016).  The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education . New York: Basic Books. 

Stephenson, J., & Yorke, M. (2013).  Capability and quality in higher education . London: Routledge. 

Wallenstein, P. (2015).  Understanding conflict resolution . New York: Sage. 

Wayne, E., Mathison, S., & Vinson, K. D. (2014). Social studies education and standards-based education reform in North America: Curriculum standardization, high-stakes testing, and resistance.  Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Educativos , 10(1),  19-48.