New York City has finally closed the rubber rooms, which were the school system’s answer to dealing with teachers accused of incompetence or wrongdoing. The New York Times reports that “for the last several years, teachers accused of incompetence or wrongdoing have been forced into rubber rooms, formally called Temporary Reassignment Centers, where they receive a full salary but do not work while they wait for the Department of Education or a hearing officer to decide their fate. But in April, city officials and the teachers’ union agreed to eliminate the rooms, which had been a source of embarrassment for all. Beginning in the fall, those teachers will perform administrative duties or be sent home if they are deemed a threat to students.”

According to the Times, teachers were required to report at 8 a.m. and had to be escorted by security personnel to the room where they were required to remain until 2:50 p.m. Teachers could leave the room for a break or lunch but were forbidden to use the lunchroom in the building. What an expensive and demeaning process!

This is how top-down rule-oriented bureaucrats deal with problems. They create programs and develop rules. Don’t get me wrong. Bureaucracies are great for ensuring that the bells ring and the buses show up on time and for ordering textbooks. Bureaucracies are designed to preserve the status quo and to bring order from chaos. However, bureaucracies are not designed to innovate, and the challenges we face in education today require innovation not preserving the past.

A State of Mind

Let me be clear on one point. Bureaucracies don’t stifle innovation, bureaucrats do. Bureaucrat is not a person but a state of mind. An individual can work in a bureaucracy and not be a bureaucrat. In fact, I know quite a few innovative, collaborative leaders who do work in large bureaucracies.

Know One When You See One

Bureaucrats rely heavily on the organizational chart to maintain the top-down style of managing or controlling, not leading, an organization. Bureaucrats are great at making rules and developing procedures, both of which stifle innovation and creativity. Bureaucrats want to evaluate not build capacity. On the one hand, bureaucrats say they want innovative principals, while on the other, they do everything to control and restrict those same principals because that is what bureaucrats are supposed to do.

Bureaucrats raise student performance by edict. While doing nothing to increase student math skills, bureaucrats declare that all 8^th graders will take Algebra I …whether they are ready or not. Bureaucrats unilaterally terminate science programs and then blame the teachers for low science scores. Bureaucrats reactively stop reading programs and fire principals because their state test scores drop. Bureaucrats consistently say that there are not quick fixes, but they are always the ones proposing them. They shy away from the real challenges and seek the glamorous that will earn them recognition and promotion. It is the bureaucrats, not principals and school leaders, who unilaterally decide that 80% of all high schools start before 8:15 a.m. even though research shows that student achievement would be increased by 10% by starting later.

Bureaucrats determine that the best way to reform schools is the create rubber rooms, and to fire principals and teachers, because, after all, bureaucrats don’t innovate, they control and controllers need someone to blame.

Be a leader not a bureaucrat!

1. Focus on student needs and not on adults wants. When the focus is on students the adults usually do the right thing.
2. Trust: Believe that teachers and principals actually have something to contribute to the solution and that they want to help students succeed and that they are doing the best they can with what they have and what they know.
3. Believe that all students can learn if given the time and assistance they need.
4. Throw out the organization charts, and begin to work in collaborative partnerships.
5. Seek cooperation not control.
6. Ask questions and listen to the experts---those who are in the schools working with real students every day.
7. Leave your egos at the door and focus on doing the right thing not on who is right or who gets the credit.
8. Stop blaming and excusing and start learning and growing.
9. Differentiate your approach. Instead of declaring Algebra I for all 8th graders, align your K-7 math curriculum to prepare students for Algebra I by 8th grade and set targets for the number of students participating as well as the number achieving mastery.
10. Lead Change not Chaos - Support responsible change, not change for the sake of change. Have both a short- and a long-term strategy. Real change takes time. The research says four or more years to change the culture of a secondary school.