Masterminding Change in LAUSD
Zen M. S. Dean
Grand Canyon University: Psy 575
April 22, 2015
A learning
organization has developed the continuous capacity to
adapt and change –
Stephen Robbins, 2015
Introduction
School
Districts and how they are run are extremely politicized topics. Horror stories
of child molesters keeping their jobs as teachers, appear in gossip columns and
college text books alike. Reportedly, they show up in a rubber room each day
and collect big pay raises all thanks to powerful unions (Robbins, 2015, p.
429). Research on the effects of politics on how school districts are run shows
a positive correlation; local and external politics change how things are done
in schools (Hannaway, 1993, p. 160). Indeed, it seems that every election,
local or national, features some bill on education. There never seems to be
enough money to teach our children. This study will treat what may be wrong
with public school districts from an organizational behavior standpoint, and
what can be done to change them to become better functioning organizations.
More specifically, the Los Angeles Unified School District will be highlighted
as an example of an organization deeply in need of an over haul.
Method of Study
Four
tools for organizational change have been considered to describe a possible
solution for enacting change in LAUSD: the Lewin three-step plan, the Kotter
eight-step plan, the Action Research plan, or the Organization Development plan.
The Lewin plan is
a very simple concept that describes in metaphorical terms the necessary state
of mind for an organization to achieve positive change: unfreezing, movement
and refreezing (Robbins, 2015, p. 539). The problem with Lewin’s three steps is
that it actually does not address how to make a change, or how to freeze or
unfreeze. Those vital details are left to the user’s imagination, making
Lewin’s three step process nothing more than a post hoc labeling system.
The Kotter 8-step
plan builds on Lewin’s 3-step plan, and adds necessary details, which is a good
thing since the Lewin doesn’t really help with anything other than adjectives.
Kotter specifies that a company should establish a sense of urgency, form a
coalition or clique, create a new vision or method or strategies to make the
change, communicate the process to the company, empower others or give
permission to the members to make the change possible, develop an incremental
reward system, employ the principles of natural selection to engender and
reproduce the positive effects of the change and reinforce the changes by
retelling the history of the changes in light of the methods that caused them (a
revisionist retelling that justifies the change from a historical perspective)
(Robbins, 2015, p. 541).
Action Research is
an appealing method for enacting change in that is uses the scientific method
as its foundation. It is more of a principle-based method, and as such could
easily be used simultaneously with other change implementation theories like
the Lewin or the Kotter. There are specified steps to Action Research
(diagnosis, analysis, feedback, action, and evaluation) but one could easily
identify the words used as simply good science, good research methodology and
scholarly principles (Robbins, 2015, p. 541). The last change tool on the “critical
4” list is Organizational Development and will be discussed in the next
section.
The Change Tool that
Stands out Among the Others
Organizational
Development is another tool listed in the critical elements of this study that
can be applied along with any or all of the others without any conflict, and it
is for this reason, and the fact that it is both broad and potent at the same
time that it is the recommended tool for use by LAUSD, the problem organization
in this study. Robbins (2015) identifies several main characteristics of this
model: respect for people, trust and support, power equalization, confrontation
and participation (p. 542). Of course, each of the listed principles could be reason
enough for an entire study on its own. And, if this list of principles were the
entirety of the Organizational Development method for change facilitation, it
would be too broad to compete with a more specific method like the Kotter
8-step. But, this list of principles comes with a more discrete list of actions
that puts a powerful theory into the realm of a powerful practice as well. The
accompanying list of practice techniques is: sensitivity training, survey
feedback, process consultation, team building, intergroup devel0opment, and
appreciative inquiry (Robbins, 2015, p. 542-545).
LAUSD – Criticized from
Start to Finish
The purpose of this
case study is not to try and convince the reader that there is a problem with
LAUSD as an organization. But as a factual claim, some outside consensus needs
to be shown. Among scholarly papers that criticize LAUSD, any good researcher
can find many. For this purpose, starting at the start, in its teacher training
programs seems foundational enough to establish with one reference that there
is a problem at the organizational core of LAUSD. In 1995, it was noted by
scholar James Mead, after extensive research, “The
Los Angeles Teacher Training Program [is] a teacher education program that
discounted the participant's experience” (p. 19). This quote cuts right through
to the core of the problem with LAUSD – lack of respect for its teachers.
How to Fix LAUSD using Organizational Development
LAUSD was founded in 1961, and has
weathered its share of scandals, including racial segregation (Wikipedia, 2015,
LAUSD). One of the attributes that LAUSD suffers from is an authoritarian style
of leadership. To change an organization as large as LAUSD, one would have to
make changes at a fundamental level, and that is why the Organizational
Development is a good place to start. The principles that make up the method
are principles that anyone would agree with. Respect for others is agreed upon
by everyone. There would be no need to create urgency when what you are selling
is respect, trust and support. Where LAUSD might need persuading is the matter
of power equalization. Principals like to see themselves as gods. Ego prevents
them from being capable of change. And when that change happens to be taking
some of their power away, and even worse, giving some of that power to teachers
and other staff members, there is likely to be a war brewing.
It’s at this point that the
prescribed specific actions of the Organizational Development come into play.
Starting with sensitivity training, principals and other administrators can be
helped to see how their power trip (lack of sensitivity towards the power
possessed by other people) affects other people, and how ultimately the
students feel these effects. Sensitivity training therefore, can accomplish
what developing a sense of urgency accomplishes in Kotter’s 8-step plan.
LAUSD schools are designed like
little dictatorships. Pyramid in shape actually. Frankly, the office of
principal is not needed at all. If OD were taken seriously as a method of
solving organizational dysfunction, then power equalization and participation
in decision making could be spread out to teams. Instead of a pyramid shape to
organizational structure, a circular shape could be employed, as a sort of nod
to Paolo Freire. Perhaps, a radical restructuring, eliminating the principal,
is exactly what is needed in schools. In fact, why couldn’t students be
represented by students, giving real power to students?
Team building is another process used in OD, but
perhaps there is another way to interpret team building. Why not actually build
official teams that would take the place of principal and other administrative
positions? And then, the teams that are built can rotate in and out of
existence. The notion of authority could actually be eliminated. Students could
not only have a vote in what is done, but they can have a say in what is done.
Conclusion
A study of this size is hardly sufficient to solve all
the problems with a famously mismanaged organization. The union, which some
claim is too powerful, is never powerful enough to solve problems, yet just
powerful enough to keep bringing up new conflicts. The district has made
punishment of teachers its main function perhaps as a result of having to wade
through the current of the union which resists punishment of its members. This
has resulted in higher and higher sentences being dreamt up to punish teachers,
because punishing them for infractions is so hard. It’s a fight that
administration needs to give up. Creating non-punitive conflict resolution by
using process consultation could end that war immediately, as a final example.
LAUSD is not the only school district that is in sore need of change. Truth be
told, all available change tools need to be used to fix education. There are so
many values-based conflicts in education that everyone that says “fix
education” means a totally different thing. Many mean, change education back to
what it was in the 1930s. It is a tough problem therefore. That is another
reason why OD is the preferred fix. (It aims more directly at foundational
fixes.) It is probably the slowest change tool among them all, but the changes
it makes will be foundational values based changes that have the lasting power,
not of mere trends and fads in organizational government, but of solid
research-based science by organizational experts.
`
References
Hannaway, J.
(1993). Political pressure and Decentralization in institutional organizations:
The
case of school districts. Sociology
Of Education, 66(3), 147-163.
Mead, J. V., &
National Center for Research on Teacher Education, E. M. (1995). Labor
Relations
101: An Undeclared Context Specific Course for Prospective Teachers in an
Alternative Training Program. Issue Paper 95-1.
No author cited.
(2015). Los Angeles Unified School District. Wikipedia. Retrieved from:
Robbins, S. &
Judge, T. (2015). Organizational Behavior, Sixteenth Edition. Upper
Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall
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