The Burden of Law Diane Ravitch
The Miami Herald, March 1, 2005 A new Miami Herald editorial by leading education expert and author Diane Ravitch praises Common Good's Over Ruled study for exposing a fundamental problem in our public schools: the burden of law that increases costs and undermines effectiveness.
"Schools today are being strangled by a ton of laws, regulations, contracts, mandates and rules," Ravitch writes. "If we do not figure out how to restore authority to teachers and principals, then our schools will continue to become ever more expensive and ever less effective."
"In every situation," Ravtich continues, "the principal must take care not to violate federal laws, state laws, court decisions, consent decrees, case law, union contracts and chancellor's regulations. Common Good's website has links to 50 legal authorities that limit or control what the principal can and cannot do."
For example, a principal who "determines that a student is disrupting the learning environment ... must embark on a very lengthy legal process that involves multiple letters, notifications, conferences, hearings, appeals, decisions at the local level, more conferences, more hearings, more appeals, decisions at the regional level, more hearings, more appeals and so on. It may take several weeks to resolve the matter." (Learn more.)
Pointing to a solution, Ravitch quotes Common Good chair Philip K. Howard: "We should let the administrators and teachers use their judgment and then hold them accountable for their performance."
Ravitch is a research professor at New York University and a distinguished visiting fellow at Hoover Institution. She is the author of The Language Police, among numerous other works. Ravitch is also a Common Good Education Advisory Board member.
Ravitch begins her editorial by discussing a recent visit she made to an inner-city Catholic high school:
I was impressed with what I saw. The halls were quiet, the students respected their teachers, and the principal was the ultimate authority on issues regarding students and teachers.
I had a nagging suspicion that I had seen a school very much like this long ago. Then I remembered: I was seeing a reflection of the public high school in Houston that I had attended a half century ago.
(The New York Archdiocese spends about $3,800 per student, compared to the nearly $12,000 that the New York City schools spend. Under a recent judicial order, the City will begin spending nearly $18,000 per student.)
Learn more about Common Good's Over Ruled study.
| 
