New Three R’s: Rules, Regulations, and More Rules Conducted by Focus Group Resource for Common Good Colorado
October 2007 The New Three R’s: Rules, Regulations, and More Rules, a new report commissioned by Common Good’s state affiliate Common Good Colorado, provides an inside look at how laws, regulation, and legal fear are impacting education in Colorado’s public schools.
According to the findings of the report, teachers and administrators from across the state report feeling both burdened by multitudes of complex and often counterproductive laws, rules and policies and fearful of legal action due to the increasingly litigious and compliance-driven environment inside schools. Such burdens and restrictions, they believe, are putting teaching and learning at stake. The New Three R’s illuminates educators’ concerns with a wide range of laws and policies that impact schools - from curricula to accountability to student discipline. Key findings in the report include:
The extent to which educators feel burdened
• On average, teachers and administrators reported spending 20 to 30 percent of their time on mandated activities that make little sense to them
• 77 percent of participants rated the extent of legal and regulatory burdens as a “5” or higher on a scale of “1” to “10”
Legal fear as a daily reality in schools
• Over 60 percent of teachers and administrators said they experienced a high to moderate fear of lawsuits; roughly half of the participants had been threatened with a lawsuit
• The fear of litigation stems from basic tasks like assigning a grade, breaking up a fight or evaluating a teacher
Specific laws that create excessive bureaucratic responsibilities on teachers and administrators and are counter-productive to maximizing student success.
• Teachers and administrators commented specifically on complicated, time-consuming and often counterproductive procedures related to implementing multiple accountability systems, disciplining disruptive students, removing less than satisfactory teachers from the classroom, and meeting the needs of special education students.
» View the report
» View the press release
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