First: On PowerPointtorture is not the goal…

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Alex Gregory,The New Yorker, 9/29/2003

Part I:A Primer On Bureaucracy

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Bureaucracy: Accomplishment or Evil?

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

A Prolegomenon: The connections problem…

•Members must be sufficiently connected to each other in some way to be able to communicate with each other, understand each other, and coordinate their activities.

•And members must be sufficiently connected to their enterprise’s purposes and values so that, either willingly or unwillingly, they will function to reflect or achieve them.-T. Sergiovanni, Leadership for the Schoolhouse, p. 50

•All social enterprises must solve the connections problem if they are to function effectively.

Administration, then, may be understood as the making, sustaining, and strengthening of desired connections within organizations.(Desired by whom, however, remains an important question.)

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Danny Shanahan, The New Yorker 10/8/2001

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Weberian Bureaucracy:A Hallmark of the Technical-Rational

Enterprise that is Modernism

An Ideal Type that describes the formal, rational-legal connections that would make organizations uniform, efficient, and equitable.

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

The bureaucratic perspective:technical correctness

The orientation of bureaucracy is rational and impersonal (i.e., facts over feelings), so that the exercise of power and authority ideally emphasizes persona not person, collective projects not individual plans, and collective goals not individual aspirations.

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Characteristics of bureaucracy• Division of labour/hierarchy of offices• Explicit rules• Specialization secured through training• Written documentation; record keeping• Explicit goals and standards• Equal treatment (no favouritism)• Organizational goals supersede individual

desires• Positions and means of production belong to

the organization, not to the individual

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Division of Labour

• Organization of teaching and schooling by age-segregated grades and subject specializations;

• Proliferation of specialist services and areas of expertise;

• A distinct managerial or administrative cadre.

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Hierarchy of Offices

• Distinctive levels of power and authority within the organization determined by putative areas of expertise;

• Supervision “from above” as a means to ensure compliance with organizational practices, values, and goals.

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Explicit Rules

• Practice is made uniform through explicit rules and guidelines for the conduct of individuals and for the accomplishment of work (e.g., standardized operating procedures);

• Defined ways of doing things shape self-definition, and group identities and interactions.

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Specialization Secured Through Training

• Scientifically (i.e.,objectively) substantiated technical knowledge as the basis for professional practice;

• Training or internalization and mastery of the knowledge-base is prerequisite to organizational success and advancement.

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Written Documentation

• Systematic records are kept of organizational activities in order to ensure that professional performance and individual achievement are effectively monitored and managed;

• Each organizational member inscribes her own history of accomplishment and failure.

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Explicit Goals and Standards

• Explicit goals give order, purpose/orientation, and harmony to organizational projects and to individual work;

• Explicit standards ensure fairness in work and managerial evaluation.

Part II:Bureaucracy-Making and the

Metaphor of Pyramid Building

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Pyramid Building:An Ancient Art?...

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

…Or a Continuing Societal Preoccupation?

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

pyramids can be material constructions or creations of a more subtle and elusive sort…

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

A familiar image…

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

that contains an archetypal representation of bureaucracy:

Part III:Critiques of Bureaucracy

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Frank Cotham, The New Yorker, 3/17/1997

“It’s always cozy in here. We’re insulated by layers of bureaucracy.”

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

from Terry Gilliam’s dystopian film Brazil

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Critiques of Bureaucracy:self-perpetuation & proliferation

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Critiques of Bureaucracy:

client frustration

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Critiqes of Bureaucracy:mandatory conformity

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Landscape with Figures, George Tooker, 1965-66

Critiques of Bureaucracy:red tape

The colourful term used to refer to the seemingly endless parade of paperwork that accompanies many official matters got its start in jolly old England. It seems that thick legal documents were bound or tied with red cloth tape. So when someone spoke of cutting through the red tape, they meant it

in a very literal sense. [http://ask.yahoo.com/20030901.html]

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Critiques of Bureaucracy:

the disadvantages of pyramids

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Critiques of Bureaucracy:

documentation overwhelms and entraps

the individual

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

One last clip from…

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Part IV:Bureaucracy Reconsidered and,

Perhaps Redeemed

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

“Contrary to what most people see as the source of alienation in modern life, none of this difficulty is attributable simply to bureaucratization and specialization of function. A bureaucracy need not be a vast, impersonal organization. A classic French restaurant, with its hierarchical organization, strictly defined jobs and precisely delimited territory, is an ideal-type of bureaucracy, but it does respond precisely to guests who know good cuisine and demand it…”

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

“If it is organized so as to pinpoint responsibility for different aspects of the process of dealing with and responding to clients, a bureaucracy can bring far more resources to bear on its response than an individual could…”

“In terms of its organization chart, the Hotel Pierre is probably even more bureaucratic than the New York City House of Detention. This is one reason – though probably not the most important one – that it is more responsive to the wishes and needs of its inmates.”

-Edgar Z. Friedenberg, The Disposal of Liberty and Other Industrial Wastes, p. 22 (emphasis added)

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

“Many of the “sins” of bureaucracy really reveal the failure to bureaucratize sufficiently.

We have constructed a society where the satisfaction of our wants as consumers largely depends on restricting the employees who do the producing. Bureaucracy cannot be faulted for society’s demands.” – Charles Perrow, Why Bureaucracy, p. 5

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

“Organizations are tools. The bureaucratic ideal assumes the uses are legitimate – that is, in society’s interests. In doing so it disguises some of the purposes to which people put organizations.

organizations are tools for shaping the world as one wishes it to be shaped. They provide the means for imposing one’s own definition of the proper affairs of humankind on others.” – Charles Perrow, Why Bureaucracy, p. 11 (emphasis added)

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

“Viewing organizations as tools should reduce our tendency to cry incompetence when they do not do what we think they should . . . a tool view alerts us to the possibility that what we see as incompetent performance or policy really reflects what some leaders wanted all along…”

“Bureaucracy is not the breeder of incompetence, as we often would like to believe. Instead, bureaucratic organization allows leaders to achieve goals, some of which are unannounced and costly for the rest of us and are only attributed to incompetence.”

– Charles Perrow, Complex Organizations, p. 13 [emphasis in original]

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

“Critics, then, of our organizational society, whether they are the radicals of the Left emphasizing spontaneity and freedom, the New Right demanding their own form of radical decentralization, or the liberals in between speaking of the inability of organizations to be responsive to community values, had best turn to the key issue of who controls the varied forms of power generated by organizations, rather than flail away at the windmills of bureaucracy.”– Charles Perrow, Why Bureaucracy, p. 47 (emphasis added)

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

“As bureaucracies satisfy, delight, pollute, and satiate us with their output of goods and services, they also shape our ideas, our very way of conceiving of ourselves, control our life chances, and even define our humanity.

-Charles Perrow, Complex Organizations, p. 5 (emphasis added)

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Part V:Some things to think about…

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Schools

Where are schools on the organizational continuum?

bureaucraticorganization

(e.g., corporation)

professionalorganization

(e.g., partnership)

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

Why do schools tend to resist differentiation and to assume similar,

and typically bureaucratic, organizational forms and features?

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

What happens within organizations and to administration when we

move, or try to move, from this…

A rch etyp a l B u rea u c ra tic O rg a n iza tion

L in e E m plo yee L in e E m plo yee L in e E m plo yee

B o ss

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

To this…?

Or tothis?

Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaEDU 5263: Introduction to Educational Administration

What might change in the organizational life of the school if this change were to be effected?