"If...principals save all the directives they receive from the central office in one 180-day school year, the stack can include as many as 400 items, all signed by a high official and issued under the authority of the school board. How can anyone direct the instructional program of a school and still comply with two new directives every day about how money is to be spent, time is to be used, employees are to be supervised, records are to be kept, or property is to be managed?
These speakers' tricks work because they have a point. Lay persons are shocked to see the documents that regulate schools and instinctively understand that they must be loaded with provisions that do something other than promote school performance.
Most state governments and big-city school boards impede the education of public school students by overregulation. They do so because of the politics of public spending. When there is tax money at stake, regulations are needed to prevent complaints about unfair allocation or inappropriate spending. "
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I wonder how many pages of central office communications a typical Fayette County principal might collect in a year. 400 feels low to me.
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