1. Problem Identification & Analysis
1.1 Organisational Culture
During her tenure as superintendent of the Atlanta Public School System (APS), Beverly Hall instilled a problematic results-driven culture, placing premiums on student performance with no tolerance for any results bar unattainable performance. This poisonous achievement culture was exemplified by the view that her management enforced a “low score out the door” (Simons & Kindred, 2017) policy with employees. This organizational culture spread like a plague throughout the APS infecting all levels with corrupt and fraudulent practices.
Organizational culture comprises the cornerstones of core values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by the organizational members (Williams, McWilliams, & Lawrence, 2017). In the APS, Hall implemented an achievement culture. This type of organizational culture has an external strategic focus with a view to sustainability, as the organization concerns itself with serving customers in the external environment and fosters a results-oriented culture (Williams et al., 2017). This altered the invisible values of the organizational culture as it encouraged principals and teachers to covet results and performance over all else. Acts such as a principal saying he “needs those numbers” (Simons & Kindred, 2017, p. 9) and threats of job termination should goals not be met (Simons & Kindred, 2017, p. 11) exhibit how the focus on results caused employees to shift their focus to achieving these goals at any cost, leading to resorting to widespread fraud.
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The consequence of a results-oriented culture and external pressure to achieve, such as under the No Child Left Behind policy, have been shown to burden schools. Schools feel obligated to satisfy performance requirements instead of delivering their mission (Male & Palaiologou, 2015). Male & Palaiologou (2015) further suggest that the use of models ignores the needs of the community of the educational organization. This evidence shows that a results-obsessed achievement culture was destined to fail in the APS at every level, as the focus shifted from the needs of students in the Atlanta community to achieving the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act.
2. Generation and Evaluation of a Range of Alternative Solutions
2.1 Organisational Culture
2.1.1 New Superintendent
Male & Palaiologou (2015) suggest that installing a culture in a school as a priority over the interests of any agenda create a strong core values that build a positive culture of success. One potential solution is to appoint a new superintendent, with the aim of installing a leader who aims to instill a relation-oriented culture focused on what is best for the children in the APS.
- Advantages:
- Shift the focus of the APS from achieving performance goals to focussing on improving schooling for students
- Strengthening the group sense of belonging and increasing the level of interdependence discouraging acts or corruption and fraud through cheating, based on social bonding theory (Gentina, Tang, & Gu, 2017)ach
- Establish a culture in which goals are expressed in terms of achieving the “greatest good for the greatest number of people rather than individual achievement” (Male & Palaiologou, 2015)
- Disadvantages:
- Does not relieve the external political pressures of performance requirements of No Child Left Behind
- Does not replace other corrupt leaders in the APS, who may continue cheating practices
- New culture most effective without performance requirements, particularly concerning requirements for tertiary entry (Male & Palaiologou, 2015)
2.1.2 Reform No Child Left Behind Act
According to Loyalka, Sylvia, Liu, Chu, & Shi (2019), level and gains incentives encourage teachers to focus only on select students and do not elicit any meaningful change in achievement in any segment of students. Therefore, the incentivization based on level or gain increase from class averages such as what is used in No Child Left Behind is ineffective. Reforming it to offer pay-for-percentile incentives offers an opportunity to positively revitalize the program.
- Advantages:
- Pay for percentile incentives have been shown to meaningfully improve student achievement (Loyalka et al. 2019)
- Pay for percentile outperforms class average achievement-based incentivization and class achievement gains from when examining achievement of every individual student (Loyalka et al., 2019)
- Places a greater focus on the welfare and learning of individual students, catering to everyone
- Disadvantages:
- Requires a nationwide rollout or special conditions under the No Child Left Behind Act
- Implementation would not be instantaneous
2.1.3 De-Centralisation of APS
Segmenting the APS, to give control of smaller segments of schools to more administrators allowing for fiscal de-centralization and serving smaller communities has been shown to increase efficiency in resource allocation for public services (Zhu, 2017)
- Advantages:
- Increases efficiency of resource allocation for schools (Zhu, 2017)
- Allows for administrators to more closely tailor the schools to the needs of the community
- Disadvantages:
- Possible the best practices are not well enforced (Zhu, 2017)
- Possible that best practices are not well enforced (Zhu, 2017)
- Does not relieve performance pressures from No Child Left Behind
3. Recommendations
3.1 Organisational Culture
The recommendation being put forth is the installation of a new superintendent. Revitalizing and altering the culture of the APS would allow the organization to refocus on a new set of goals and values going forward. The effect of this change is to implement an involvement culture in the APS which shifts focus internally and places a high value on meeting the needs of internal members (Williams et al., 2017). This form of behavioral substitution is an effective form of transitioning from an established culture to a new organizational culture (Williams et al., 2017) and allows the APS to transition from their achievement culture to an involvement culture.
While an attempt to reform the performance program may have proven benefits, the amount of time required to uproot an established system and install a pay-for-percentile incentive program that contradicts the No Child Left Behind Act renders it infeasible. Furthermore, de-centralization is not guaranteed to have the desired effect without problematic unintended consequences where best practice is not upheld. Hence, the advantage of a new appointee to introduce an improved culture focused on students has been suggested by Male & Palaiologou (2015) to be more effective than reliance upon models of leadership. Furthermore, the ease and speed that a new superintendent could be installed far outperform the delayed implementation the alternative solutions would require.
Therefore, the recommendation of this report is that the APS appoint a new superintendent, who aims to implement an involvement culture to best serve the internal members (Williams et al., 2017), therefore placing a premium on positive student outcomes.
References
- Gentina, E., Tang, T., & Gu, Q. (2017, December). Does Bad Company Corrupt Good Morals? Social Bonding and Academic Cheating among French and Chinese Teens. Journal of Business Ethics, 146(3), 639-667. doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2939-z
- Loyalka, P., Sylvia, S., Liu, C., Chu, J., & Shi, Y. (2019). Pay by Design: Teacher Performance Pay Design and the Distribution of Student Achievement. Journal of Labor Economics, 37(3), 621-662. doi:https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/10.1086/702625
- Male, T., & Palaiologou, I. (2015). Pedagogical leadership in the 21st century: Evidence from the field. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(2), 214-231. doi:https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/10.1177/1741143213494889
- Simons, R., & Kindred, N. (2017). Atlanta Schools: Measures to Improve Performance. Harvard Business School, 1-25.
- Williams, C., McWilliams, A., & Lawrence, R. (2017). MGMT3. Melbourne: Cengage Learning.
- Zhu, M. (2017). The quality and efficiency of public service delivery in the UK and China. Regional Studies, 51(2), 285-296. doi:10.1080/00343404.2015.1080992
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