The Organizational System of U.S. Public Education

The organizational structures that hold a classroom together has been summarized with the term bureaucracy. The framework of rules, pressures, and interests that hold a classroom in place with the larger national system has become very explicit and formalized. Classrooms are connected by organizational rules and roles, by formulas, by lawyers and accountants. These rules and pressures are increasingly organized according to the administration of the state.

Comparison to other cultures - In most countries, the rise of central education preceded expanded mass public education. There is a national minister, compulsory education principle, curriculum, teacher certification system, and centralized structures of funding long before children are enrolled. The U.S. is different, however. A full century after this country developed the largest mass public education system in the world, a central educational bureaucracy of much substantive authority has yet to emerge. As of the last several years, there is a cabinet officer, but no such national educational officer, curriculum, etc, as found in other countries. In fact, one continuing political conflict in this country is that between advocates of local independence in decision making and authority and those who feel that more responsibility (and, subsequently, power) should be placed with the federal government to insure uniform educational resources and standards.

Present state of power and authority - Federal funding makes up less than 10% of public education expenditures. The central body of functionaries does not control the main educational structure itself, but only special programs within it (e.g., Head Start, National Defense Education Act). Bureaucratization occurs at the state level, where we find attendance policies, teacher definitions, curricular features, and 40% of school funding.

However, even these state systems came after the emergence of mass education - only in the latter part of the 19th century did states develop units of administration for education.

Even the modern school district - a structure where a staff controls a number of area schools - came after mass education was introduced (Kaestle & Vinovskis, 1976). Similarly, small neighborhood structures, rather than large units of many classrooms, typified schools before the late 19th century. Our present educational structure, therefore, is a function of a continually changing power and economic structure and one based on efficiency and economy. Further, it represents the attempt to standardize education based on higher-level policy and standards.

Traditional Dimensions of Bureaucratization (Weber, 1946)

1. Formalization of rules and roles

2. Rationalization - formalized roles and rules must be integrated around unified control and purpose

3. Increased scales of unit - bureaucratization is greater when rationalization extends over a wider domain

4. Homogenization or standardization of subunits

5. Levels of authority

Formalization

Number and size of schools

- The U.S. has gone from having systems with many small schools to those with a few larger ones; also the number of school districts themselves and superintendents has decreased

- This reflects more "efficient" bureaucratization

- For example, the mean school size went from 142 to 440 between 1940 and 1980, to 620 in 1990

- These school changes resulted in development of specialized administrative units

- For example, in 1940, less than 25% of school had principals, while today, there are more principals than schools

- Other additional structures, such as county offices of education which handle special programs and their funding, also emerged as school systems centralized.

- Teacher-student ratio also has decreased over the last century from about a mean of 27 students to a teacher to 19 students per teacher (although there is much variation across school systems due to economic, teacher demand, and other resource issues).

Standardization

- Homogeneity across states has increased in terms of staff size of departments of education, mean number of schools in a district, mean number of students in a school, mean number of students per school district, ratio of principals to schools, ratio of superintendents to districts

- Centralization and Bureaucratization

- Although most of educational funding is from state and local sources, the proportion of higher level (state and national) funding has increased from the earlier part of the 20th century

- This reflects increasing trend toward centralized control

Are Schools True Bureaucracies?

Within a given school, the criteria for bureaucratization are met (within traditional schools).

- In the larger educational system that encompasses the school, however, there are difficulties in discussing bureaucratization.

- Bureaucracy involves levels of power and authority based on the goals of the higher levels.

- Educational funding from federal and state agents does not seem to have empowered their purposes

- In other words, there is no national program or stated purpose for education at the federal level

- The programs that have been implemented at the federal level have been "decentralized" or specialized in nature (e.g., 60's programs for minorities and poor, 70s programs for disabled); they do not reflect agendas for all societal members.

Another issue involves how schools themselves function. At the national, state and district level, it is difficult to assume that the creation of general rules, laws, or principles means enactment in organizational reality. (This is one area where schools are distinct as organizations compared to other types of organizations).

- Much attention is focused on the development, creation, and ideological origins of schools and much less on the longer term organizational process that actually occurs

- So, the idea that schools function according to formal organizational rules and policies is not examined. Further, the extent to which individual members actively interact with or even recognize these structures is unclear. Therefore, the impact of specific structures, interrelationships, and policies on individuals within the school is difficult to ascertain.