Administering Education in Loosely Coupled Schools.

Abstract

Schools are not like other organizations, and they need to be managed differently, says Mr. Weick, who coined the term loose coupling in proposing a new theory of organization that takes the unique characteristics of schools into account Administrators in education often act as if the schools they manage are like most other organizations they en counter. They do what most managers do: namely, try to monitor performance closely, correct deviations from stan dards, specify job descriptions, design routines to deal with problems, give orders, make plans, consult, allocate re sources, and send policy memos. These managerial activities, which are taught in most programs of educational administra tion, presume at least four properties for the organization being managed: the ex istence of a self-correcting rational system among highly interdependent people, con sensus on goals and the means to attain those goals, coordination by the dissemi nation of information, and predictability of problems and of responses to those problems. When conventional manage ment theory is applied to organizations that do not have these four properties, ef fectiveness declines, people become con fused, and work doesn't get done. That seems to be one thing that is wrong with many schools. They are managed with the wrong model in mind. Schools are not like other organiza tions; consequently, they need to be man aged differently. Much of their unique ness derives from the fact that they are joined more loosely than is true for other organizations. For example, only a limited amount of inspection and evaluation oc curs in schools. A principal who visits a classroom too frequently is accused of harassment. Professionals are reluc tant to give one another unsolicited feed back. As a result, poor performance per sists because inattention is justified as respect for professional autonomy. The goals in education are also inde terminate, which makes them difficult to use as hard standards to evaluate indi vidual performance. Administrators and instructors work on variable raw material with little control over the supply; they

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