Why are school administrators so STOO-PID?

[bluestateguy]

Why is it that school administrators seem to lack common sense, sound judgement and flexibility? Why are they so spineless and lacking in character?

The incident with the clock boy in Irving is only another example.

[valerief]

1. They're willfully racist, not stupid. nt

[elleng]

2. Politics, internal or otherwise.

[unblock]

3. an old saying: those who can, do; those who can't do, teach; those who can't teach, administer....

not a very nice or fair old saying, but i offer it up for your amusement.

[Igel]

4. Because they're doing 30 jobs.

None of them involving drug monitoring, botany, or electronics. Ours struggle to keep up with the tech, federal and state regs, while dealing with hundreds of kids, schedules, parents, school maintenance, complaints, problems, community relations, while monitoring student groups and sports events and musical events. During this time they're not learning new stuff. And let's not forget bus duty 40 minutes or 50 minutes a day or hall duty between classes.

Then there are the latest educational fads that are going on, teacher-teacher conflicts, hiring decisions and firing decisions, making sure that every classroom in the school is up to fire safety regardless of what teachers want, while making sure that supplies are ordered. If a principal botches it, suddenly the school's without copier paper for 3 days or the fire marshall's on our tail. They have to read beginning of the year teacher self-evaluations, take 3 hours a week in classrooms observing teachers (per week), in addition to formal observations 45 minutes long.

There are required district meetings for principals and required trainings by the state and district.

Electronics training isn't one of them. And yet if they screw up, they're expected to be masters of botany, electronics, chemistry, engineering, road safety, fire safety, building maintenance, HR, negotiations, politicians, etc., etc. In other words, all the things that most people who criticize them (like most people who criticize everybody else) aren't.


No, I'm not an administrator. Nor am I particularly sympathetic to them. Still, I see what they do and can't do and know that the mismatch is not just there, but will always be there. But in a world that loves zero-tolerance policies and self-appointed Judges ...