By Jeffrey R. Henig
No one, I dare to reckon, has accused Joel Klein of possessing a bureaucratic mindset. Let me be the first. I do so because it is one particular aspect of this mindset--a narrow focus on a designated function and set of institutional tools-- that seduces too many well-intentioned reforms to dismiss the 鈥渙utside-in鈥� consideration of non-school factors that Paul Reville and I argue in our commentary will be a important tools for social intervention in the future of education reform.
In most ways, of course, Klein has made his name as the ultimate anti-bureaucrat. When Michael Bloomberg selected him as his first chancellor, Klein鈥檚 main claim to fame was as a trust-busting assistant attorney general in charge of the Clinton administration鈥檚 landmark cases against Microsoft. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not an accident that the mayor selected the country鈥檚 leading antitrust litigator and not a teacher to lead the DOE,鈥� one top department administrator noted. 鈥淗e鈥檚 a guy who breaks up monopolies,鈥� another . 鈥淭he problem was the problem of monopolies - the lack of competition, market failure. The whole thing had to be blown up.鈥� Jack Welch, to whom Klein turned to launch a principal training operation, informed a team of district leaders that they should emulate the General Electric approach of 鈥渁nnihilating鈥� bureaucracy. As laid out in : 鈥淲e cultivate the hatred of bureaucracy in our company, and never for a moment hesitate to use that awful word 鈥榟ate.鈥� Bureaucrats must be ridiculed and removed.鈥�
Why has bureaucracy become everyone鈥檚 favorite kicking boy? Because the same things that make bureaucracy useful - hierarchy, top-down authority, fixed jurisdiction, specialization, emphasis on expertise, a career system, impersonal application of rules -- can mutate into something that is smothering, exasperating, and occasional dangerous.
鈥淭he decisive reason for the advance of the bureaucratic organization has always been its purely technical superiority over any other form of organization,鈥� wrote Max Weber, the German sociologist sometimes referred to as the 鈥渇ather of bureaucracy.鈥� But while impersonal application of rules and regulations means the absence of favoritism, it also means the absence of compassion and sensitivity. Top-down authority enforces uniformity and consistency, yes, but also street-level bureaucrats unwilling to take responsibility without seeking permission from their superiors, who have to seek permission from their superiors, and so on up the line. A career system anchored in expertise can create organizational capacity to get things done, but also distance from the experience and concerns of the Joe the Plumbers of America, who see bureaucrats as a favored class who live comfortable lives without having to break a sweat.
Klein can be faulted for focusing on the stifling, routinizing, and distancing effects associated with bureaucracy, without acknowledging the positive side of the coin. But my critique goes beyond this. (I use Klein as the foil here because he has been among the most visible and vocal proponents of a point of view, and even after leaving his NYC position.) While actively setting up educational bureaucracies as their foil, he and many other reformers have tended to think and act like bureaucracies in one important and constricting respect.
Central to bureaucracies is their issue specialization, including a disciplined focus on the tools within their designated field. But this, too, cuts both ways. Specialization makes possible the mobilization of advanced technical expertise and a coherence and intentionality that generalist institutions are rarely able to pull off. But it also makes government incoherent and uncoordinated, a danger that political scientist Theodore Lowi warned about more than four decades ago. Bureaucracies, or what Lowi called the 鈥�,鈥� have made cities 鈥渨ell-run but ungoverned鈥� by allowing neglect 鈥渙f those activities around which bureaucracies are not organized, or those which fall between or among agencies鈥� jurisdictions.鈥�
But isn鈥檛 it simpler to let educators pull on the school change lever while others pull on the housing lever, income support lever, family services lever, and so on across the array of functionally organized bureaucracies? Simpler, yes. But smarter? No. That would be like telling Derek Jeter to worry only about the baseballs that are hit in his direction, when his real value includes his ability to anticipate and synchronizing with the movement of his eight other teammates on the field.
is a professor of political science and education at . His recent book, (Russell Sage Foundation Publications, 2008), won the American Educational Research Association鈥檚 Outstanding Book Award in 2010.