Enforcing Policy: Governance or Management?
Let's set aside, for the moment, the question of whether Seattle Public Schools should enforce policy or not. While it is clear to me that there is no point to having policies if they aren't going to be followed, and that there is no reason to believe that they will be followed if they are not enforced, I want to just take this question as given. I'm happy to come back to this question later. Could we, just for now, presume that we want the policies enforced? I want to move past that question and to focus on the question of who has the duty to enforce policies - the Board or the Superintendent? The answer to that question will hinge on another question: Is the enforcement of policy a governance task or a management task?
The current board is quite fond of meditating on the question of what is governance and what is management, but they have carefully avoided bringing that contemplative power to bear on this question. I say that enforcing policy is a governance task.
I could make a whole long argument and get tangled in the abstractions that distract the board, but it comes
The current board is quite fond of meditating on the question of what is governance and what is management, but they have carefully avoided bringing that contemplative power to bear on this question. I say that enforcing policy is a governance task.
I could make a whole long argument and get tangled in the abstractions that distract the board, but it comes