Will Write Mission Statement for Food

The Tacoma Public Schools are going to be slashing administrators, reports the Tacoma News-Tribune:

The voters have spoken and Tacoma schools are heeding the advice: Cut central administration.

The district passed its operating levy on the second try in April, but along the way, school leaders heard plenty of complaints that the district spends too much on administration.

Now, as officials search for more than $11.2 million in reductions to balance the 2006-07 budget, they plan to slice central administration costs by $3.58 million.

That works out to 18 percent of all central administration costs, the deepest cut in at least a decade, said Ron Hack, the district’s chief financial officer. And that’s on top of several consecutive years of administrative cutbacks.

The district will shed a dozen management posts, including two assistant superintendents, an executive director of curriculum and instruction, six directors and several more coordinators and managers.

But central administration costs include more than just high-ranking administrators. At least 15 secretaries and numerous analysts, payroll, human resource and other support positions will disappear. Less money will be available for office supplies, discretionary spending and computer repair.

As a Good Union Member I should be saying, "Yeah! Stick it to the man!" The trick is, and the article goes on to make the point, there's quite a bit of administrating that needs to be done anymore. The data collection requirements of NCLB are a full-time job. Managing food services, managing transportation, managing special ed, managing Title funds, and managing the business of the district are all important things that need to be monitored and are awfully hard to combine. I won't argue that there aren't districts that are over-administrated, nor that there isn't money wasted as middle-managers do their middling management, but I also think that the administrators are an awfully soft target that people hit on anytime they're dissatisfied with the schools and the spending.

It will be interesting to look back at Tacoma in 3 years and see what the real effect of the cuts was. This sounds like a job for Dan Goldhaber!