The Special Education Paradox: Equity as the Way to Excellence

Given the prescriptive discourse of educational administration and the social norm of organizational rationality, traditional school management (Weick, 1982) and governance (Meyer & Rowan, 1978; Mintzberg, 1979) practices force school organizations to adopt the rationalization and formalization principles of the machine bureaucracy, even though they are ill-suited to the technical demands of doing complex work. In principle, this drives the professional bureaucracy toward the machine bureaucracy configuration because, by misconceptualizing teaching as simple work that can be rationalized and formalized, it violates the theory/practice requirement and discretionary logic of professionalization. Thus, by separating theory and practice and reducing professional discretion, the degree to which teachers can personalize instruction is reduced. Complex work cannot be rationalized and formalized, except in misguided ways that force the professionals "to play the machine bureaucratic game — satisfying the standards instead of serving the clients" (Mintzberg, 1979, p. 377).

    Fortunately, however, the imposition of rationalization and formalization does not work completely in school organizations because, from the institutionalization perspective, these structural contingencies are built into the outer machine bureaucracy structure of schools, which is decoupled from their inner professional bureaucracy structure where the work is done. That is, the outer machine bureaucracy structure of schools acts largely as a myth that, through an assortment of symbols and ceremonies, embodies the rationalization and formalization but has little to do with the way the work is actually done. This decoupled arrangement permits schools to do their work according to the localized judgments of professionals — the logic behind specialization and professionalization — while protecting their legitimacy by giving managers and the public the appearance of the rationalized and formalized machine bureaucracy that they expect.

    But decoupling does not work completely either because, from the configuration perspective, no matter how contradictory they may be, misplaced rationalization and formalization require at least overt conformity to their precepts and thus circumscribe professional thought and action (Dalton, 1959; Mintzberg, 1979). Decoupling notwithstanding, managing and governing schools as if they were machine bureaucracies increases rationalization and formalization and thus decreases professional thought and discretion, which reduces even further the degree to which teachers can personalize instruction.