"Management", Part II

In the preceding post, we linked to a story demonstrating that the Milwaukee Police Department is apparently being "managed" for the benefit of Police Union membership.

Now comes MPS.

There's a commonality between them--specifically, the critical Middle Management group in each organization is sadly lacking in actual management skills (and probably in management training.)

Here's the key line from the JS article on the schools:

The lack of good leadership in a school and a poor environment for a teacher to be effective are frequently at the top of the list.

Andrekopolous says that he understands that:

He said a lot of attention has been focused on putting better principals in schools, and he thought those efforts were showing results.

As for "waste of oxygen" comments, we look to Sam Carmen, union boss:

Sam Carmen, executive director of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association, said a "competent, qualified, caring leader" in a school is the factor many teachers would put first on their list of ways to improve retention of teachers.

What's missing from the Union comment? How about "[leader] who has authority.."

MPS' turnover numbers are NOT an issue, based on the 'comparative' numbers from the study as a whole (17.6% vs. 16.8%.)

What IS an issue is that Middle Management bunch--school principals. Let's hope that Andrekopolous figures it out.