Case Analysis

CASE ANALYSIS: PAUL VALLAS: CEO, SUPRINTENDENT

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Question: 1

Answer. “Deliberation” is the perilous examination of a matter involves the consideration of the causes for and against some action. Deliberation promotes the decision making, accountability and legitimacy. Decisions related to the school was made in a good manner by both Rhee and Vallas. Vallas strategy was to make RSD a recruiter of abilities and talent, facility provider and responsibility monitor for all the public school systems. In Philadelphia,Vallas was the superintendent and privatization was done and his extra ordinary decision making strategy turn out to be a greatest achievement which was done by maintaining ease between staff and himself. He kept his students and teachers, parents at ease to discuss any matter with him and kept a notebook with him to note down all the acquaintances. As a result Philadelphia became the platform for the private administration of schools having low performance. Vallas used the test based accountability where prolonged Innovative Appointment and Worldwide Baccalaureate plans, in area of gang warfare while developing more schools of discipline and other related schools for excess age of underachievers.

Rhee has introduced some principal workplace structure and established the strategy of reform theory in New York and emphasized HR and individual’s responsibility instead of the management of portfolio. Rhee used the decision making strategy by establishing reform theory and has a hope to extend the reforms in future but it will depend on many things which may include the ability to manage the politics and shake up so far. He used transparent accountability strategy where similar schools were compared against each other and educators. Rhee’s activity was full of controversy.

Both have cognitive dissonance bias. It results when individuals have to select either attitudes or behaviors that are inconsistent.to eliminate this Rhee and Vallas used strategy by the reduction of conflict beliefs importance and attaining new beliefs to create balance. The other strategy they can used for the bias includes the locking of under-enrolled schools , rationalized low performance schools and gaining the hold of central personnel and fired few teachers and used compensation and higher salaries.

QUESTION: 2

Answer. Rhee and Vallas offers opportunity to compare and contrast all managerial skills of two different leaders in same job. Rhee and Vallas learned by focusing on all managerial skills. Vallas was superintended of Philadelphia school. They learned that the not only the danger that suffused public school but also the way school looked. They also built a link between brutalities of the school appearance as well as brutality take place inside them. They were able to learn about sophisticated and flexible vision of education and its implementation. They were start to thinking outside the box and antagonistic toward independent research. They both used different strategies in their professional work. At early stage they used and more focused on political and managerial strategies. But at the end they were concluded that it’s all about time on task rather than methods or quality. In my opinion it is very crucial to evaluate the long term influence in Chicago and Philadelphia. Decision making in school is key element of reform but there are bit of evidences which enhances school performances. At district level it’s very crucial to lead towards success. Latitude of decision making is operated by political and federal policies. Shared decision making is also very much significant reform. It is very helpful in maintaining power in school. In all consequences superintendent play pivotal role. Superintendent have to face both internal as well as external forces. Vallas was the main culprit to manage all these situations. The success of school is determined by the framework drawn by the individual who have knowledge and experience about the strategies and rules of school system. That all are dependent on district leadership. They determine main parameters for decision making. At start Vallas used central power to strengthen and to take over all standards. School based decision making is constrained by competing and contradictory policies.

QUESTION: 3

Answer. Rhee and Vallas, both are strategic public managers

a. According to the 4 principles of Bozeman and Strassman we can prove that both are strategic public manager

Respect for Autonomy It is a norm that gratifies us to respect the decisions taken by adults who have the capacity to take decisions .Rhee and Vallas both respect the autonomy.

Beneficent: Rhee and Vallas provide benefits to other and protect the rights of everyone around them.

Non-Maleficence: It is one of the best principles which means “not to do harm” and both do not harm anyone.

Justice: Equal share is provided by both of them.

b. There are 4 frames by Boleman and Dealing that are

1. Structural

2. Human resource

3. Political 

4. Symbolic

The frame used by Rhee and Vallas is Human Resource in which focus is on people and on the improvement of the system .empowerment, support and development of staff with the responsiveness of the worker’s needs. It is beneficial for both as the staff’s morale increases and a little chance of conflict. Reframing can be beneficial for them in improving their strategies by giving incentives to the staff and thus they motivate students to work harder. They learn what and how they can bring innovative and positive change in the work.

c. Rhee and Vallas successfully navigate their terrains by using Haass’s compass in a good way that helps them in its analysis. By using this compass they can analyze what they have to achieve in order to reach their destination and they apply some strategies to get those objectives fulfilled and use them to work faster by getting the right direction.

d. The hardships in their reforms faced are anticipated by Rhee and vallas and they prepare themselves for the future challenges .the biggest challenge for them may be the behavior they have to keep with the students and the staff to maintain the balance. Another challenge may be to bring new changes in the technology and the environment. Poverty is also challenge. They learn about new innovations and other strategies to get themselves ready for the coming challenge.

e. Yes both worked from ground up to design their reforms .A ground up approach is the fixing together of structures to give the growth in more compound systems, while making the original systems as a sub system of the growing system. Educational reforms must be in a systematic order in every sector with well-defined goals and objectives with a minimal focus on such areas of governance, Human resource management, curriculum and financing. In this it look different from ground up reforms.

f. Vallas is an entrepreneurial public manager because she keeps her businesses set up and maintained.

g. Yes the managerial practice comport with the precept of managerial responsibility as they both practice management functions and have their own set goals which they have to achieve and get good results by the evaluation of the projects.

QUESTION: 4

Answer. Vallas was considered as nontraditional superintended and he was political technocrat. Situation and person in decision making is intermingled with each other. In case of Rhee and Vallas: situation and person also effect each other. At one stage he was threatened to cancel all field trips of school. Along with this threat he was also threatened to not involved and participate in testing program. With all these threats Vallas take their own decision by using their decision making power. They ate up all the stress. He was able to take decision. He said himself that I don’t burn out. I burn out other people. Its mean he was very clever to make their decisions without taking stress of all these threats. At another point Vallas found himself under fire. There was a situation in which the scores of students were increasing. But it was not at that level at which mayors want to be. In this situation mayor wanted to replace Vallas because he was much bigger for his britches. So for this behavior he lost his duties. But immediately he was involved in overseeing the privatization effort in any district of country. In this situation it was observed that this new situation was evidence of Vallas political approach. Analysis of all situations identify that different factors affect the decision making power in stressful condition. Mostly decisions are take place in social environment. Sometimes individual mostly neglect their decision making power due to other individuals. In crucial condition managerial skills are very complex in decision making. Crucial situation for decision making is tackled by recognition, interpretation of problem with course of action. Decision making power help out in all situation related to Vallas and Rhee. In some situation Vallas take decision to take out himself from critical situation and in some situation other individuals take decision to sort out problem.