| I had to overcome a number of obstacles, personal and substantive, to get to the point where I could begin to write this book. I say personal because I knew that what I wanted to say would be, had to be, indeed should be, incomplete given its subject matter. No individual should be expected to have that degree of knowledge, experience, imagination, and creativity to come up with a plan for a new system of educational governance in which all problems have been identified and secure answers are clearly provided. Our educational system is comprised of more than schools or school systems. The legislative and executive branches of local, state, and federal government are parts of the system, as are the state department of education, colleges and universities, and parents. However these parts are coordinated, and they are very poorly coordinated, it is a complex system. If you were to believe the organizational chart depicting the system, the parts are clear in their role and purpose and in the ways they relate to and support each other. As is usually the case with organizational charts, in the "real" world the picture is very different. That is the case with our educational system, and it is also the case with any large public or private organization, which is why I and Elizabeth Lorentz wrote a book with the title Coordination: Process, Problems, and Opportunities. In Schools, Private Sector, and Federal Government. |
| The governance of the educational system probably can be described by one person, although if that person sought to distinguish between what the system appears to be and the myriad of ways that appearance is belied in practice, I doubt that one person could do justice to that goal. If you have come to conclude, as I have, that the existing governance system is very inadequate |
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