District's Virchow-Krause Report Less Than It Seems

The District's functional analysis report from Virchow-Krause (hereafter VK) has been touted as showing how well the District is being run. But, the report's results are less than they seem. On page three of the report, VK gives the assumptions for the report. Quoting from the report:

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As Superintendent Rainwater has noted, there are several key assumptions behind the functional
analysis. These assumptions are:

� Every single thing the District does is good for kids. Long ago the District eliminated all those
things that were peripheral.

� All District staff members - teachers, administrators, custodians and food service workers �
are good at what they do.

� The District has very talented people that work very hard and that work very smart.

� Site-based teachers and administrators currently have full time jobs � and they can't absorb
more work. Functions cannot move from the central office to people at the site because sitebased
staff members are working as hard and as efficiently as possible.

With these assumptions in mind, the results of the functional analysis are presented in this
report.
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Clearly, given the assumptions of the report, VK could not have found anything but that the District is doing everything just perfectly.

Had these assumptions not been in place, VK might have been able to inform the District, Board and public of solutions not currently in front of us.

What is disturbing, however, is that the Board doesn't truly read or understand the critical material before them, that the District can make those assumptions, probably with Board acquiesence, and then have the temerity to claim they are providing leadership, and doing all that they can do.

Posted by Larry Winkler at April 1, 2005 1:43 PM
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