Managing School Systems

The American public and press are constantly bemoaning the state of the public education system. The common outcry is that test scores are low, discipline problems are increasing, and that students are not learning. William Glasser, founder and president of the Institute for Reality Therapy, has developed a model of a quality school which deserves to be studied. He has proposed a new method of managing school systems which he claims will correct the complaints made by the public and will result in students gaining a quality education. His basic premise is that schools and corporations can and should be managed to produce a product which the public will accept as a quality product (Glasser, 1990, p. 426). In the case of schools, the quality product produced should be educated students. Glasser defines education as "the process through which we discover that learning adds quality to our lives" (Glasser, 1992, p. 38). Therefore, educated students will be students who have learned that learning improves the quality of their lives. This premise would be accepted by most people including students, although most students do not want to expend effort becoming educated (Glasser, 1990, p. 434).

A corporation fails when consumers reject the product or service it offers for sale by refusing to purchase the product. Most often the product is rejected because it lacks the quality of a similar product in the market. A quality product can only be produced when workers in the or

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needs are met change throughout his life. If a student is not having his needs met at school by a teacher then that teacher or school will not be considered part of the student's ideal or quality world. If learning is not a part of a student's quality world, then the student has no hope of a quality education as defined by Glasser. Another assumption that Glasser makes is that the stimulus in stimulus-response theory is simply information which each person can choose to act on or ignore. Information does not force anyone to do or act in any specific way. Glasser's favorite example of this is the ring of a telephone. Stimulus-response theory says that a person will be compelled, forced to respond to the ring by picking up the phone. Choice theory states that the ring of the phone gives a person information--someone wants to speak with me. The person who hears the ring has the choice of answering or not answering the phone depending on the best choice for meeting his five basic needs at the moment the phone rings. Teachers using stimulus-response theory believe that students can be motivated from the outside. Choice theory recognizes that all motivation comes from within the individual (Glasser, 1990, p. 432). This chan

Category: Psychology - M