Sad State for Ethics - Letter to the Editor

School Administrator, Jan, 1997

Letters

RALPH B. KIMBROUGH

Professor Emeritus, University of Florida, St. Augustine, Florida

William Fenstermaker's comparison in the October issue of his more recent data on administrative ethics with the earlier study by Roy Dexheimer is again challenging to our profession. Moreover, the results of these studies parallel what I have experienced following my work in the 1980s with the AASA Ethics Committee.

Responses of professors and practitioners to the formal study of ethics have not progressed. A member of the AASA Ethics Committee expressed succinctly the state of the professional milieu at our 1985 meeting in Dallas. When I suggested that AASA might sponsor national courses on ethics for administrators in service, this committee member responded, "They wouldn't come." The accuracy of his statement was immediately evident when at the presentation of the publication Ethics: A Course of Study for Educational Leaders (which I wrote), we did not have enough administrators present to have more than a round table discussion. The fact some colleges still use the publication in their instruction is encouraging.

Why is our profession unresponsive to the formal study of administrative ethics? Without more data, we can only speculate. In my years as a professor, the subject of offering a course in ethics seldom came up. If ethics is not taught and students are not tested about their knowledge of it, even about the AASA Code of Ethics, why should graduates of our programs consider the subject important? Ethics easily takes a back seat to such traditional subjects as finance and school facilities.

A Disturbing Picture

EDWARD G. ROZYCKI

Director, The Center for Education, Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania

Your contributors on the subject of ethics in school leadership do your readers a disservice, if not committing downright defamation, through their comments in the October issue.

Particularly disturbing is the article by William C. Fenstermaker ("The Ethical Dimension of Superintendent Decision Making") in which he draws hasty and unwarranted conclusions from ambiguous data. He writes, "The survey responses from superintendents nationwide showed either a severe confusion about ethical standards or a disturbing disregard of them. ... Either superintendents are unaware of the ethical factors suffused in the issues they face or they simply do not care."

I would suggest that the dilemma scenarios he used in his study have two big drawbacks: (1) they are sufficiently ambiguous that any of several ethical codes might apply to them; and (2) the responses to them are faked relatively easily. It is difficult even in cases of direct observation to judge whether a person's behavior is following a given code of ethics, unless one knows what priorities that person has in general and what specific considerations the real-life situation has invoked in him or her.

As evidence for the continuing moral funk among superintendents Fenstermaker cites the fact no change was found in the proportion of "non-ethical" responses since the comparable 1968 study. I think this merely suggests that unlike some wines, tests, if bad, do not improve with age. The reality is that almost everyone has ethical commitments--be they religious or whatever--that are far more important than what the AASA calls its "code of ethics."

A Missed Point

ROBERT B. SPOONEMORE

Superintendent, Pflugerville Independent School District, Pflugerville, Texas

I enjoyed the excellent articles on block scheduling in September but need to add a point glaringly overlooked by your authors: class size will increase.

Since our district has experience with the 4-4 accelerated block for two years now, I think administrators should know that this plan increased class size by more than two students per class over the traditional six-period day. Administrators need to be prepared to defend the bigger class sizes or to hire more teachers.

Proponents of the block will argue with you on this, but it is simple math. Divide the number of students and teachers you have by six periods and do the same thing by four periods. Six gives you a smaller number than does four. Also, factor in conference periods. Over a year, not much difference exists in a teacher's student load, but on a daily basis class size goes up.