Imagine that you've been hired to serve as the CEO of a very, very big company. Everyone is looking to you to guide them through some very perilous times. You have a laptop full of plans and ideas for how to deal with things. You put your team in place. All set to go? Not so fast. In some divisions of this company, there's a middle layer of managers who don't really have to do what you tell them. They don't have to follow your policies. They can even go in the opposite direction. You have some power to give out money to get them to do what you want, but sometimes even that can't guarantee that they will. In fact, they work very hard (and often quite publicly) to get around your policies. They even talk to the media to tell them how bad your policies are. The kicker: you can't fire them. Still, if your policies don't succeed, you get the blame.
Would you want this job? Could anybody succeed under these circumstances? The strange thing is that lots of people want this job. It's almost hopeless. What company is this? The United States of America. No, really. The President is hired to run this country, but there are 50 governors, state legislatures, state court systems and state bureaucracies that stand between the President and the successful implementation of many policies.
What has been said repeatedly in the last few months is the need for the new administration to take decisive action on a number of issues, notably on the domestic agenda: (starting with) the economy, education, health care, energy, environment, etc. While much has been said about what the President plans to do in these areas, it really depends on the states implementing the policy–or not.
The one area where this is egregiously obvious is education. (But, the same problem arises in any number of issues.) Education is a state function. This means that we have 50+ education policies and programs. There is little, if any, consistency between states. What a student studies and learns in any given grade in one state, does not necessarily match with the same grade in another state. In some cases, it can even vary from district to district within the same state. This means that we don't have a national education system. We have a hodge-podge of educational systems without any real sense of what is in the national interest. The country is seriously behind in science and math knowledge and no real plan or way to improve. Theories of all stripes and colors come and go every fall. No matter what policy the President sets, it has very little impact in the classroom. If anything, the federal government is adding to the problem with burdensome regulations and paperwork.
The same goes for virtually all domestic issues. So, what can we do? It is time to rethink this state-federal division of conflicting responsibilities. While not yet advocating the elimination of the states, I think some serious thought needs to be given to cutting some layer of administration out. While it may have worked 200 years ago, this system, like the electoral college, has outlived its usefulness and is even making the situation worse.
Other countries that do not have this middle layer of opposition management, seem to be better at addressing national issues. It's time we took a true national approach to national problems. It's just good leadership.
No comments:
Post a Comment