Chapter 31: Maxwell’s Demon: The Curriculum Structure as a Device to Generate Curriculum as a Routine and to Overcome the Evil Forces of Organizational Entropy

Every physical system in the universe (your car, your clocks, the solar system itself) falls prey to entropy, that is, slowly runs downhill, loses its energy, eventually stops functioning. Shockingly, so do all organizations. The pages of history are littered with the rusting hulks of organizations long past their productive lives. They begin with energy, pizzazz, slowly change, and in the long run, slow down, decay, go to pot. Evidence? General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, big city school systems, Lehman Brothers Bank bankruptcy.

As a matter of fact, organizations (which, of course, include school systems and individual schools) generate a career of three phases, and almost inevitably careen uncontrollably through these phases: The first is person-orientation led by a charismatic leader, next is plan-orientation led by a planner, and last is position-orientation led by a bureaucrat. The first two are productive. The last is a kind of senescence, where the school or district slowly loses its energy, purpose, just exists—and runs downhill. Can anything be done to counteract this disastrous scenario?