Ethical Decision-Making
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Ethical Decision-Making

Cases in Organization and Leadership

Patricia A. Mitchell, Patricia A. Mitchell

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eBook - ePub

Ethical Decision-Making

Cases in Organization and Leadership

Patricia A. Mitchell, Patricia A. Mitchell

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About This Book

This text provides a unique collection of case studies across a wide range of organizations (higher education, K-12 education, military, state and local government administration, non-profit institutions, and agency management, etc.). These cases examine ethical decision-making and organizational and leadership behavioral concepts that are practiced in these organizations. The cases cover topics facing our workforce today and ask the reader to solve the dilemma. Through a discussion of these cases, students apply decision making and organizational and leadership strategies to analyze each case and therefore gain a better understanding of how to effectively lead and manage within their organizations. This text challenges students to think critically and analytically. Students are encouraged to reflect on options a practitioner could use to solve the problem. All of the cases end with an open scenario and a set of questions, allowing students to offer a wide range of opinions and participate in reflective and robust discussions. Perfect for courses such as:
Introduction to Ethics | Introduction to Ethical Decision-Making | Principles of Ethical Leadership
Ethical Organizations: Principles and Application | Introduction to Organizational Change

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PART I
K–12 EDUCATION

Leadership is not about how you behave when you know what to do, rather how you behave when you don’t know what to do.
—Jimmy Casas
PART I
Overview

Claudia Coughran
TODAY, PUBLIC EDUCATION AND THE morality and ethics of the teachers and leaders who work within the institution are non-negotiable. Few would argue that public school educators need to possess these characteristics. Adjectives such as servant, social justice, transformational, and spiritual are all attributed to successful educational leaders (Adams, 2005; Bass & Avolio, 1994; Furman & Shields, 2005; Grogan & Shakeshaft, 2011; McCray, Beachum, & Yawn, 2012). Yet the responsibilities and pressures placed upon educational leaders in today’s society can call this previously accepted norm into question.
Public education was created for the noble purpose of preparing citizens to participate in their new democracy. Mondale and Patton noted: “To leaders like Thomas Jefferson, the survival of the democracy depended on educating all Americans” (2001, p. 22). Ravitch and Viteritti wrote that, according to Jefferson, “In a democracy the people vote and choose their rulers, and that means you have to learn to read and write and you have to learn enough of the foundations to be a citizen” (2003, p. 48). Add to this America’s Puritan roots and the strict moral dispositions of the time, and education was seen as the path not just to citizenry, but to morality through reading the Bible as well.
Consider twenty-first-century America and some of the challenges that educational leaders face. All children are afforded the right to a quality, free public education. This includes immigrant children, incarcerated children, poor children, rich children, Brown children, Black children, and White children. It is not uncommon for a public school teacher to have up to 35 students of varying gifts, abilities, talents, and varying levels of English acquisition in their charge. Frequently, some of the children may require additional services to make learning accessible to them and may be diagnosed with mental, cognitive, or physical challenges that impair their learning. Educational leaders need a strong moral compass to discern and navigate what is best for each child and how best to support each child given the challenging fiscal realities inherent in public education. An unethical educational leader, whether at a school, district office, county office, or state level, can make decisions that have devastatingly negative consequences on children.
So, do all educational leaders make ethical decisions? Are the tenants of social justice present within all schools? How have the shifting values in twenty-first-century America impacted the decisions of K–12 education leaders? What decisions and behaviors will you choose when faced with an ethical or moral dilemma within your school or district? Ponder these questions as you read the case studies in this chapter. These case studies are actual situations that the authors found themselves in or observed. The names and locations of the schools and districts have been changed, but the scenarios really did occur in twenty-first century America.
References
Adams, J.D. (2005). Transforming leadership (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cosimo, Inc.
Bass, B.M., & Avolio, B.J. (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Furman, G.C., & Shields, C.M. (2005). How can educational leaders promote and support social justice and democratic community in schools? In W.A. Firestone & C. Riehl (Eds.), A new agenda for research in educational leadership (pp. 119–137). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Grogan, M., & Shakeshaft, C. (2011). Women and educational leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
McCray, C.R., Beachum, F.D., & Yawn, C. (2012). Educational salvation: Integrating critical spirituality in educational leadership. Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, 16(1), 90–114.
Mondale, S., & Patton, S. (Eds.). (2001). School: The story of public education. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Ravitch, D., & Viteritti, J. (Eds.). (2003). Making good citizens: Education and civil society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
CASE STUDY 1.1
Principal for the Day

Niki T. Newman-Brown
MS. DARLINGTON IS A SECOND-YEAR principal at Excellence Elementary School. Each year, the school district invites local community members to participate in an experience that allows them to shadow a principal for the day. Ms. Darlington’s short tenure in education administration has provided the context for this day as one that is community building and political. After reviewing the email invitation, she recognizes that the person appointed to her school is Mr. Pearson. Mr. Pearson is a former representative of the teacher’s union but is now employed by the mayor’s office as an education liaison. Unable to opt out, Principal Darlington prepares for the arrival of her guest by preparing a full day of instructional observations and meetings.
Mr. Pearson spends the day of the visit not only dropping in on classrooms with Principal Darlington, but also attempting to understand the demographics of the student population, instructional hurdles, and physical building concerns. Ms. Darlington is extremely passionate about her students. She is dedicated to providing an exceptional education for them. During the day, she shares her concerns about the need for additional resources to ensure that her majority English-language learners are able to demonstrate academic achievement at the same rate as their English-speaking peers throughout the district. Mr. Pearson inquires about Principal Darlington’s plan to accommodate the students. In response, Principal Darlington shares an amazing program she has been researching that has proven to have a huge impact on student achievement. She also shares that the training for staff and materials, which, at a total cost of $30,000 per year, are well outside of her current budget. As the day ends, students and staff go home, and Principal Darlington is able to sit and continue her conversation with Mr. Pearson. During the discussion, Mr. Pearson shares his willingness to assist with instructional concerns. He leaves his card for Principal Darlington to contact him for further discussion.
Coordinating schedules becomes an obstacle, but soon Ms. Darlington and Mr. Pearson agree to meet for lunch over spring break to discuss how Mr. Pearson can support the school’s endeavor to increase the achievement of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students. Although the lunch meeting is quite informal, Ms. Darlington is prepared with quantitative and qualitative data to support the need for—and structure of—the program at Excellence Elementary. Mr. Pearson states that he is very impressed and offers to call the Chief Operating Officer for the school district to ask that $30,000 be deposited into the Excellent Elementary budget.
Principal Darlington is excited about the offer but begins to think about the numerous colleagues who are struggling with smaller budgets. She also considers recent board hearings discussing needs throughout the district. Further, she wonders where the money originates, especially given that the Chief Operating Officer does not control the money in a school-based budget, but controls funding on the operations side of the school district. On the other hand, Principal Darlington weighs the benefits of accepting the funds. The funds offered will support her students’ education and greatly impact the district’s overall academic achievement with the English-language learner population. She requests a week to think about it, and Mr. Pearson obliges. A week later Principal Darlington contacts Mr. Pearson by phone and accepts the offer to support the program. As she hangs up, she reminds herself that receiving these funds will not only grow teacher practice, but also the achievement of her students.
Questions:
1.Was Ms. Darlington’s decision ethical? Use evidence from the case study and your knowledge of ethical behavior to support your response.
2.Given the political nature of the situation—Ms. Darlington’s new knowledge of how interactions can take place—what is another way that she could have responded?
3.Based on your knowledge of ethical principles, which behaviors or decisions are questionable?
4.What leadership lessons have you learned?
CASE STUDY 1.2
Is It Policy or Favor?

Rebecca Loboschefsky
TEMPLETON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT IS a small public school district on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area in the southern United States. The district serves pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade students from an economically diverse population and is run by a school board.
Templeton Independent School District comprises one early childhood center, ten elementary schools, two middle schools, one high school, and one alternative education center. Balton Early Childhood Center has one head principal, Tasha Cupworth, and one assistant principal, Beth Martinez, and has one teacher and one assistant in each of approximately ten classrooms. It serves pre-kindergarten students who are four years old and prepares them for kindergarten.
Tasha Cupworth, principal of Balton Early Childhood Center, holds a booth at the Templeton Independent School District Job Fair seeking potential new hires. She has one full-time teacher-assistant position opening for the upcoming school year and one potential full-time teaching position. New and experienced educators flood the gymnasium as soon as the doors open. As the candidates line up to introduce themselves, Tasha is hopeful that one special educator will be a good fit for her site.
When the day comes to an end, one candidate and her resume stand out in Tasha’s mind. This fresh and confident candidate has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in early childhood education but only one year of teaching experience in a low socioeconomic-status district. Tasha calls this candidate, Rachael, for an interview. Rachael interviews for the full-time teacher-assistant position; however, during the interview, Tasha makes it known to Rachael that she knows that Rachael is overqualified for the assistant position, but that if the potential teaching position does open, she will be able to apply and interview for it. Tasha makes this verbal commitment in front of the rest of the hiring team at the school site.
Rachael accepts the assistant position and brings her optimistic and positive attitude to the school site and to her students, even though it is not the ideal position. She remains hopeful that Tasha will keep her word. One month after school begins, the full-time teaching position opens. Instead of posting the job position, as the school district legally requires each school site to do as part of its hiring process and policy, Tasha hires another person, Diane, rather than keep her verbal promise to Rachael.
Tasha’s husband owns a sign business, and Diane’s husband is a lawyer. Five years prior, Diane’s husband became a client of Tasha’s husband, hiring him to create some signs for his law firm. Since then they have become close and regularly play golf together. Prior to being hired at Balton Early Childhood Center, Diane worked at a daycare center and taught part-time at the local junior college, Teston College.
Before the school year began, Tasha Cupworth hired Rachel as a teacher’s assistant with the understanding that she was overqualified and would have the opportunity to apply and interview for the teaching position, should it open, as Tasha anticipated it would. Two months into the school year, Diane arrived at the school site a day after the departing teacher’s dismissal and began setting up her classroom as the new teacher. The job was not posted, applications were not taken, and interviews were not conducted for the position.
Questions:
1.Did the administrator, Tasha Cupworth, hire unethically by favor? If so, was her hiring ethically justified?
2.Should the new hire, Rachael, take action with the school district? If so, what action(s) should she take and why?
3.What responsibilities should the school district and board have put into place to ensure that administrators hire according to the school ...

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