The education system suffers from McChrystal syndrome: the powerful don't discuss the situation as a team, but merely exploit their own power

I liked San Diego Unified Superintendent Alan Bersin in many ways. He really wanted to fix schools. He didn't suffer fools gladly (and there are a lot of fools to deal with in the education field, as in every other field, I imagine). But like recently-fired General Stanley McChrystal, Bersin didn't understand the situation on the ground. Specifically, he didn't understand the power of the teachers union.

Bersin and McChrystal sabotaged their own war plans. Schools today are not unlike Afghanistan:

1. No one has genuine control;
2. Political corruption is rampant in school boards, administrations and the teachers union;
3. Winning the hearts and minds of the population is necessary--including teachers, students and parents.

What should Bersin have done instead of wielding raw power? The same thing McChrystal should have done: sit down and work with the team. One thing that happens very little in schools is serious, respectful discussions within and among different parts of the team. Gossip doesn't count; if it did, schools would be flourishing. A really radical change would be to create a corps of master teachers who aren't merely trained, but truly educated. Hopefully, administrators would come from the ranks of the best teachers. Today, many teachers move to administration because they aren't successful in the classroom.


On the Media: What McChrystal failed to understand
Michael Hastings, writing for Rolling Stone, was unlike other journalists who'd had access to Gen. Stanley McChrystal. For one, the skeptical, hardheaded Hastings was a kindred spirit.
June 26, 2010
James Rainey
Los Angeles Times

What would Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the hardened commanders on his staff have to fear from a bearded, pointy-headed reporter from a rock 'n' roll magazine?

The general and his aides had faced down terrorists and the enemies of America. They had welcomed into their midst journalists from top news outlets. The result had been stories that mostly made the men running the war in Afghanistan look like a bunch of can-do warriors.
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But Team McChrystal and its leader met their downfall this week because they failed to recognize, as soldiers like to say, that the opponent, and the situation on the ground, had changed.

Since the last time McChrystal and his men popped off to gain political advantage, the president of the United Stated had made it abundantly clear he wanted more team play. Sensitivity about the war had increased, as the U.S. deployment and casualties climbed.

Most important, the Rolling Stone reporter they invited in to write a profile, Michael Hastings, didn't have to tussle with the competing priorities of the mainstream beat reporters who had come before him. If McChrystal and his men had thought it through, they might have realized that Hastings was in for just one hit. Hastings didn't need to play nice in hopes of getting access to McChrystal down the road. The piece, as a result, was no-holds-barred.

Merely by reading his online bio they would have learned that this journalist they invited into their inner sanctum was something more than the "dirty Rolling Stone hippie" who Jon Stewart suggested had such an easy path to outdoing the dunderheaded mainstream media.

Hastings, 30, had already covered America's wars for five years. He had made plain his skepticism about the chances of victory in Afghanistan. He had boldly written about the death of his fiancée in an ambush in Iraq, turning aside critiques from some journalists that he was too ready to dissect a personal tragedy.

In one Web posting, the Vermont native and NYU grad wrote of his admiration for "writers who live their lives with integrity and without compromise." By phone from Kabul Thursday, Hastings said that in some ways he admired the renegade McChrystal. Recalling the darkly evocative fiction that McChrystal wrote as a West Point cadet (including one story in which the protagonist assassinates the president), Hastings commented: "His attitude was, like, [stick it to] 'The Man.' And those sorts of attitudes exist in me, on a certain level."...

Is the deeply corrupt Karzai a reliable partner in Afghanistan? Is General McChrystal?

UPDATE: McChrystal is out. McChrystal was more loyal to the deeply corrupt Afghan president than he was to the American president.

In replacing McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus, Obama reasserts authority
By Linda Feldmann
Christian Science Monitor
June 23, 2010

“The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general,” Obama said. “It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that's necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan.”

...Earlier, McChrystal had been criticized for his role in the faulty reporting of the 2004 friendly fire death of Army Ranger (and former NFL football player) Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.

...In a rare show of bipartisanship, Democrats and Republicans alike applauded Obama’s decision.



Obama's choice of Petraeus a 'masterstroke'
June 23, 2010
...CNN: What do you think of the president's decision?

Fareed Zakaria: This is a masterstroke. Petraeus needs no on-the-job training, knows the theater, and is beloved by the troops. He understands COIN [counter-insurgency strategy], literally wrote the book on it, and most important -- knows how to execute it. He has superb political skills and understands that a close working relationship with his civilian counterparts from the State Department, White House, and other agencies is not a bother but at the heart of the mission's success...The question I have, which in some ways is greater, is not whether Gen. McChrystal is guilty of insubordination but of incompetence. ...What you see in Gen. McChrystal is someone who is openly disdainful of and sets himself up almost in opposition to the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, the State Department high representative Richard Holbrooke, the national security adviser, the vice president...If McChrystal and his team are so contemptuous of these other people whose support is absolutely critical to the success of the mission, then he's failing at his mission...

If you compare McChrystal's attitude toward his civilian counterparts with that of Gen. Petraeus in Iraq, it's night and day. Petraeus was extremely respectful of Ryan Crocker, the ambassador, extremely respectful of the State Department, always talking about how he really admired and appreciated their efforts and wanted them more involved, held almost all his briefings along with Crocker. And that clearly was a crucial part of why the surge succeeded, because the whole premise of the surge is that the military part is not by itself going to be enough...



ORIGINAL POST:

Can the US win in Afghanistan? It would be more likely if Karzai and McChrystal were more loyal--not just to each other, but to the people of Afghanistan and the US, respectively.


Gen. Stanley McChrystal to explain anti-administration comments
The top U.S. general in Afghanistan was summoned to Washington for a White House meeting after apologizing for flippant and dismissive remarks about top Obama administration officials.
By Greg Jaffe and Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post
June 23, 2010

...During his 12 months in Kabul, McChrystal has earned a reputation as a forthright commander with an unscripted style and a strong work ethic. He has forged a close working relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was quick to come to the general's defense Tuesday, saying that his loss would be a major setback for the war effort.
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Still, McChrystal has stumbled frequently in his interactions with the media, often to the great irritation of the White House. It has interpreted the general's outspoken manner as an effort to box Obama into backing a major troop surge and large-scale counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

In the article, McChrystal suggests that Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, the top U.S. civilian in Afghanistan, "betrayed" him by suggesting in a classified cable last fall that Karzai was not a credible partner in the counterinsurgency strategy that McChrystal was advocating...