Just suppose...
One hundred years ago, a school was established with 50 classrooms.
When the school was founded, bylaws were written explaining how the school would operate.
One unusual feature of the school was that the students would elect the principal. The principal served for four years, and then the students voted again.
Here was their system.
Each classroom held its own election. Two candidates ran for principal, and each student in each classroom would vote for one of them.
Then, each classroom would select one person to oversee the voting and count the ballots. We'll call that person the "collector".
After the votes were counted, instead of telling the Main office the total votes, one vote would be cast for whichever candidate got the most votes in that classroom for the next principal.
That means each election a total of 50 votes"one for each classroom"would be given to the Main office, and whichever person got the most votes was the new principal for the next four years.
There was another important provision in the bylaws.
To prevent the students from being swayed by any outside influence, such as the people running for the position of principal, each classroom was autonomous under the bylaws.
The Main office had very limited authority over how each classroom conducted its election.
This was supposed to protect the classroom from outside influence, but as time went on it was discovered that this arrangement created another problem.
Every classroom was responsible for conducting its own election, determining who was eligible to vote, counting its votes, and delivering its final result to the Main office by the "collector".
For about 75 years, this arrangement worked quite well.
All of the classrooms functioned smoothly, holding elections and turning in their single vote every four years.
What ended up happening over time is that the classrooms functioned autonomously, but they also functioned with limited oversight from the Main office and little visibility into what other classrooms were doing.
They began making more of their own rules and setting different standards on things such as who could vote.
It was noticed in a couple of the classrooms that there were people in the rooms who weren't enrolled students.
Why were they there?
It was also noticed that occasionally people would appear in the room who had graduated years ago.
Students began talking among themselves.
"Who are these extra people?"
Then came the more troubling question.
"Are they voting?"
It was suspected that they were, but with the classrooms being autonomous, it was difficult for anyone outside that classroom to know exactly what was happening.
The Main office and other classrooms thought it strange that these people were there, but the bylaws were clear.
You couldn't interfere with another classroom's handling of its election.
Over time, the differences became more pronounced.
A system that had been designed to protect the integrity of the election for the next principal was beginning to reveal a weakness of its own.
The checks and balances between the classrooms and the Main office were limited, and the classrooms had broad independence in administering their elections.
There were growing suspicions that some people who were not eligible were nevertheless voting.
(end part 1)
(part 2)
Eventually, the Main office had heard enough about this to start asking questions.
They were told,
"Leave us alone. Stick to the bylaws. Our classroom controls its own election."
Now confidence in the elections declined.
Anger and frustration began spreading throughout the school.
The stability of the school itself was becoming a concern.
Then, one particular year, the current principal looked at the situation and said,
"We have a problem that the people who wrote these bylaws 100 years ago might not have anticipated."
The system was built on the assumption that each classroom would hold elections and only legitimate, eligible students would vote.
But now some classrooms are using their broad authority to establish standards that differed considerably from those in other classrooms.
So now the Main office was bound to accept these election results but had very little ability to independently verify how those results had been produced.
The principal proposed a solution.
The Main office couldn't simply take over or audit the classroom elections under the bylaws, but the Main office believed it had authority to establish rules governing how the "collector" performed his own job.
The Main office instructed the "collector" to only accept ballots associated with people whose names appeared on a list that each classroom would prepare before the election.
That list would contain the students the classroom itself had determined were enrolled and eligible to vote.
This did not have the "collector" determining whether someone was legally entitled to vote.
The classroom had already made that decision by listing names on the list.
It was the classroom's responsibility to be honest and fair.
The "collector" simply had the responsibility of verifying that the name associated with the ballot appeared on the list provided by the classroom.
And now we arrive at the heart of the problem created by the original separation of authority in the bylaws.
The school is ultimately dependent upon the integrity of 50 separately administered elections.
Information is being provided to the Main office, but the Main office has limited authority to establish common safeguards governing how that information is produced.
Suspicions were growing that some people who should not have been voting may have been doing so.
Does "classroom autonomy" mean the Main office must ultimately rely on election results produced by the classrooms while having very limited authority to establish minimum standards governing how those results are produced?
Or can the Main office establish a limited safeguard without taking control of the classrooms' elections themselves?
That's the question.