But in part, this is because administrators have little power to make teachers toe the line instructionally. School administrators can fire teachers only with the greatest difficulty, and pay levels are based on years of service and graduate credits, not job performance. The result is that teachers have considerably more autonomy in the way they perform their fundamental functions than do most employees. As Philip Cusick has shown, the system has a genius for incorporating curriculum change without fundamental reorganization. One is the way that teachers adopt the language and the feel of a reform effort without altering the basic way they do things.
Schools are able to incorporate new initiatives without forcing collateral changes.
The system is flexible about adopting curriculum forms as long as this doesn't challenge the basic structure of curriculum practice. The other way is inherent in the segmented structure of the school curriculum. The differentiation of subjects frees schools to adopt new programs and courses by the simple process of addition. They can always tack on another segment in the already fragmented curriculum, because these additions require no fundamental restructuring of programs. For this reason, schools are quite tolerant of programs and courses that have contradictory goals.