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Illinois School Board Journal
September-October 1999

ECS task force studies governance

by Todd Ziebarth

Todd Ziebarth is policy analyst with the Education Commission of the States. For more information about ECS's effort, please contact Todd Ziebarth at 303/299-3652; e-mail to: tziebarth@ecs.org, or log onto the ECS website at www.ecs.org.

Many Americans are deeply concerned about the performance of the nation's public schools. They cite sub-par test scores, unruly student behavior and dilapidated school buildings as evidence that public schools are failing. Although some question the extent of this failure, there is general agreement that public schools must improve. The question is how.

In response to this question, some are advocating changes in public education governance - that is, changes in the institutions and individuals who make decisions about a state or school district's education policies. In fact, a number of states and districts have recently implemented education governance changes. For example:

Some states have intervened in the operation and management of urban districts (e.g., the Illinois legislature shifted control of the Chicago public schools to the mayor and charged him with appointing school board members, the board president and the district's chief executive officer).

States and school districts continue to decentralize certain decisions, such as those relating to personnel, from the district to the school level.

The school choice movement continues to increase in volume and diversity throughout the nation (e.g., 36 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have enacted charter school laws).

State policy makers are playing larger roles in finance, standards, assessment, and accountability decisions.

Advocates believe such changes will improve the delivery of children's education, increasing their levels of achievement in school and chances of success in life. However, the relationship between governance and educational achievement is neither simple nor straightforward. Understanding the different contexts among states and school districts is crucial, and reinforces the view that there will be no standard approach to changing education governance in the quest for improved education results.

Given these challenges, the Education Commission of the States (ECS) has received a multi-year grant from the Joyce Foundation to study education governance. Through the Governing America's Schools initiative, ECS will produce information about education governance that will help policy makers make informed decisions and, in the process, develop ways to improve traditional governance arrangements and alternatives to those arrangements. As part of this initiative, ECS has convened an 18-member National Commission on Governing America's Schools. This diverse, experienced and outspoken group will research and develop useful options for strong, forward-thinking school organization and management. Its charge is not to propose a single model of school governance as the right one for all places; rather, its objective is to offer an array of options, so that states and local communities can make informed decisions about what will work for their children.

The central question before the National Commission on Governing America's Schools is: "How can states and communities organize themselves to effectively educate their young people?" To answer this question, the Commission will research and develop governance options, which will range from making improvements to the existing system to creating alternatives to this system. The Commission has formed working groups for each of the options. A nationally recognized expert, who is knowledgeable about the approach being developed by the group, will aid each group. The four broad options are:

Improving the existing system. This option focuses on improving the quality and efficiency of existing district-run school systems by implementing identified effective practices. It retains government operation of all schools and a central civil service model for employment of staff, but it emphasizes clarity of goals; maximizes districtwide investment in the quality of curriculum, materials and personnel; and increases the proportion of funds spent on instruction. This approach has dominated the school reform movement since publication of A Nation At Risk in 1983. State academic standards, performance-based assessments, systemic alignment and professional development are key elements of this approach.

Site-based management. The site-based management option retains a districtwide school board, executive structure and civil service hiring, but it recreates the central office as a provider of services to schools and promotes distinctive neighborhood-controlled schools. It accomplishes this by waiving selected districtwide rules at schools' request and holding schools accountable via improvement and waiver plans negotiated with the board and superintendent. Decentralization, as a strategy for school improvement, draws on the lessons from business and industry's efforts in the 1970s and 1980s to flatten organizational structures and move more operating decisions to field-level units. Public education has experimented with a wide variety of decentralization schemes as well, with the most radical scheme being Chicago's local school councils.

Multiple providers. This is a more radical approach, which makes a clear separation between the management and operation of schools. It creates a system of independently operated, publicly accountable schools. While it retains the role of a representative body in entering contracts that authorize individual schools to operate with public funds, it also maximizes schools' organizational independence.

Charter, or contract, schools are independent organizations that control their own budgets, invest in curriculum and professional development, and hire, evaluate and fire staff. Schools are accountable for meeting the terms of their contracts and must enroll enough students to be financially viable. Parents have choices and over-enrolled schools have admissions lotteries. There are now more than 1,200 charter schools operating throughout the nation. This option would build on the experience of charter schools by creating whole districts in which every school operates under a charter arrangement.

Education Development Board. This option is a new and quite different publicly governed organization whose main job is to encourage as varied and high quality a supply of education options as possible. Whereas boards in the multiple providers option manage portfolios of contracts between a public authority and independent school operators, the development board is a planning agency that would coordinate education services provided by contractors and private organizations, as well as those provided directly by school districts.

Besides its planning function, the education development board would make public investments to train or attract into the community the best possible teachers and would help schools find the teachers they need. It would pay children's tuition in schools provided by many organizations, and it would set up new schools (via contract or direct public management) to provide options for children now attending weak or failing schools. Because its responsibility is to promote a rich supply, rather than to dominate the supply function itself, the authority would not assign either students or teachers to schools. The authority would provide public information about schools and also would continuously incubate a supply of school providers.

The National Commission is scheduled to release its final report on November 15, 1999, in Williamsburg, Virginia.