A key lesson
learned from the decentralization experiment is the need for system-wide
standards and intervention to address the challenge of student performance. The
LSC (Local
School Council) and its supportive network alone are not sufficient
to promote educational improvement
system-wide. Indeed, decentralized reform may have widened the capacity gap
among schools to raise performance. Instead, districtwide leadership is needed to
apply both pressure and support to schools. Such a mix of intervention
strategies did not occur during the period of LSC dominance because the
reform ideology with its strong antibureaucratic sentiments did not allow
for the proper functioning of the central office. Taken as a whole, the post
2005 strategies of sanctions and support have improved the overall conditions
that lead to better student performance across the
system. Better test scores are seen not only in elementary schools but also in
the more problematic high schools since 2004.
In contrast to the seemingly recentralizing
tendency under integrated governance, charter school reform aims to
significantly reduce regulatory control from the central administration and
union agreements. Although they are labeled as public schools, charter schools
are distinctive in several major aspects. The school's charter or contract
explicitly spells out the conditions and expectations for outcome-based
performance. The authorizing agency can be the local school board, the state,
or other legal entities (such as universities). Once established, schools enjoy
substantial autonomy in setting curriculum, teacher salaries, and work
conditions, although they are bound by state regulations regarding safety, health,
dismissal, and civil rights. School funding follows students to the schools,
which operate on a multiyear renewable contract.
Charter schools are guided by several design
principles. They aim to:
• create a new structure of school autonomy
based on performance contract;
• limit central office control over
curriculum, instruction, and personnel decisions;
• grant parental preferences on schooling
opportunities; and
• promote innovation and alternative
assessment on student performance.
Since 1992, when
the first two charter schools opened in Minnesota, the number of states with
charter legislation and the number of schools in operation have grown steadily.
Charter school advocates have identified two kinds of innovative effects: (1)
charter school can create competition, maintaining a better fit with the needs
of their "customerparents," and thereby
pressuring regular public schools to improve in order to maintain their share
of the student "market"; and (2) enjoying substantial autonomy from
the central office, schools can serve as laboratories for developing new educational ideas and practices,
fostering and following through on innovative ideas from which traditional
public schools in the district can learn. But are these claims supported by the
knowledge base in the current literature?
Not surprisingly, the literature is split on
the issue of whether charter school competition pressures public schools to
improve. Most of the research has found light to moderate effects, more
prevalent in smaller or mid-sized districts where the system is often more
nimble and the impact of a few schools is more readily felt. Legislative
compromise-capping the number of schools, cushioning the financial blow to
traditional district schools, or reducing the autonomy of schools-may lessen
the effects. Educational reform was
also influenced by past performance and the eagerness of the district
leadership to undertake change. While there is some evidence suggesting
district response to competition, starting charter schools is such difficult
work that a significant amount of time may be needed before producing strong,
system-wide impacts on school districts. In districts where schools made an
impact, districts made "piecemeal" instead of system-wide changes,
and were most concerned with expanding their school day by offering new add-on
programs. In short, given the mixed evidence on charter school impact, more
research is needed on what works and what doesn't in charter school as a
system-wide reform.
As for schools promoting innovative
practices, researchers have asked two related questions: (1) Are schools
engaging in classroom innovation, with new methods of teaching?
(2) Are district schools able and willing to integrate those classroom innovations into the
mainstream curriculum? On both of these issues, the empirical evidence tends to
be mixed. While innovations were found, many were structural, few were either
freestanding or independently replicable, and no evidence of significant
sharing or dissemination of practices from schools to district schools was
found. Some evidence suggests that changes in organizational and institutional
arrangements may prove more significant than any academic innovations. The literature remains unclear on whether
charter reforms are actually "adding value" to student learning.
Conclusions
The two emerging
governance models represent a continuum of institutional possibilities for
urban educational reform. At one end of the continuum is
integrated governance, which redefines the responsibilities and enhances the
capacity of districtwide leadership. Given its strong focus on raising student performance, integrated
governance reform tends to target resources on and apply pressure to
low-performing schools and students. A challenge is to recruit leadership that
has the vision to apply pressure and provide support to low-performing schools.
Concerns about the potential of excessive
central direction have prompted some reformers to support the charter school
model, which represents the other end of the institutional reform continuum.
While decentralization may facilitate innovative practices and promote more
efficient use of resources, the charter school model is likely to be unevenly
implemented across different settings. Given schools' autonomy, system-wide
standards are not likely to be considered a high priority. Whether schools are
able to recruit high-quality leaders will be a critical challenge. Equally
important is the charters' capacity for turning around low-performing schools
and students.
From a broader
perspective, the two emerging models call our attention to the complex
challenge of reengineering low-performing schools with a particular focus on
leadership and management issues. More specifically, this review of the two
models raises several issues in the area of educational leadership, including: the role of states and districts
in designing and implementing alternative systems of accountability; leadership
qualities and management practices that are necessary for implementing the
reform models at the district and school level; the kind of technical
assistance that is needed to ease organizational transition and improve
effective management in settings where political leaders at the state and city
level have taken a more active role in education;
principals' strategies in developing school-wide vision and implementing
strategic plans that are designed to raise student performance; the ability of
public school leadership at the school and district levels to respond to an
emerging competitive environment given the increase in the number of schools;
and effective ways in which noneducators can collaborate with school professionals to turn
around low-performing schools.
Source: https://ebookschoice.com/developing-schoolwide-vision-and-implementing-strategic-plans/
