School Communities That Work for Results and Equity
School Communities that Work for Results and Equity
School Communities that Work: A National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts
An Initiative of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University School Communities that Work: A National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts was established in 2000 by the Annenberg Institute Norm Fruchter for School Reform at Brown University, to examine New York University an element of the public education system that has Eugene Garcia Arizona State University often been overlooked: the urban school district. Its Ellen Guiney primary goals are to help create, support, and sus- Boston Plan for Excellence tain entire urban communities of high-achieving Antonia Hernandez schools and to stimulate a national conversation to Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund promote the development and implementation of Paul Hill school communities that do, in fact, work for all University of Washington children. Gregory Hodge California Tomorrow To help imagine what high-achieving school com- Diana Lam munities would look like and how to create them, New York City Department of Education the Task Force convened influential leaders from the Don McAdams Center for Reform of School Systems education, civic, business, and nonprofit communi- Milbrey McLaughlin ties to study three critical areas: building capacity Stanford University for teaching and learning; developing family and Richard P. Mills community supports; and organizing, managing, New York State Education Department and and governing schools and systems. State University of New York Hugh Price Support for this work was provided by the Carnegie National Urban League Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, FOUNDING CHAIRMAN the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Rockefeller Thomas G. Labrecque (deceased) Foundation. EX OFFICIO School Communities that Work Vartan Gregorian, President Carnegie Corporation of New York Task Force Core Group Warren Simmons, Executive Director Deanna Burney Annenberg Institute for School Reform Consortium for Policy Research in Education Marla Ucelli, Director Geoffrey Canada School Communities that Work Annenberg Institute for School Reform Rheedlen Center for Children and Families Thomas Corcoran STAFF AT THE ANNENBERG INSTITUTE Consortium for Policy Research in Education Ellen Foley, Principal Associate Roger Erskine School Communities that Work League of Education Voters (Seattle) Robert Rothman, Senior Writer Susan Fisher, Associate Director, Communications Margaret Balch-Gonzalez, Editor
© June 2002 Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
Task Force leaders and funders are listed on the inside back cover. For more information on the School Communities that Work Task Force, visit our Web site at www.schoolcommunities.org he primary organizational structure for a city’s The role of the district is especially important in schools is the district. For the vast majority of large cities, since that is where many of our nation’s schools across the country, the district contin- most disadvantaged students live. The one hundred Tues in traditional ways to control the money, largest districts alone are responsible for educating classify the students, assign the teachers, and set the more than one-fifth of the nation’s schoolchildren, work rules. As local mechanisms for democratic two-fifths of our minority students, and at least polity on education, districts can create a climate percent of our poor children ( ). Most of that builds community ownership and support for these districts are urban, and most of them serve schools – or shuts it out. School districts also have , students or more. Failing to produce and the responsibility to implement, integrate, and sustain high-quality schools at scale will exacerbate monitor an often contradictory array of national, the inequities that currently separate poor children state, and local education reforms. Despite the cen- and children of color from their more advantaged tral role of districts in our education system, nearly peers. two decades of school reform have virtually ignored The pressure to improve whole systems of schools is the part districts can play in promoting or hinder- intense. Under the No Child Left Behind Act of ing school change. , large numbers of schools will likely be labeled Although districts successfully serve some societal low-performing. The consequences involve both sup- functions (such as employment for adults, contracts ports and sanctions – the latter of increasing inten- with businesses and service industries, and vehicles sity. At the same time, the law requires states to for local democratic participation), most large urban label districts as low-performing if they have large districts are no longer adequate educational institu- numbers of failing schools. In many of our large tions, especially for poor and minority students. urban districts, as many as half the schools might They have failed to provide effective support for be targeted. New ways of looking at districts and schools, leaving many schools without critical addressing these seemingly intractable problems are resources needed to improve their curriculum and now of the utmost importance. the knowledge and skills of their teachers and school leaders. Because so many districts are failing in their paramount function – education – they are The Problem with Districts easy targets for critics who contend that their isola- The achievement of students in urban school dis- tion from schools and communities and their out- tricts lags behind their peers in non-urban areas dated and ineffective structure impede, rather than (see, for example, Editorial Projects ; Lippman enable, improvement. et al. ). The gaps exist in every subject area; These concerns notwithstanding, SCHOOL COM- they are largest in mathematics and science. The MUNITIES THAT WORK believes that certain fun- achievement gap grows wider as students reach damental characteristics of school districts – their the upper grades – if they reach the upper grades. political and fiscal accountability; their composi- Urban students are nearly twice as likely to drop out tion, encompassing many schools; and their reach of school as non-urban students (Editorial Projects across communities – make the district, rather than ). the state or the individual school, the place reform- ers ought to look first for equitable, sustainable, and scaleable improvement strategies.
School Communities that Work for Results and Equity 1 Because of these persistent gaps in educational out- of children were meant to succeed academically was comes, many critics have questioned the viability of literally built into our education system. districts and the wisdom of continuing to provide A century later, this structure is an anachronism. By them with resources. The ability to function of rewarding compliance over professional judgment many urban districts is affected by severe organiza- and separating the schools from the community, the tional challenges: funding inequities compared with administrative progressives of the early twentieth their suburban counterparts; growing numbers of century created a system that almost guarantees that students needing specialized services; increasingly innovation will be thwarted. Good ideas from the complex relationships with their communities; schools or from outside the system are not welcome. alarming personnel turnover; and a distressing lack And the results are evident: virtually every city has of school- and district-level leadership. The institu- schools that are inspiring models of what public tional structure of districts, which reflects outmoded education could be; schools that exemplify public solutions to the problems of a bygone age, is at least education at its worst; and many examples in partly to blame for these problems. between the two extremes. Good instruction and Historic Roots: Built-in Inequity good schools are idiosyncratic rather than pervasive, and lessons from successful schools and districts are In many respects, the characteristics of districts that not widely learned or heeded. current reformers cite as dysfunctional are part of their design. In the first decades of the last century, Another legacy of the administrative progressives an earlier breed of reformers – known as adminis- was their failure to free school systems from politics. trative progressives – sought a remedy for the In contemporary urban school districts, school patronage and provincialism of the highly localized board positions are often seen as stepping stones to school governance system of the nineteenth century. higher office and are frequently the refuge of ideo- Taking their cue from the growing manufacturing logues more intent on political jockeying than economy, they tried to create the “one best system” addressing the needs of children. Unproductive, (Tyack ) that would produce assimilated, pro- adversarial relationships between district and union ductive citizens as efficiently as Ford’s factories pro- leaders often move educational concerns to a back duced cars. Their intent was to separate schooling burner, and special interest groups and well- from politics through corporate-style “scientific connected individuals lobby for advantages at the management,” led by an expert superintendent and cost of “other people’s children” (Delpit ). And his board of directors. Like corporate managers, though most official discriminatory policies have these professionals were to make and enforce poli- been abolished, schools still manage to sort students cies that would be carried out by the “workers” along the too-predictable lines of race and class. in the schools. Standardization – of inputs, not out- puts – was the goal. Recent Reforms: Insufficient Results The district structure first promoted by the admin- The belief that intelligence was innate and that istrative progressives nearly a century ago has per- school existed merely to sort out who had it and sisted remarkably. The intensive waves of school who didn’t were two of the foundational assump- reform that have swept the nation in the last two tions of the administrative progressives. (Tyack decades have failed to address the structure and oper- , ). The idea that only a small proportion ation of school districts as one of the root causes of our educational problems.
2 SCHOOL COMMUNITIES THAT WORK In many ways, the goals of the current reformers are vide the wherewithal needed in schools with poorly the right ones. Driven by concerns about lack of prepared teachers and administrators or with inade- competitiveness in a knowledge-based global econ- quate curricula or instructional programs. And omy, business and government leaders have led the efforts to reconstitute schools and to develop charter charge for reforms that expect more of all students. schools, small schools, and “whole-school” reform In many communities, educator-reformers, parent models – reforms that take a “one school at a time” groups, and other local groups have advocated for approach – weren’t designed to address the needs of resources and services that will enable their children whole communities of schools. to measure up and succeed. And, across the board, While many of these efforts have had real successes, policy-makers and the public alike seem to be in the limitation of school-by-school approaches is that agreement that good teaching is at the heart of bet- they provide for only the favored schools what all ter student and school performance (Public Educa- schools need to produce the results that all children tion Network & Education Week ). deserve. Yet none of the most popular solutions has helped us reach these admirable goals. For example, nearly every state and many large districts have adopted The Solution:A Local Education challenging content and performance standards for students. Some students and some schools have Support System reached the standards, but many – in some locales, We already know a great deal about the kind of most – have not. Accountability provisions and external supports that help schools to improve, and experimentation with school vouchers, school there are a variety of organizations that have been choice, and charter schools have not resulted in the providing them to some schools. But these external vast improvement in schools that their advocates supports must be made available to all schools in a predicted. Big-city superintendents, employed in community. We envision a new kind of school sys- what is often called “the toughest job in America,” tem – what we call a local education support system, initiate wide-ranging reforms but move in and out of or smart district, to achieve both results and equity. their positions quickly (Yee & Cuban ). City and state elected officials are channeling their frus- Support for Results at Scale tration with the slow pace of improvement by turn- Research on school-by-school reform efforts pro- ing control of large urban systems over to mayors vides abundant evidence that schools need better and state governments. Urban school districts, fac- supports and stronger incentives to improve, partic- ing unprecedented demands and saddled with out- ularly if they are already low-performing. A review moded structures and practices, have become pres- of the last two decades of education research shows sure cookers for the frustrations and aspirations that schools are more likely to improve when they Americans associate with public education. can get the following types of supports: Although recent reforms have brought heightened • high standards and expectations (Education Trust and necessary attention to the needs of low- ); a shared philosophy about learning (Abel- performing schools, the reforms themselves have mann et al. ); and the authority to make key been insufficient to bring about improved results decisions, including hiring staff who support the for all schools and students. Accountability creates philosophy (Hill et al. ) incentives for schools to improve but does not pro-
School Communities that Work for Results and Equity 3 • a pool of well-qualified teachers and administra- cation funds, and fee-for-service consultation and tors ( ; ) management groups (both for-profit and non- • ready access to, and incentives to participate in, profit) can monitor school progress and provide high-quality professional development; and on- pressure for continued improvement (Wong ; site assistance to equip teachers and school leaders Luhm, Foley & Corcoran ). In addition, such with the skills and knowledge to teach challeng- organizations can help provide professional develop- ing content to a diverse student body ( ment and technical support; intermediary organiza- ; Darling-Hammond ; Darling-Ham- tions supporting schools taking part in the Annen- ff mond ) berg Challenge served this function e ectively (Annenberg Foundation ). Reform support • materials and curriculum support to assist schools in organizations have also helped charter schools – developing courses of study that are aligned with schools developed on the idea that school autonomy standards is paramount – by providing technical assistance and • respectful and trusting relationships that connect support in goal-setting, legal requirements, business school staff, students, and parents – both on matters, and curricular and instructional issues a person-to-person basis and through formal (Wohlstetter ). organizations like community-based groups and subject-matter networks (Bryk & Schneider ) Another reason not to let schools go it alone is the • a mechanism for comparing school progress in question of scale. The sheer numbers of schools that terms of equity, results, and other student out- aren’t serving students well suggests that school-by- comes with other schools with similar student school approaches will never reach all the schools populations (Wasley & Fine ; Ragland et al. that need support for improvement. The smallest of ) our one hundred largest school districts serves fifty schools; the biggest serves over a thousand schools; • access to economies of scale (for functions like most of the others serve about a hundred schools. data and technology management as well as trans- Without explicit methods of dissemination or portation, food services, etc.) (Chubb & Moe reproduction, which districts in their present form ; Epstein ; Comer , ) seldom provide, most innovations and improve- • substantive parent and community involvement ments are not likely to spread from one school or in schools and in the lives of students (Schorr district to another. Beyond extending individual ) programs that work in one school setting to another These necessary supports come, for the most part, school setting is the larger challenge of building an from sources outside the school. Schools are not infrastructure to support and sustain improvement likely to improve if they have to go it alone.1 across a whole community or network of schools simultaneously. Other institutions and agencies, apart from the dis- trict, can provide external supports that help schools Ensuring Equity to improve. For example, reform support organiza- There is one paramount function that only a school tions, such as national reform advocates, local edu- district (or some redesigned version of a school dis- trict) can perform: ensuring equity. If the needs of
1 This is not only true of public schools. Private and parochial schools don’t go it alone either. For support, they look to national and regional associations and networks.
4 SCHOOL COMMUNITIES THAT WORK and resources available to all schools were the same, Community Responsibility it might make sense to free them from formal dis- Only an agency or set of agencies external to the trict ties and allow them to seek those supports on school, charged with ensuring that all schools have their own from external partners, just as successful access to the supports and resources they need, charter schools and schools engaged in whole-school can address these inequities and structural defects. reform do. This entity could be a redesigned school district, But school needs and resources differ. Some schools reformed from within. Or it could be a much more have highly experienced staff, while others have an radical alternative, an altogether new agency led by, abundance of new teachers, bringing different for example, a community organization or a for-profit strengths and weaknesses to the schools’ instruc- company. tional programs. Some schools have a particularly Whatever the path, to ensure results and equity supportive local community, while others are more this redesigned or new entity would have to take on isolated. Some schools have solid connections to the characteristics of what we call a local education professional development and technical-assistance support system. A local education support system providers, while others are unaware of resources that would incorporate some of the functions of tradi- exist or are unable to access them. Just as there are tional school districts, scrap others, and involve a differences between urban and non-urban schools, much wider spectrum of community members, there are also differences within cities on all of these organizations, and agencies than is typically the factors. And the schools serving the most disadvan- case now. taged and disenfranchised families tend to end up with the least support. It is important to emphasize that the school district, as it currently exists, cannot and should not provide The answer, then, is not to let schools go it alone all the educational and social supports children and but to replace districts or redesign them around youth need in order to achieve both results and their primary purposes: results and equity. We con- equity. Many different individuals and organizations tend that these purposes are not mutually exclusive. – including schools, parents and families, civic Rather, they are complementary. groups, research groups, community- and faith- Emphasizing equity – that is, providing varying based organizations, private-sector companies, and supports based on the needs of individual schools, city agencies – must work together to support and teachers, and children – is the only way to ensure sustain the healthy learning and development of results for all children in all schools in a system. children and youth. Accountability among these Likewise, emphasizing results – that is, expecting all partners ought to be distributed; that is, each part- children to grow up to be knowledgeable, produc- ner is accountable for its part in improving results, tive, caring adults – is the only way to ensure equity in proportion to its responsibility, and the partners for all children in all schools in a system. Meeting share their unique strengths to bring about better these twin goals requires high expectations for all results. In other words, districts and their commu- children and equitable opportunities for all young nities need to work together to create a local educa- people to learn and develop. tion support system, a “smart district.”
School Communities that Work for Results and Equity 5 that reflect these standards and high expectations; Essential Functions of a Local assistance in analyzing student work and the lessons Education Support System teachers assign; structural and substantive supports to involve all teachers in content-based coaching, Working together, the individuals and organizations collaborative teaching, and other effective forms of that form a local education support system need to professional development; opportunities to receive perform the following three essential functions to mentoring for all new teachers; and assistance in promote results and equity for young people. scheduling, budgeting, and expanding the school day and year to capitalize on these supports. The 1. Provide schools, students, and teachers exact combination of these supports would, of with needed support and timely interventions. course, depend on the needs and circumstances of The evidence from individual school reforms sug- each school; that is, rather than standardize inputs, as gests the range of supports schools need to provide the administrative progressives tried to do a century equitable learning opportunities for all students. ago, a local education support system, or smart dis- But districts seldom provide such supports in a sys- trict, would customize the supports and services it tematic way for all schools. The support they do provides. provide is often haphazard and unrelated to schools’ Timely Intervention improvement needs. And districts intervene in Local education support systems also have an obli- schools only in extreme circumstances, a time when gation to intervene in a timely manner if schools do it is most difficult to turn the situation around. not make progress. It is important to emphasize the Before districts act, students languish. word timely: reviews of efforts to intervene once Appropriate Support schools have failed show that such rescue attempts Schools have the right to demand support to assist are grueling, unpredictable, and expensive. Early their efforts to improve performance, and districts intervention and support have been shown to pro- and communities should be held accountable for duce huge rewards in the case of students; the same making such support available. This does not mean kind of monitoring, diagnosis, and support might that the district’s central office (or its equivalent) make sense when dealing with schools in “turn- must provide all the support schools need; indeed, around” conditions. Again, these interventions must most central offices would be ill equipped to do so. be calibrated to the unique needs of each school. Much of the support could come from schools themselves, through a redeployment of teaching staffs; some could come from universities or cultural WHAT “SMART DISTRICTS” DO institutions; and some from community-based 1. Provide schools, students, and teachers with organizations or private contractors. The central needed support and timely interventions. office’s role, where it does not provide services 2. Ensure that schools have the power and resources directly, would be that of a broker, making sure the to make good decisions. appropriate support goes to the schools that need it. 3. Make decisions and hold people throughout the The local education support system would provide system accountable by using indicators of school or broker the following services to schools: assistance and district performance and practices. in curriculum development and mapping against standards; support in selecting curriculum materials
6 SCHOOL COMMUNITIES THAT WORK The remedy should be appropriate to the situation Other resource allocation practices also mask – not based on a one-size-fits-all policy prescrip- inequities. For example, school budgets are deter- tion – and should be accompanied by the support mined using the district’s average teacher salary, necessary to produce results. rather than the actual salaries of the staff in that school. Thus, in the budgeting process, schools with 2. Ensure that schools have the power and many experienced teachers – and these tend to be resources to make good decisions. schools serving relatively affluent students – appear Helping all students reach academic performance to have the same level of resources as schools with standards demands some fundamental level of ade- the same number of teachers but who have less quate resources, since everything that a school dis- experience. In reality, the total dollar amount allo- trict does for children costs money. The disparities cated in salaries to the school with many experi- in funding between urban and suburban schools are enced teachers is much higher. In addition to the well known, and urban districts in many states have inequity between schools, this practice also masks ff taken the lead in trying to secure adequate resources, real di erences in instructional skill and experience often through legal and constitutional challenges. within schools. When all teachers are considered “the same,” the incentive to deploy teachers in diff- Yet resources within districts are often highly erent ways to support instructional needs – such as inequitable as well. Some schools receive richer concentrating the use of experienced teachers in criti- resources – more funding, better and more experi- cal subject areas – is virtually eliminated. enced teachers, and greater access to resources in the community – than others. The better-resourced Human Resources Systems schools tend to be those serving students from rela- The situation is exacerbated by districts’ human tively affluent families. resources systems – or, perhaps more accurately, the lack of human resources systems. To be sure, dis- Equitable Allocation to Schools tricts have offices that manage recruitment and hir- One reason for these inequitable patterns is the way ing, but these practices are seldom managed strate- districts allocate resources to schools. Most districts gically to match strengths to needs. Districts engage ff typically allocate a certain base number of sta posi- the labor market in a limited way and establish a tions to every school – for example, every elemen- single set of conditions for employment – teachers tary school might get one principal, librarian, and get paid the same regardless of where and what they physical education teacher, regardless of how many teach, for example. Moreover, there is usually no students attend the school. Once schools hit a cer- connection between recruitment and teacher eval- tain threshold size, they might receive additional uation, compensation, and professional develop- personnel, such as an assistant principal. The result ment: compensation and career advancement are is that the smaller schools tend to have proportion- automatic, not related to demonstrable skill ff ately more sta . in improving outcomes for children. It is little won- In addition, districts allocate more staff to support der that students’ learning opportunities are distrib- special programs and needs identified by the school uted so inequitably. or district. In some urban districts, to cite a com- Community Resources ff mon case, magnet schools receive additional sta , Another contributing factor to the inequities in on top of the standard allocation, to support their opportunities for children and youth is that school specific programs, so these schools possess greater districts often work in isolation from their commu- resources than other schools in the same district.
School Communities that Work for Results and Equity 7 nities. This not only limits opportunities for par- dren will have to be leveled up, to make their out- ents, students, and community members to influ- comes equivalent to those of more advantaged stu- ence district policies; it also leaves districts out of dents. the distribution of other community resources that might support education. These resources – parks, 3. Make decisions and hold people throughout youth-serving organizations, after-school homework the system accountable by using indicators of clubs, internships, and many other non-school school and district performance and practices. activities – are often distributed just as inequitably To achieve results, local education support systems as district funds and human resources. need to know current and past results and what To ensure equivalent results for all children, local they have to do to improve those results. That education support systems need to allocate resources means that districts and their partners need to to schools in an equitable manner, provide schools develop and maintain sophisticated data systems that with the flexibility to use the resources the way they enable them to monitor the performance of young see fit, and facilitate school connections to other people, schools, and the partners themselves against supportive resources. This means not only changing the results they expect. Few communities have this budgeting and human resource functions, but also capability. working in partnership with community members Leading Indicators to help distribute and utilize existing supports more Although districts collect a wealth of data, the infor- effectively. mation is often inadequate, and data gathered about Resources beyond the District youth relies heavily on test scores and school gradu- While we have focused primarly on within-district ation and promotion rates. These indicators, while resource allocation, we also know that intrastate, important, do not tell the whole story. They do not interdistrict, and federal resource allocations are provide information about other aspects of youth key issues. For example, many urban districts are development, such as health or well-being, or of a making legal and constitutional challenges to state community’s supports for children and families; education-financing systems. While each of these they seldom show student growth over time; and cases must be reviewed on its individual merits, we they do not say very much about what schools and believe that as a nation, we must re-examine how their partners need to do to improve results. we distribute educational resources. Undoubtedly, In addition, test scores and other indicators typi- additional resources will be needed if we are to reach cally collected usually arrive too late to help individ- our goal of providing all children with their rightful ual children or schools who are struggling. For educational opportunities. example, we already know that most urban schools That need raises the issue of what investment we as do not meet state or district performance standards. a country are willing to make in children, especially These measures do not tell us whether schools or poor children, compared with other developed districts are investing in the types of instructional countries (Perie et al. ). If we are truly to make changes that will lead to higher performance down results and equity the norm in our education sys- the road. Student performance measures are, tem, we will not be able to avoid rethinking how to use a term from economists, lagging indicators, resources are distributed within and between school like unemployment statistics. districts, and it is likely that investment in poor chil-
8 SCHOOL COMMUNITIES THAT WORK Economists do not wait for unemployment rates to District-level Indicators be released to see if the economy is on the road Both types of leading indicators – dashboard indica- toward full employment. To determine if employ- tors and measures of proven practice – are needed ment rates will rise in the future, they examine at the district level as well. To be sure, districts are other indicators – such as factory orders – which accountable to the community for student perform- are known as leading indicators. ance and for proper management of taxpayer funds. But just as with schools, these lagging measures of School districts and their communities need leading performance do not say whether districts are put- indicators of educational performance and practices ting in place the infrastructure that will ensure posi- that take at least two forms. The first type are the tive results for students in the coming months and crudest sort of indicators, similar to the “Check years. They do not say whether districts have the Engine Soon” light on a car dashboard, which acts capacity to support schools’ instructional improve- as an early warning system. These “dashboard” indi- ment efforts, or whether they are providing the cur- cators don’t diagnose a specific problem, but moni- riculum and professional development support tored carefully (and ideally longitudinally) they schools need. can help districts know where to look for trouble. Without information on district structure and Much of this data is already collected by districts policies and on school practices – that is, leading but not used proactively. For example, monitoring indicators of performance – students are often left the rates of teacher transfer or attrition at each behind. These measures are especially important in school might identify schools most in need of inten- urban districts, where most schools perform below sive intervention. Local education support systems state and district performance standards. These must pay attention to early warning signs like these communities and these schools cannot wait the esti- so they can target their resources and provide appro- mated three to seven years it takes to find out if the priate supports. changes they are making are yielding gains in stu- A second type of leading indicator, indicators of dent performance. This information is particularly proven instructional practice, is much more cum- vital now, since the new federal No Child Left bersome to measure but just as essential. If student Behind Act holds schools and districts strictly performance measures are lagging indicators, then accountable for improving achievement. logically it is necessary to use indicators other than Local education support systems integrate not only test scores to measure whether schools are engaged in the collection of data, but also the serious and regu- the kinds of instructional activities likely to lead to lar examination of data, into the normal operating student achievement. Local education support sys- procedures for schools and districts. Thorough needs tems need to know, for example, if schools are effec- assessments based on sound data, rather than on tively analyzing teachers’ lessons and student work, subjective factors like personalities or politics, can or if they are implementing curricula mapped to provide solid directions for how to improve services. district standards. Admittedly, this is a difficult task. At the very least, it is time-consuming and labor Community Accountability intensive to collect such data across large school sys- Appraising results regularly and leveraging data that tems; and in some subject areas and grade levels, already exist can also help the partners involved in what to measure is unclear. For our vision of local local education support systems hold each other education support systems to become a reality, addi- accountable for improved service delivery. Local edu- tional work will be needed in this area.
School Communities that Work for Results and Equity 9 cation support systems share information widely by holding them to the same high expectations but and work with community partners to help ensure also by offering different support strategies based on distributed responsibility and accountability for the unique needs of the children, educators, and results. Reliable, shared data can be used for plan- schools. The system itself encompasses a broad ning and evaluation and for understanding trends range of partners who take joint responsibility for and mapping service availability. results. Furthermore, the structural and managerial arrangements by which these local education sup- Data can be powerful. Analyzing and publicizing port systems function every day are driven by what data on educational performance in conjunction it takes to achieve those results – not by history, with information on young people’s health and convention, or convenience. well-being, as well as data on the use of civic resources such as libraries, parks, and other public The urban school district, as it exists today, is not services, can catalyze wide civic involvement in, and only ineffective for far too many students, but is advocacy for, child and family issues. for the most part invisible to the general public. When the average citizen thinks of public education, the images that come to mind first are probably not A Call to Action the superintendent, the board of education, and the central office. More likely, people think of their Each of the three functions of a local education child’s school, a favorite teacher, or any of their own support system sketched herein – providing schools myriad learning experiences. with needed support and timely interventions; ensuring that schools have equitable resources and But what is a school district if not the way in which power to make good decisions; and providing a community organizes itself to provide public educa- appropriate indicators for school and district tion? The district may not evoke dramatic or inspir- accountability and decision making – is necessary, ing images, but it is critical to American democracy. but none is sufficient on its own to ensure results Education is not only an individual good; it is also a and equity. And communities face major hurdles community good and a societal good. Our country to put them in place. faces major changes in population and in the econ- omy over the next century. Large-scale improve- To transform themselves into “smart districts,” ments in public education in the United States are districts and their partners need brainpower to necessary if we wish to avoid further perpetuating design these steps carefully, political will to over- a nation of haves and have-nots, based largely on come the inevitable resistance to change, and skills race, class, and geography. and constructive relationships to implement them effectively. Clearly, making results and equity the Ample evidence has shown that we can improve our overriding purposes for school districts has major system of urban public education. Our dedication implications for urban (indeed, all) district design to children, our commitment to democracy, and our and for the very definition of what a district is. sense of justice compel us to act on that knowledge now. The continuing mission of SCHOOL COMMU- Unlike most school districts today, the local educa- NITIES THAT WORK is to contribute powerful tion support systems we envision – and desperately ideas and concrete supports in its work with urban need – provide high-quality, equitable educational leaders who share this sense of urgency. opportunities to all children in all schools. They help children, educators, and schools achieve results
10 SCHOOL COMMUNITIES THAT WORK Bibliography Education Trust (). Dispelling the Myth: High- Poverty Schools Exceeding Expectations. Washington, Abelmann, C., and R. Elmore, with J. Even, S. DC: Education Trust. Kenyon, and J. Marshall (). When Accountabil- ity Knocks, Will Anyone Answer? Philadelphia: Con- Epstein, J. L. ( ). “Paths to Partnership: What sortium for Policy Research in Education. We Can Learn from Federal, State, District, and School Initiatives,” Phi Delta Kappan :, pp. Annenberg Foundation ( ). The Annenberg –. Challenge: Lessons and Reflections on Public School Reform. St. Davids, PA: Annenberg Foundation. Hill, P.T., C. Campbell, and J. Harvey ( ). It Takes a City: Getting Serious about Urban School Bryk, A.S., and Schneider, B. ( ) Trust in Reform. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Lippman, L., S. Burns, E. McArthur, R. Burton, T. Smith, and P. Kaufman (). Urban Schools: Chubb, J. E., and T.M. Moe ( ). Politics, The Challenge of Location and Poverty ( Markets, and America’s Schools. Washington, DC: –).Washington: U.S. Department of Educa- Brookings Institution. tion, Office of Educational Research and Improve- Comer, J. (Ed.) (). Child by Child: The Comer ment, National Center for Education Statistics. Process for Change in Education. New York: Teachers Luhm, T., E. Foley, and T. Corcoran (). The College Press. Accountability System: Defining Responsibility for Comer, J. (). School Power: Implications of an Student Achievement. Philadelphia: Consortium for Intervention Project. New York: Free Press. Policy Research in Education. Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform National Center for Education Statistics ( ). (). Reinventing Central Office: A Primer for Suc- “Characteristics of the Largest Public Elemen- cessful Schools. Chicago: . tary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: –.” Washington: U.S. Department Darling-Hammond, L. ( ). Solving the Dilem- of Education, Office of Educational Research and mas of Teacher Supply, Demand, and Standards: How Improvement, NCES. Available on the Web at We Can Ensure a Competent, Caring, and Qualified
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12 SCHOOL COMMUNITIES THAT WORK Design Group on Developing Family Kenneth Wong Vanderbilt University and Community Supports GROUP ADVISOR CO-LEADERS Carl Cohn Milbrey McLaughlin Long Beach Unified School District Stanford University Norm Fruchter* Gregory Hodge* Design Group on Building Capacity for Quality Teaching and Leadership GROUP MEMBERS Luis Garden Acosta CO-LEADERS El Puente Warren Simmons* Deborah Alvarez-Rodriquez Deanna Burney* Omidyar Foundation Michele Cahill GROUP MEMBERS New York City Department of Education Ellen Bernstein Richard Murphy Albuquerque Teachers Federation Academy for Educational Development Thomas Corcoran* Pedro Noguera Charles Desmond Harvard University University of Massachusetts Wendy Puriefoy Roger Erskine* Public Education Network Fred Frelow Clarence Stone The Rockefeller Foundation University of Maryland Ellen Guiney* Lisa Villarreal Kris Gutierrez University of California–Davis University of California–Los Angeles Lester Young, Jr. Andy Hargreaves New York Community School District 13 Boston College Judith Johnson Design Group on Organizing, Managing, Peekskill (NY) Public Schools Dale Kalkofen and Governing Schools and Systems Chesterfield (VA) Public Schools CO-LEADERS Muriel Leonard Paul Hill* McCormack Middle School Dorchester, Massachusetts Don McAdams* Vicki Phillips GROUP MEMBERS School District of Lancaster Joseph DeStefano James Spillane Learning Communities Network Northwestern University Karen Hawley Miles GROUP ADVISORS Education Resource Management Strategies Anthony Alvarado Jay Ogilvy San Diego City Schools Global Business Network, Inc. Anthony Bryk Marion Orr University of Chicago Brown University Greg Richmond Chicago Public Schools/Board of Education *also a member of Core Group A National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts
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