Critical Issue:
Fostering School Improvement: Can More Freedom or Less Regulation Help?

ISSUE: The journey toward school improvement seems to have reached a fork in the road. Since 1983, when the current wave of school reform began, many education policymakers have called for top-down mandates and funding incentives, while others have suggested reforming the education system on a school-by-school basis. Although well-intentioned, neither approach has created the critical mass of good schools needed to drive the performance of all schools upwards.

OVERVIEW: Educators and policymakers have begun to realize that the best way to achieve this necessary critical mass may be to combine state-level mandates and goals with school-level freedom and leadership. Innovative approaches that require state legislation include:

• School choice (open enrollment)
• Waivers
• Charter schools
• Voucher programs

See also the Pathways Critical Issue on site-based management that can be implemented without state legislation and NCREL's Policy Briefs on Decentralization.

GOALS: The goal of all of these approaches - school choice, waivers, charter schools, vouchers, and site-based management - is to move critical decisions to the level closest to the students. Advocates argue that by moving decisions to the school building level, local problems, opportunities, and preferences can be used to improve student learning. By shifting the responsibility for decisions about programming, management, and governance to the schools, teachers, administrators, and community members will take on new roles. Thus, another common goal of these programs is to empower all members of the school community and help them develop the skills needed for successful reform.

ACTION OPTIONS:

• Clarify or rework district- and school building-level goals to take advantage of waivers that could improve a local program.
• Identify an accountability system that will best lead to success in the programs that you want to implement, and seek exemption from regulations, if necessary.
• Design an incentive program to help achieve the goal improved student learning.
• Be prepared to demonstrate how your school will meet improved student learning outcomes without discouraging experimentation.
• Show how deregulation will lead to a bold plan - not just support business as usual.

DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW: Within the school establishment, some of these ideas seem hard to understand. Below are examples of challenges that have been raised in response to charter schools legislation and to existing charter schools:

• Following legislative approval in Colorado, the state board brought together a large group of interested participants and school district representatives to discuss implementation and potential state board guidelines. Some of the school district representatives argued for strong accountability mandates, but those interested in writing charter school proposals argued for no guidelines. The ensuing discussion was a microcosm of the debate over charter schools, but, for the most part, the "minimum guideline" advocates prevailed.

One observation from the Colorado discussion was that school boards already had enough control over buildings in their districts to start charter schools without the state law. A discussion in Florida came to this same conclusion, and the state chose not to pass a charter schools law.

• On the day that the Wisconsin governor signed his state's charter schools bill, State Representative Rosemary Potter held a public information forum. In this open meeting, public sentiment ran decidedly against the charter schools idea, primarily because it was seen as a ploy to bring in private contractors to take over schools, push through job-reduction programs, and in general kill public education.
• One new charter school in Michigan, the Noah Webster Academy, has already been challenged in court because it plans to provide curriculum and technological support for 1,400 home-school students in the state.
• Despite these challenges, charter schools generally have received bipartisan support in those states that have enacted charter schools laws, according to Alex Medler, a researcher at the Education Commission of the States, who examined the party affiliation of the executive and legislative branches of government in these states.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES:

School choice

• Eugene, Oregon
• Minnesota

Charter schools

• City Academy, St. Paul, Minnesota
• Toivola-Meadowlands School, St. Louis County, Missouri

CONTACTS:

Council of Chief State School Officers
One Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 408-5505

Education Commission of the States
707 17th Street, Suite 2700
Denver, CO 80202-3427
(303) 299-3600, fax (303) 296-8332
E-mail: ecs@ecs.org
WWW: http://www.ecs.org

National Education Goals Panel
1850 M Street NW, Suite 270
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 632-0952; FAX: (202) 632-0957
E-mail: Leslie Lawrence llawrenc@inet.ed.gov

OERI/Department of Education
555 New Jersey Avenue
NW Washington DC 20208
(202) 708-5366 (staff locator)

References

This Critical Issue summary was researched and written by Chris Pipho, Education Commission of the States.

Date posted: 1995