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ECS Governance Notes |
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Guest Column |
From States to Districts:
The Next Phase of the Standards-based Movement
Joseph Olchefske
October 2001
During the 1980s and 1990s, school districts across the nation witnessed unprecedented change in educational policy. From Kentucky to Maryland, Connecticut to Texas, coalitions of governors, legislators, state superintendents, business leaders and others banded together to reshape their states’ educational policy frameworks. These coalitions clearly saw that the shifting dynamics of our economy and our society demanded fundamental changes in the infrastructure that defined K-12 education for much of the 20th century. State policymakers worked to eliminate the remains of a system driven by the needs of the industrial age while responding to the new demands of the information age.
These state policy changes have transformed the landscape of education. The states created content and performance standards; they developed universal assessments to ensure that the standards are met; and they demanded accountability from both students and schools.
A Changed Landscape at the District Level
From a superintendent’s perspective, standards-based changes in state policy create a new and fundamentally different set of goals for local districts. The policy changes that states made over the last decade have given birth to a new paradigm that now drives the need for dramatic change and opportunity at the district level.
The implementation of standards-based reform at the district level is a daunting task. The challenge, at its core, is to transform the operations of large, tradition-bound institutions while working toward goals that did not exist in any tangible sense only five or 10 years ago.
Unfortunately, the national conversation on education reform continues to focus on state-level policy instead of on district-level implementation. If we are to make significant progress in the years ahead, we must acknowledge that the central energy of the standards movement has now migrated from the states to the districts. That is, the primary locus of change within our multi-level structure of education governance has now moved from policy-oriented change at the state level to implementation-oriented change at the school district level.
Districts now find themselves facing many of the same challenges that state-level policymakers encountered 10 or 15 years ago. While states were clear about their goals, there was no ready road map for reaching them. After much trial and error, many states arrived at the combination of content and performance standards, grade-level student performance assessments and “high-stakes” accountability for students and schools that are now the hallmark of state-level standards-based reform.
The “Tight/Loose” Model of a Standards-based District
In
response to these state-level changes, many districts around the country have
pursued a reform model based on what I will call a “tight/loose” approach to
institutional change. This model in
many ways parallels one of two models described in the Education Commission of
the States’ 1999 report Governing America’s Schools: Changing the Rules. This model of governance strongly holds
schools accountable for results and simultaneously creates environments where
schools have the freedom to focus on teaching and learning.
In a
tight/loose approach, a district establishes a clear set of non-negotiable,
“tight” outcomes that apply equally to every school and every student. These outcomes typically focus on
student-based and school-based performance measures. The district then pairs this tight focus on outcomes with a
“loose” approach to the methods used to achieve the outcomes. The notion of “looseness” generally
translates into a wide variety of instructional strategies, along with local
governance structures of autonomy, deregulation, site-based management and the
like.
In the
Seattle Public Schools, we have embarked on our own variation of the
tight/loose model. Reforms in our
district have touched on nearly every facet of operations, including school
choice, funding and staffing as well as professional development that promotes
standards-based instruction and performance assessment. We have given our schools and teachers far more
freedom, while simultaneously creating greater focus on the student performance
indicators so critical to our success.
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“Loose” Structures: In Seattle, we have implemented a number of structural reforms
that significantly increased the freedom of schools to shape instructional
practices, attract students, hire teachers and manage budgets. An open-choice
student assignment plan allows families to choose any school in the
district. A weighted student funding system
allocates resources based on student needs, with additional money provided for
poor, special-education and limited-English speaking students. Money follows students to the schools of
their choice. A groundbreaking contract
with the teachers’ union gives schools the freedom to select their own teachers
regardless of seniority. Now, existing
teachers, working with their principal, have a hand in hiring their colleagues.
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“Tight”
Structures: Freedom without accountability is a recipe
for disaster. So Seattle adopted clear
performance standards or “outcomes” – for students, teachers and
administrators. We created universal
academic standards for students that align with our state’s 4th, 7th
and 10th grade benchmarks. A
universal assessment and reporting system ensures that all students are held to
the same high standards. Professional
Practice Standards for teachers define the elements of world-class teaching and
learning. And Leadership Standards
reflect the changing role of principals and other administrators who, under our
current system, must now function as both instructional leaders and chief
executive officers.
Transformation
to a standards-based district requires an enormous retrofitting of professional
skills. Virtually every staff member,
including the superintendent, is affected.
Through principal leadership institutes, summer institutes, teacher
training and other programs, Seattle teachers and administrators have refined
their instructional practices and developed new skills to reach the district’s
ambitious new goals.
We have seen strong results from the changes we have instituted. There have been steady gains in test scores. A greater number of students are taking – and performing well on – the SAT. Attendance is up. Dropout rates are down. And our schools are safer than ever before.
Conclusion
The tight/loose model is not the only one that districts can pursue in transforming themselves in response to standards. In fact, districts around the country are developing a wide variety of organizational models that are shaping their standards-based reform efforts.
Still, change is never easy. The Seattle district has encountered controversy and political opposition nearly every step of the way. I suspect other districts face similar obstacles as they undertake this difficult work. We cannot afford to let them falter. We have come too far. It is critical that the initiators of this revolution –state legislators and other policymakers – extend their full support to school districts as, one by one, they make their transformational journeys into the standards-based future.
Joseph Olchefske is the Superintendent of the Seattle
Public Schools.
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©
Copyright 2001 by the Education Commission of the States (ECS). All rights
reserved. The
Education Commission of the States is a nonprofit, nationwide organization
that helps state leaders shape education policy. It is ECS policy to take
affirmative action to prevent discrimination in its policies, programs and
employment practices. To request permission to excerpt part of this publication, either in print or electronically, please fax a request to the attention of the ECS Communications Department, 303-296-8332 or e-mail ecs@ecs.org. |