The shifting structure of school governance

Posted by on January 20, 2014

The shifting structure of school governance

In her overview for Education Week’s Quality Counts 2014, Jaclyn Zubrzycki writes that most of the nation’s 13,000 districts retain a familiar structure even as they evolve in response to economic, demographic, and educational pressures. Schools are clustered into administrative groups based on geographic boundaries; hiring, curriculum, and infrastructure are overseen by a central office; and entities are run by a superintendent and governed by an elected or appointed school board. But structures are shifting. Budget crises, state and federal demands for academic improvement, and the rise of market-based approaches to running schools are spurring new models of governance and internal administration. Radical changes have occurred in big districts with deep and long-standing challenges: Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, and New York City. Yet administrators in long-stable districts, whether suburban, small-town, or rural, are not immune from the push for common academic standards, teacher evaluations and school accountability tied to test scores, and state and federal budget cuts. Even in stable districts where the traditional structure remains intact, momentum continues toward reducing the role of the central office — shifting responsibility toward principals to hire teachers, for instance. At the same time, districts are struggling to cope with a burgeoning charter school sector, which siphons off students and per-pupil dollars in ways that profoundly effect district coffers and educational programs.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/09/16overview.h33.html