The big stick: school reform in Chicago depended on setting standards and promoting systemwide improvement - Feature

Education Next, Wntr, 2003 by Kenneth K. Wong

IN THE 1980s, site-based management was one of the hottest theories in education. The idea was to drive budget authority and decision-making power down to the school level, allowing those in the trenches to respond to local needs and promoting diversity and flexibility within the system. No longer would edicts be handed down from central-office administrators who were divorced from life in the schools. Few school districts bought into this theory more wholeheartedly than Chicago. In 1988, with the Illinois state legislature's passage of the Chicago School Reform Act, the site-based management theory was joined with the idea that schools would better serve their constituents if the constituents were given more power. The new law created an 11-member local school council at each of the district's 550 schools. The councils were made up of parents of children in the schools and were given the power to hire and fire the school principal and to set budget priorities.

In turn, the power of the central office was diminished. The 1988 reform was based on the idea that the schools didn't need support and intervention from the central office in order to improve on a systemwide basis. Consequently, between 1989 and 1996, the number of staff positions in the central office was reduced by 44 percent, from 4,881 to 2,739. This wasn't just achieved by outsourcing noncore functions like busing and school construction. In the areas of curriculum, instruction, professional development, and related support services, the number of central-office positions was reduced by 45 percent, from 404 to 221. The decentralized management structure was reinforced by an infusion of $53 million from local foundations to support reform at the school level led by the school councils.

However, the decentralized regime didn't fulfill the public's expectations during its seven years of implementation. Even supporters of the local school councils concluded that only about one out of three elementary schools developed the organizational capacity to address educational needs. The achievement trends were inconclusive. For example, one study found that students in 6th grade registered a 42 percent increase in reading performance and a 63 percent increase in math learning between 1991 and 1996. But the reading proficiency of 4th graders regressed by 22 percent during the same period. No progress was observed at the high-school level either; on average, high schools had only 20 percent of their students reading at or above the national average.

The continuing failure of the Chicago Public Schools sparked a complete about-face in 1995, when Mayor Richard Daley took control of the system. Traditionally the school board had been insulated from City Hall, a legacy of Progressive-era reforms that sought to keep politics out of the schoolhouse. In the 1990s, however, a new breed of urban mayor began to see the school system as one of the keys to rebuilding the cities. Mayors like Thomas Menino in Boston, Rudy Giuliani in New York, and Daley in Chicago pushed for authority over the schools. Daley, for one, realized the political risks inherent in taking over a troubled school system. With authority would also come accountability at the ballot box. But his confidence was bolstered by his 1995 reelection, and he was determined to confront the challenge of improving public education in the city.

The mayoral takeover in Chicago heralded a return to a strong central administration. Daley's choice as schools CEO, Paul Vallas, the mayor's former budget director, saw a need to apply accountability standards to all schools and students systemwide. This addressed a key limitation of decentralization--namely, that organizational changes at the school level cannot compel academic improvement across the system. While decentralization may lead to successful reform in some schools, systemwide improvement is not likely to occur unless district leadership has the political will and the capacity to implement performance-based accountability. In Vallas's view, district intervention was necessary in schools where principals and teachers by themselves failed to improve student performance over a number of years.

As the first noneducator to take the helm of a large urban district, Vallas inspired a trend in urban school reform across the nation. His leadership in the revitalization of the Chicago school system gave credibility to the idea that one need not have progressed through the school bureaucracy in order to be an effective superintendent. As a result, in recent years .cities like New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., have all turned to so-called nontraditional superintendents--lawyers, businessmen, former military officers, politicians--to lead their school systems.

Quality of Life

From the beginning, Vallas and Daley sought to project an image of efficiency and responsibility in building support for their reform efforts. They also campaigned tirelessly to connect school reform to the city's quality of life and competitive position. The image of the Chicago Public Schools as a wasteful bureaucracy was aggravated by its continuing financial problems. The district declared bankruptcy in 1979 and subsequently experienced frequent budgetary shortfalls, Vallas's predecessor, for example, was unable to eliminate a $150 million deficit and resorted to borrowing to keep schools operating in 1993 and 1994. Vallas was determined to restore financial solvency. 'Within his first year as CEO, he was able to eliminate the deficits.