Magna charter? A report card on school reform in 1995

Policy Review, Fall 1995 by Finn, Chester E Jr, Ravitch, Diane

GOVERNANCE CHANGES

The century-old governance structure of American public education is showing signs of change. As a recent Education Week headline put it, "Fervor spreads to overhaul state agencies."

This year, it appears, 30 states carried out or at least considered reorganization or reduction of their education departments, mirroring the popular political trends of reducing government, pushing authority to local officials, and giving power to the elected officials whom the voters are apt to hold responsible at the polls for the effective use of their tax dollars. (Education spending is the largest or second-largest budget item in every state.)

Texas offers a dramatic example. Now the second most populous state, Texas has been long known to have perhaps the most highly regulated school system in the country, with an immensely detailed education code and an all-powerful state education agency. Early this year, the legislature agreed with Governor George W. Bush Jr. that significant changes were needed. In effect, they repealed the entire education code and started afresh.

The authority of the Texas Education Agency has been limited to six basic functions, including recommending education goals, granting campus charters, managing school funds, and administering federal programs, Several new categories of schools and school systems have been authorized, including "home rule" districts that are freed from most state mandates and charter schools that may be organized by individuals or groups outside the existing school system. (Unfortunately, as we noted earlier, almost all Texas charters must be issued by the local school board, and these boards are not likely to welcome dissenting approaches.) Texas also created a new network of alternative schools and made it easier to remove disruptive students from regular classrooms. And it created a powerful new state board for educator certification, to be named by the governor.

Other states have taken different approaches. Minnesota abolished its department of education and merged these functions into a new department of children, families, and learning. Wisconsin took virtually all duties and powers away from its independently-elected state school superintendent, an office that was widely perceived as a captive of the education establishment, and turned them over to a new agency answerable to the governor. New Jersey's governor "froze" the regulatory process and directed the education commissioner and his colleagues to propose a comprehensive overhaul.

North Carolina--another highly centralized, heavily regulated state--is shrinking its department of education by half and rewriting laws and regulations to give local districts far greater flexibility. The state has established annual performance standards for the state's almost 2,000 public schools based on "reasonable progress" in reading, writing, and math and with various interventions, sanctions (including suspension of principals and teachers), and rewards for success or failure to meet those standards. In other words, the state is moving from a regulatory compliance strategy to one based on standards and results.