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What is Integrated Governance? Four Functions Facilitated by Integrated Governance Defining the Policy Challenges The research reported herein was supported in part by the Office of the Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Department of Education through a contract to the Mid-Atlantic Laboratory for Student Success (LSS) established at the Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education (CRHDE), and in part by CRHDE. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the position of the supporting agencies, and no official endorsement should be inferred. Decentralization is no longer the dominant reform strategy in the
Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The Chicago School Reform Amendatory Act,
which took effect in July 1995, reverses the trend toward decentralization
of authority over school operations and redesigns the governance
arrangement so that power and authority are now integrated.
Integrated governance reduces competing authorities and coordinates
activities in support of system-wide policy goals. Integrated
governance in Chicago is characterized by:
Several questions arise concerning this redesigned system of governance. Is integrated governance more effective in addressing the complex challenges facing the Chicago public schools? Specifically, how does the redesigned system of governance address issues of teaching and learning, failing schools, and finance and management? To be sure, these questions cannot be fully addressed by reviewing a mere twelve month record. However, policies developed during the first year are critical because they define the vision and priorities of the new administration. What does the new board's first year performance tell us about school
improvement? Our study found that the integrated system tends
to improve the conditions for teaching and learning in four ways:
How the Research is Conducted To examine how governance redesign facilitates the administration of the schools, this study adopts a comprehensive institutional perspective.1 This perspective considers how broader institutional arrangements (top-level political, policy, and administrative institutions) influence resource allocation, supportive services of the central office, leadership selection, and professional development. Particular attention is paid to how system-wide institutions create the conditions that affect teaching and learning in the classroom. Between July 1995, when the new board and administration took over, and June 1996, a team of researchers from the University of Chicago Department of Education and the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies examined the redesigned governance system in Chicago. Three research strategies were used to collect information: (1) the administration of two survey questionnaires to key stakeholders; (2) an analysis of the media coverage of educational issues; and (3) interviews with school administrators and principals. First, a framework was developed that takes into consideration the performance of various key institutional actors, the duties they perform, and the obstacles inherent in their governance tasks. 2 Accordingly, we designed a survey questionnaire that was used to rate actor performance. The governance actors included in the survey are: the governor of Illinois, the Democratic and Republican lawmakers of the Illinois General Assembly, the mayor of Chicago, the Chicago Board of Education (and the Chicago Reform Board of Trustees), the Chicago Public Schools central administration, and the Chicago Teachers Union. About one hundred members of the policy community from Chicago and Illinois were asked to rate the seven governance actors on their performance of approximately seventy duties and responsibilities for two time periods-May 1993 through June 1995 and July 1995 through January 1996.3 The first time period served as a useful benchmark to assess governance changes following the July 1995 restructuring. The questionnaire remained virtually identical for both time periods, thereby enhancing the possibilities for before-and-after comparison. The questionnaire has one section for each institutional actor that contained a list of duties and responsibilities pertinent to that actor. Respondents were asked to rate the actor's performance on each duty/task using a four point rating scale: 1=failing, 2=poor, 3=satisfactory, 4=very good. In addition, the respondent was asked to rate the general difficulty of the duty: 1=not difficult, 2=routine difficulty, 3=quite difficult, 4=extreme difficulty. This type of survey provides useful information on perceived performance of institutional actors and is not meant to be used as a sole measure of the actual operation of the system. Second, articles related to education in two major Chicago newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, were tracked between August 1, 1995 and May 31, 1996. Based on the content of the news reports, we classified about 400 articles into a matrix of eighteen actors and eight issues. We pay particular attention to eight actors that include: the mayor, the governor, the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees and the Chicago Public Schools central administration, the Chicago Teachers Union, the Local School Councils, advocacy groups, the business community, and the media (editorials). Major educational issues covered in the two newspapers were grouped into eight categories. "Finance and budget" included articles on the school budget, intergovernmental revenue, per-pupil expenditures, funding mechanisms, purchasing, and spending. "Teacher issues" included union activities, the teachers contract, and work-rules affecting teachers. Under "governance" we included activities of the Local School Councils, the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees, and the Illinois State Board of Education as well as issues regarding the school code, waivers, legislation on charter schools, and other political issues. The "teaching and learning" category covered classroom issues, professional development for educators, educational innovations (such as small schools or alternative schools), and curriculum and instructional issues. A distinction was drawn between "management" and "facilities." Articles were classified under facilities when they focused on construction, repair, rehabilitation, warehouses, and maintenance, whereas management included the terms, procedures, and conduct of business, professional ethics, school audits, and contracting out to private vendors. The "assessment" category included references to the Illinois Goals Assessment Program (IGAP) and other school-wide assessments. "Social" issues included (non-LSC) parental involvement, student demographics, race, and the broader community environment.4 Finally, using semi-structured questionnaires, we interviewed board members, administrators in the central office, principals, and others in the education policy community. At the central office, we conducted eighteen interviews with administrators responsible for developing and implementing the education programs. Principals were interviewed in twelve high schools and twelve elementary schools. These schools were chosen to represent different geographic areas of the city, school types, and socioeconomic characteristics of the student body. Where possible, elementary schools whose students "feed" into a particular high school whose principals we interviewed were selected. Documentary materials were also collected from the board that include board policies, educational program descriptions, budget information, and the agenda of action and attachments for the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees meetings. Institutional Redesign Under the 1995 School Reform Law Prior to the 1995 legislation, there were multiple centers of power that defined the policy agenda of the Chicago public schools.5 The major actors, categorized by four institutional types, are shown in Table 1. Among the policy institutions, the School Finance Authority (SFA) and the Public Building Commission (PBC) limited the policy making ability of the school board. The SFA, created by the legislature in the late 1970s, approved the school budget and the PBC issued bonds for the construction and renovation of school buildings. In 1988, the SFA was given additional authority to monitor the implementation of the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act and conduct financial and management assessments of the operations of the Chicago School Board. Further, an Inspector General was appointed to conduct investigations into allegations or incidents of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement. These statutory provisions constrained board autonomy by forcing the district to attend to the priorities of other institutional actors. Frequently, conflicts arose over the competing perspectives of the board and these actors. For instance, the SFA's focus on cost efficiency often drove central office policy at the expense of education policies. The board's financial authority was severely undermined by a projected budget deficit of $150 million in 1993. This was precipitated by the 1988 School Reform Act which removed state Chapter 1 funds from the central administration and disbursed them directly to the schools.6 The State of Illinois did not replace the funds lost by the central administration. Federal, state, and local mandates, union agreements, and existing court orders that specify how board revenues can be used further limit board discretion over the use of funds. With powers preserved under categorical mandates, departments within the central office often operated independently of the superintendent's office and competed with other departments for control of resources and services. The city-wide board was further constrained by powers exercised by the Local School Councils and influence exerted among organized interests, such as the Chicago Teachers Union. By the seventh year of LSC empowerment, the mayor, state policy makers, and various groups of stakeholders were increasingly frustrated with the decentralization experiment, despite the advocacy efforts by some researchers to depict an image of successful reform. Dissatisfaction with the 1988 reform came from various sources. First, students in Chicago schools continued to perform poorly. There was no major improvement in student achievement during the seven years of parental empowerment. Second, the LSCs, the centerpiece of the 1988 reform, failed to develop into an institution that broadened parental involvement in school affairs. Indeed, voter turnout among parents and community representatives dropped by 68% between 1989 and 1993. Third, parents and the public remained uncertain of whether schools would open on time in September, 1995 due to another budgetary crisis. The board was unable to eliminate a $150 million deficit and resorted to borrowing to keep schools operating in 1993 and 1994. Fourth, the Chicago school board and its top administration failed to restore public confidence in the system and key appointments were often filled by candidates of questionable competence. Finally, Mayor Richard Daley was frustrated because his power over school board appointments was substantially constrained by the nominating commission that the 1988 legislation created. Often, the mayor had to pick candidates from a slate that included his toughest critics. In 1995, the Republican controlled legislature, with the support of Mayor Richard Daley, the business community, and the governor of Illinois, passed legislation that altered the governance arrangements of the Chicago Public Schools.7 The 1995 law left the institutional actors we identified intact-electoral, policy, administrative, and organized interests (Table 1). However, it altered the distribution of power and redesigned the governance arrangements so that power and authority are now more integrated. The law reduced the number of policy actors by eliminating the School Finance Authority and the School Board Nominating Commission. It strengthened and centralized the administrative structures by linking the CPS administration to the board and the mayor, and placed the Inspector General and the newly created Academic Accountability Council under the jurisdiction of the board. Most importantly, the law expanded the financial authorities of the board. For one, the legislation removed the balanced budget requirement and suspended the budget oversight authority of the SFA. It also collapsed a number of funded programs (for example, K-6 reading improvement, Substance Abuse Prevention, Hispanic Programs, Gifted Education, among others) into a general education block grant and a number of categorical funds into an educational services block grant. Additionally, state Chapter 1 funds not allocated to the schools could now be used by the district, and changes in the pension fund requirements allowed for greater flexibility in the use of pension monies. Finally, the board's tax levy authority was changed so that there were no longer separate levies earmarked for specific purposes. The 1995 law also altered the division of labor in terms of the top
administrative offices. It created five "big chiefs," with the Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) at the top of the system. The Chief
Purchasing Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Fiscal Officer
report to the CEO and are in charge of financial management and the
operation of the system. The Chief Education Officer is responsible
for the educational programs and academic accountability. Finally,
the 1995 law enhanced the authority of the board and CEO,
transferring authority from other administrative layers to the central
office and CEO. The law streamlined the process for placing schools
on remediation by expanding the authority of the CEO to identify and
intervene in poorly performing schools and reducing the number of actors
involved in the process. The law eliminated the subdistrict
superintendencies (eleven positions) and transferred the duties of that
office to the CEO. To encourage privatization, the board was given
the authority to contract with third parties for services otherwise
performed by employees.8
Integrated Governance Improves Management The 1995 changes made integrated governance possible in the Chicago Public Schools. While the legislation left intact some features of the previous arrangements, it reduced competing institutional authority and recentralized administrative authority. The law decreased the size of the fifteen member board to five and put the mayor in charge of appointing board members, the board president, and the Chief Executive Officer in charge of the schools. Since the board appoints the top administrative officers, these changes facilitate a closer link between the mayor's office and the central office. Under this arrangement, education becomes a part of the mayor's policy agenda and gives the mayor the option to decide the amount of political capital he is willing to invest in improving the schools. More focused, top down governance was facilitated by eliminating the School Board Nominating Commission and making the mayor responsible for appointing the school board members and Chief Executive Officer. Under the previous system, the school board nominating process was driven by competition between the mayor and the Nominating Commission over the appointment of school board members. The commission was responsible for preparing slates of potential board candidates from which the mayor appointed board members. The Nominating Commission was constituency-based since the route onto the commission was through the Local School Councils. Through the selection of candidates, the Nominating Commission was able to serve as gatekeeper by insuring the "ideological" commitment of the board members to the Local School Councils. Once on the board, constituency concerns dominated and often prevented the board from operating from a system-wide perspective. Once in charge of the schools, the mayor demonstrated a commitment to improving school system performance. Mayoral control, however, did not generate constant media attention on city hall. As our analysis of news reporting shows (see Table 6), the mayor appeared only seventeen times in education news articles in the city's two daily papers in a ten month period. Instead, Mayor Daley's influence has been exercised through his appointment decisions. The two top positions, the president of the Board of Trustees and the Chief Executive Officer, are from the mayor's office. Gery Chico, president of the board, was the mayor's Chief of Staff, and Paul Vallas was the city budget director and, before that, revenue director. In addition to Chico and Vallas, the majority of appointments made between July and December 1995 to positions in the operations, management, and fiscal departments were from the City of Chicago. As seen in Table 2, 54% of the appointments to these departments were from city hall, while 21% were from the private sector, 9% from other public institutions, 6% from nonprofit organizations, and only 9% from within the school district. The new administration acted swiftly to demonstrate a commitment to efficient management by adopting a business management model. The management and maintenance of school buildings, for example, was reorganized to stress customer service and contracting out. The board eliminated the Bureau of Facilities Planning in the central office (resulting in the elimination of 10 jobs), reduced the number of positions in the Department of Facilities Central Service Center by half (26 out of 50 positions were eliminated) and reduced the city-wide administration of facilities from 441 positions to 34. Contracts for these services are now with private firms. To oversee the management and maintenance of school property, the board negotiated contracts with five firms to provide property advisory services for each region.9 Under this arrangement, the firms advise principals and the Department of Operations on property management and provide custodial, engineering, and construction related services to the schools. In addition, the board pre-qualified a number of general construction contractors for schools to select from. Taken together, these actions significantly improved public confidence in the ability of the board and central administration to govern the schools, giving the top administration the legitimacy it needs to carry out its educational initiatives. Indeed, our analysis of the 1995-1996 performance of the seven governance actors shows that the board, central office, and the mayor made significant gains over their 1993-95 performance ratings (see figure 1). While all actors made gains over this period, only the performances of the three city actors have edged into the "satisfactory" category.10 The performance of the other actors remained in the "poor" region, indicating that the survey respondents are still not satisfied with the overall performance of the governor, the Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and the Chicago Teachers Union. Tables 3, 4, and 5 take into account task difficulty in the performance of the mayor, board, and central office. Duties are stratified into three difficulty levels. The first level, the seemingly "easiest" type of responsibility, consists of routine duties performed as a matter of course. The next stratum of responsibilities consists of policy and educational tasks requiring initiative at the district level. They are no longer routine and include activities (such as school improvement) that parents and the electorate are most interested in. Finally, the third stratum consists of long-term investment in the schools, such as securing funds for the schools or addressing issues of teacher incompetence. All three actors (the mayor, CPS administration, and board) are now perceived as performing satisfactorily on Level 1 and Level 2 duties, but not as well with the more difficult tasks of Level 3, such as providing LSC training or securing increases in state funding. The mayor is given credit for appointing a well qualified board and top administrative staff. The board and central administration is recognized for negotiating a four-year contract with the teachers union, balancing the budget, and reducing waste. Most importantly, both the mayor and the central administration are perceived as articulating a clear mission and realistic policy goals. Finally, by strengthening the centralized authority of the school system, the 1995 legislation shifted the balance of power between the central office and Local School Councils. Prior to 1995, the central office competed with the Local School Councils for authority over the educational agenda. LSCs had broad authority, but there was little direct accountability or oversight. For example, state Chapter 1 funds went directly to the schools, but the board remained accountable if the money was misused. Selection of principals by the LSC was often influenced by the constituencies of the particular neighborhood.11 The new administration has signaled the LSCs that they can no longer operate with complete independence and have incorporated the LSCs into the overall system by defining standards and responsibilities they must adhere to. This policy establishes fifteen criteria covering the actions of the principal, staff, local school council, and local school council members.12 Under the new board policy, the board declared that an "educational crisis" existed at Prosser Preparatory Center and Nathan Hale School. At each school, the LSC was disbanded. 13 The LSC at Prosser was declared nonfunctional in part because of its failure to approve the School Improvement Plan or evaluate the principal. At Hale, the LSC was suspended after LSC members were found to have intruded in the day to day operations of the school, entered classrooms unannounced and uninvited, and failed "to follow the law regarding their powers and responsibilities," among other violations. The success of the administration in dominating the educational agenda is evident when media coverage of the major education actors is examined. As figure 2 shows, of the eighteen actors, the central administration received the most news coverage, with a total of 163 counts, during this time period. Further analysis of the eight actors suggests that coverage of Local School Councils was virtually absent (with a total of only twenty-seven counts) except during April 1996, when Local School Council elections were held (see Table 6). Central office visibility is even more evident when the number of news counts is disaggregated by issue area (see Table 7). For example, in contrast to the LCSs, the central administration received a great deal of media coverage regarding teaching and learning issues. While the eight actors were mentioned a total of eighty times in issues pertaining to teaching and learning, the central administration accounted for almost half of these news counts. Enhancing the "Unitary" Interests of the System The institutional actors concerned with the Chicago Public Schools have an interest in maintaining or advancing both the financial position and the overall managerial competence of the entire school system. The 1995 governance redesign enhanced the ability of the central administration to perform these financial and management functions efficiently. For example, the new reform board and central office administration balanced the school budget, negotiated a four year contract with the Chicago Teachers Union, developed a $787 million five year capital development plan, and floated construction bonds for the first time in nearly twenty years.15 Prior to 1995, the decision making ability of the board was constrained by a number of statutory provisions. The board was required to have a balanced budget approved by the School Finance Authority. Under the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act, the SFA conducted financial and management assessments of the operations of the Chicago School Board. Further, an Inspector General was appointed to investigate allegations or incidents of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement. Clearly, the authorities of these actors competed with board authority. For example, the SFA was able to force the district to attend to cost efficiency rather than its own educational priorities, thereby limiting board autonomy. The 1995 law suspended the budget oversight authority of the SFA, removed the balanced budget requirement, and placed the Inspector General under the authority of the board. In addition, the board was granted new authorities that expanded their financial powers. A number of funded programs (for example, K-6 reading improvement, Substance Abuse Prevention, Hispanic Programs, Gifted Education, among others) and categorical funds were collapsed into a general education block grant and an educational services block grant, respectively. Table 8 shows the distribution of funds by revenue sources for three years, FY 1994, FY 1995, and FY 1996. Although total revenues available to the board declined by 8% in FY 1996 from the previous year, revenues going into the General Funds increased by about 2% (or $28.5 million). Additionally, the board acquired greater flexibility over the use of pension fund monies and Chapter 1 funds not allocated to the schools. Finally, there were no longer separate tax levies earmarked for specific purposes. These changes increased board discretion over school revenues, allowing the board to prepare a four year balanced budget and negotiate a four year contract, including a raise, with the Chicago Teachers Union. These actions brought both financial and labor stability to the system. Indeed, by March 1996, Standard and Poor's raised the CPS bond rating from a BBB- to BBB, and Moody's from a Ba to Baa, allowing the board to issue bonds for the construction of new buildings under lower interest rates than before. The four year teachers' contract meant the board could focus on developing and implementing its education agenda. Central Office Focus on Schools with the Greatest Needs The 1995 law incorporated a focus on accountability and academic
achievement that compelled the administration to target the lowest
performing schools within the system for intervention. Declaring
that an "educational crisis" existed in Chicago, the 1995 legislation
directed the Board of Trustees and the CEO to increase the quality of
educational services within the system.
16
It enhanced the powers of the CEO to identify poorly performing schools
and place these schools on remediation, probation, intervention, or
reconstitution.17
Prior to 1995, the subdistrict superintendent, not the school board, had
the primary responsibility to monitor the performance of the schools and
identify non-performing schools. In the past, to place a school on
remediation or probation required the approval of the subdistrict council,
which was made up of parent or community members from each Local School
Council within the subdistrict. By focusing on the lowest performing schools, the board policy, in effect, assumes a redistributive character. This is evident when the socio-economic characteristics of the schools placed on remediation are examined. The twenty elementary schools have a predominantly African-American student body, and have higher rates of poverty, mobility, and chronic truancy than the district as a whole (Table 9). The high schools on remediation are also more likely to have a predominately African-American or Hispanic student population and be above district averages for poverty, mobility, chronic truancy, and dropout rates (Table 10). While 57% of all high school students are African-American, 78% of the students are African-American in the eight schools on remediation. The average dropout rate in the eight high school sites is 35% higher than the dropout rate for the district as a whole. The board and top administration reorganized the central office to reflect the focus on accountability and established the improvement of IGAP scores as the primary objective of the system. While other departments within the central office were eliminated or significantly downsized, the administration created the Office of Accountability, which has grown from a staff of fifty in September 1995 to ninety in July 1996. This office monitors the performance of the schools, identifies low performing schools, and intervenes in schools that are not performing well. One administrator said that the mission of the department is ".to fix schools.so they won't fall below a safety net."19 The Office of Accountability has several departments that are in the process of launching various programs to level up schools where tests scores are low. The Department of School Quality Review is working with the Illinois State Board of Education to develop a review process to evaluate all schools once every four years. The Department of School Intervention works with schools on the state's Academic Watch List or in remediation. These schools receive a one day visit from the staff in School Intervention, which recommends corrective actions and pairs them with consultants to provide technical support. In December, 1995, the board approved $1,335,500 in contracts to universities and colleges to work with thirty schools on the watch list. 20 The placement of departments within the Office of Accountability and the alignment between offices also reflect the administration's focus on narrowly defining accountability as test score improvement. For example, the Department of Standards, Assessment, and Research was created to replace the former Research, Evaluation, and Planning Department. The department's focus changed from reporting and analyzing data to aligning assessments to standards. By placing standards and assessment in the same department, the administration underscored its emphasis on outcomes and test scores. However, within the central office there remains conflicting views about how to best structure central office relationships with individual schools. Many administrators advocate aligning standards to the development of curriculum and instructional strategies, rather than to outcomes, to stress the importance of curriculum and instruction to the process of teaching and learning. Broadening the Political Base of Support The link between the mayor's office and the board can facilitate political support for the school system. With the redesign of the governance system, Mayor Richard Daley has been more willing to invest his political capital in the Chicago schools. To restore public confidence, the new administration has projected an image of efficient, responsive, and "clean" government. The administration has also taken a number of steps to strengthen the support of the business community for the public schools. This support becomes crucial when appealing to the Illinois legislature because the business community can lobby in favor of the board's legislative agenda, thereby lending the board credibility. Building a Positive Public Image To restore public confidence in the public schools, the board undertook a number of highly visible initiatives to eliminate waste and corruption within the system. It established the Office of Investigations to identify instances of misconduct by employees and financial improprieties by contractors and vendors. This is in addition to the Inspector General, mandated by the legislature to investigate incidents of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement, and placed under the jurisdiction of the school board by the 1995 law. In a number of highly publicized events, the management team discovered nearly $1 million worth of spoiled food stored in a warehouse and more than $250,000 in furniture and other schools supplies.21 The furniture was shipped to about 170 schools while CPS negotiated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Illinois State Board of Education to replace the outdated food with locally purchased foods. Another $5 million in wood, tools, and supplies were found stockpiled at four satellite school storage areas and a storage area at the CPS central office.22 Besides the potential financial savings of these disclosures, it sends a message to the community that corruption and waste will not be tolerated. Contributing to the positive public perception of the schools is
administrative responsiveness to the community. Indeed, the
administration articulated a vision of inclusiveness in which the broad
community works together to improve schools.
23
The CEO meets regularly with civic and business groups, while the Chief
Education Officer meets with universities, education, and parent
groups. The numerous public appearances of the CEO and the president
of the Board of Trustees, and the openness of the CEO to meet with diverse
advocacy and interest groups in the city are also strategies that
portray the administration as responsive to community concerns.
Consolidating Business Support The mayor's appointments to the Board of Trustees reflect a concern with consolidating business support for the schools. Three of the five board appointments-Gene Saffold, Sharon Gist Gilliam, and Norman Bobbins-are from the business community. Moreover, the distribution of appointments within the central office reflect the mayor's commitment to improving the fiscal conditions and management of the system. Of the forty-five new appointments in the central office made between July 1995 and December 1995, 73% were made to operations, management, and fiscal positions while only 27% were made to education positions (see Table 2). To further enhance business support for the schools and the perception of efficient management, the new administration reorganized the central office according to business principles that stress downsizing and privatization. Within one year of implementing the new system, the number of staff positions in the central administration declined almost 21% (see Table 11). The majority of these cuts came from city-wide administration and services. The reduction was achieved through awarding contracts to private providers for food services, distribution, and facilities. Other reductions were obtained by consolidating the eleven district offices into six regional offices. The administration's strategy of focusing on management and budget issues early on can be viewed as a serious effort to establish political credibility. Thus, the administration balanced the budget, developed a five year capital development plan, and negotiated a four year teachers' contract. This strategy paid off with improved public confidence in the ability of the administration to manage the schools and stabilized relations with the union. Believing that raising test scores is the basis for long term political support, the mayor, board, and CEO have now taken this as their primary strategy. Better test scores, it is hoped, will form the bases for increased state funding and the continuation of the current centralized governance with the mayor in control of the schools. This arrangement is likely to shift additional power back to the central office, including the establishment of qualifications for the appointment of principals by the central office, and to further diminish the Local School Councils' role. Indeed, in August 1996, the legislature adopted legislation that allows the Board of Trustees to develop additional standards and requirements to become a principal.
Given the policy concerns the administration has addressed in its first year, there are several challenges that the mayor and the board must confront in order to improve teaching and learning in the Chicago schools. Table 12 summarizes these challenges as well as issues that have yet to be addressed. In maintaining integrated governance, the mayor, board, and central administration must improve financial and managerial functions system-wide while promoting policy coordination and creating an incentive structure that rewards professional competence. Further, the administration and board will need to manage competing demands on resources so that attention is not diverted from serving the lowest performing schools. More importantly, the administration will need to enhance the overall quality of teaching professionals in order to improve instruction throughout the system. Attention to curriculum and instruction is crucial if classroom practices are to improve. Finally, in the long term, continuation of the current governance arrangements and increased financial support for the schools depends on the state legislature. The mayor and board will need to continue to deal with a legislature that is cautious about addressing the financial needs of Chicago. In the following section, we discuss a number of potential challenges the current governance actors need to address. First, how can key leadership qualities essential to the long term effectiveness and stability of the system be institutionalized? Second, how can the long term support needed to continue a policy that focuses on the lowest performing schools be generated? Third, how can linkages between the various layers of the school system be strengthened? Fourth, how can the administration improve the quality of educational services across the system? Fifth, how does the administration insure that well qualified principals are hired? Sixth, how can the administration enhance the quality of the teaching staff? Seventh, how can the district generate the political support necessary to reduce its vulnerability to state politics? Institutionalizing School Leadership The mix of the three key actors-the mayor, board, and top school administration-is strong in terms of financial, political, and management experience. The current CEO and board president bring strong management expertise and leadership skills that are complemented by the educational expertise of the Chief Education Officer. However, the risk of putting power at the top of the system is that the system is dependent on the capabilities of the leadership. If the mayor appoints a capable leader, good things will happen. If not, the whole system could flounder. In this case, the successful operation of the system depends on the managerial and leadership qualities and skills of Paul Vallas and the other top administrative appointments. We identified several qualifications that contribute to the effective leadership of this administration:
Several questions arise concerning the continuation and continuity of leadership in the system. First, how can the system maintain effective leadership beyond a few years? Currently, leadership relies on the mayor's abilities to select capable managers based on their particular leadership and managerial skills. One step towards insuring ongoing effective leadership would be to develop a set of standards for the selection of top administrators. Second, how can stability of the top leadership be insured so that the time needed to implement a particular agenda is there? Big city superintendents average about three years on the job before they are replaced. This has been the case in Chicago as well. Ted Kimbrough was superintendent for three years before he was replaced by Argie Johnson. Johnson was superintendent for 2 1/2 years when the 1995 reform law created the current system. Leadership stability is essential if the vision and expertise of a particular team is to continue. Third, what is the pool of potential candidates for leadership succession? Mayoral appointment of the school board and top administration has widened the pool of potential candidates to include individuals from business and politics as well as from education. This has benefited the schools by bringing in people with a wide range of skills, and is an arrangement that shows promise for future appointments. However, it is unclear how effective these appointments will be in addressing educational issues. Counter Demands to Redistributive Policy Focusing on the lowest performing schools is a promising way to target the resources and services necessary to improve these schools. However, the focus on the lowest performing schools may face counter demands from other schools in the system if resources are diverted from some schools to others. To continue to focus on redistributive policy requires the long term support of state resources for two reasons. First, the 1995 law mandates a focus on academic improvement and improving the quality of educational services. If funds are not adequate to meet this challenge, it is likely that money will be diverted from system-wide educational improvement to targeted, low performing schools. Second, the state's share of educational funding has continued to decline, widening the gap between the local and state share over the years. In 1994-95, the state provided for only 32% of total revenues for elementary and secondary education, as Table 13 shows. Throughout the state, districts now depend heavily on local tax revenues to fund education, with local sources providing 59% of the school expenditures. Moreover, schools in Illinois are not as well-funded as those in most other states. In 1990, Illinois ranked forty-fourth out of all fifty states in terms of state per pupil spending. Conversely, the state ranked fourteenth in local support per pupil.25 Indeed, as state activism in educational governance increased, state financial support for education decreased. Gap Between Macro Policy and Micro Practices Remains The public education system consists of several layers. The central office administration, departments within the central office, regional offices, elementary, middle, and high schools, and external partners all provide services to the schools. Frequently, these layers are loosely coupled such that one layer has few, if any, linkages to the other levels. For example, departments within the central office often operate independently of the central administration. High schools rarely have linkages to the elementary schools that provide their future students. The goals and objectives of the central office often compete with those of the schools, as is the case when the central office emphasizes fiscal restraint while the schools focus on funding educational programs and securing a teaching staff. The challenge is to create linkages between layers so that one level provides support to the other, such as central office support to the schools, and, at the same time, schools respond to system-wide standards and goals. While efforts have been made in this area, linkages between layers remain uneven. There are a number of linkages between the various layers of the school system that we identified. First, there are those between the schools and the central office administration. This includes school linkages with the regional offices, departments within the central office, the Chief Executive Officer, and the Chief Education Officer. Second, connections exist (though generally weak) among principals and teachers in high schools and feeder elementary schools. Third, there are increasing interactions between the schools and external partners, such as consultants, business groups, or universities. The scope and purpose of these linkages differ depending on whether or not schools are performing well or had been placed on a remediation or the state's academic watch list. To facilitate communication between the central office and the schools, the eleven district offices were reorganized into six regional offices. According to the Chief Education Officer, the regional office serves as the primary point of communication between the central office and the schools, disseminating information, board policies and procedures to the schools, and coordinating region-wide meetings. Each regional officer reports to the Office of Schools and Regions in the central office. However, many principals consider the region too large to be a meaningful administrative entity. Each regional office, in effect, serves ninety schools. One principal, commenting on the regional offices, said: "As for the Regional Office, I have very little contact with them. The region is too large. It seems to be a deliberate attempt to add paperwork to give the regional officers a job. . . When I first started out, the region had a real role. They mediated between parents and schools, between principals, and between principals and the central office."26 Administrative responsiveness to the general public has meant the regional office has become an administrative, intermediary layer within the system where people can go with complaints rather than an effective link between the schools and central office. The regional office spends a great deal of time managing conflicts and responding to "referrals" that come from various sources, including the CEO, parents, teachers, and principals. For example, one region contacted the central office regarding a parent who was trying to enroll a child in a particular school. The region intervened when the parent was unsuccessful, and the central office intervened when the region was unsuccessful. Principals also cite the regional office as a source of assistance when dealing with complaints from parents. Further, linkages between schools and the departments within the central office also appear to be weak. For example, principals seem to be unclear about what it means to be placed on remediation, what criteria are used when placing schools on remediation, and how to get off of it. In terms of curriculum support, the schools report they receive no assistance from the central office. "They've just about torn up the curriculum department. Now there are one or two people for 600 schools. It's impossible. The board puts out nothing. You're on your own, more or less."27 Indeed, when staffing patterns in the central office are examined for curriculum, instruction, professional development, and related educational support services between 1988 and 1996, the number of staff in these positions has been cut by 55% (see Table 14). The number of staff allocated to curriculum and instructional support has gone from 125 positions in 1988 to 34 in 1996, representing a 73% decrease. During the first year of the Vallas administration, further cuts were made in the instructional support staff, with reductions totaling almost 50% (there were 65 positions in 1994-95 and 34 in 1995-96). Even among educational staff within the central office, there is no consensus on how to structure central office relationships with individual schools. On the one hand, and strongly supported by Vallas, is the top down, regulatory approach. The use of the remediation process and the emphasis on business management as a crucial component to improving the schools exemplify this approach. On the other side, there are those who advocate a performance driven system where the central office sets standards and holds schools accountable. Standards are viewed as general benchmarks about what students should know and the central office role becomes one of providing technical assistance to help schools meet the standards. The conflict between the two approaches is exemplified in many ways. At the same time the central office is developing standards, it is developing time-allocation plans that tell teachers how to allocate their teaching time. The curriculum department is charged with creating curriculum frameworks with suggested materials on the one hand and developing a core curriculum with mandated curriculum tables on the other. It is still an unresolved issue whether the central office will be organized according to a technical assistance model or as a regulatory agency. If unresolved, this issue could become an obstacle to school improvement if the present CEO were to be replaced with someone who was less resolute. Contracted Instructional Services versus Capacity Building The central office increasingly has relied on outside providers to deliver educational services to the schools and professional development for teachers and principals. This has been the strategy used with schools placed on remediation. These schools are paired with outside agencies contracted to work with a school to improve academic performance. For instance, $1,335,500 was awarded to eight universities and other organizations in January 1996 to work with the schools placed on remediation.28 DePaul University School Achievement Structure Program also received $616,000 in September 1995 to work with various schools to improve student achievement.29 This contract was extended to $2,053,333 in February 1996.30 To provide professional development services for principals, the board contracted with a number of organizations, including the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, the Center for School Improvement at the University of Chicago, and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, among others. Between July 1995 when the new board first took over, and June 1996, 273 contracts were awarded to outside organizations to provide educational and professional development services. The reliance on consultants serves two functions. First, with sharp reductions in central office staff, they are necessary if services are to be provided. In this case, they replace the services once performed by central office staff. Second, outside consultants can be a source of new ideas. They offer the system a way to experiment with a number of innovations without investing a large amount of resources. However, there are potential disadvantages to a strategy relying on consultants. First, this strategy is likely to produce uneven service quality among schools. By definition there is no guarantee of a system of good quality schools, since academic improvement depends on the interactions between schools and their consultants. Additionally, it is difficult to translate what works in one grade, one particular subject area, or one school to the system as a whole. The result will be pockets of good quality programs in particular schools rather than improvements system-wide. In this way, the reliance on consultants to deliver educational services may undermine the administration's system-wide goals. Second, the reliance on outside consultants may run into conflict with efforts to establish system-wide standards and accountability. Currently, two approaches in the development of educational policy are evident in the central office. The first is to collect models and programs that define successful schools, curriculum, instruction, and professional development. The second is to develop standards for what is expected and then hold the schools accountable to those standards. Currently, both approaches are in operation. The model program approach is exemplified by the contracting out for educational services to the schools and professional development programs for teachers and principals. At the same time, the central office is developing a set of standards for what students should know, a core curriculum, and assessments that tie the curriculum to the standards. If system-wide standards are adopted, how does the administration insure the outside service providers adhere to the standards? More fundamental, how does the administration determine if the standards will remedy the problems in the schools? There are already a number of standards for schools to meet-lower truancy rates, improve instruction, and reduce dropout rates. How can these goals be achieved? Finally, how does the administration insure the schools have access to services that are productive and will help them make changes? Third, the district's reliance on professional development programs, educational programs, and instructional models developed elsewhere may reflect the variation of academic needs and perspectives on reform strategy within the Chicago district. However, it raises questions about how these programs are selected and evaluated. There is a need for independent, outside evaluation of these programs that is not connected to the contractors providing the service. Finally, the focus on remediation may narrow the agenda to looking at short-term instructional strategies designed to improve achievement. In particular, strategies that target the improvement of IGAP scores as the primary goal are likely to be adopted. 31 In the long run, however, this approach may undermine the fundamental concern with improving teachers' knowledge base and instructional practices. If system-wide improvement is to occur, the Chicago schools must create ways to attract, develop, and support well-qualified teachers. Professional Quality of Principals Two issues regarding principals continue to confront the central administration. The first is the question of entry, or how principals are selected. There is still tension between the central administration and Local School Councils over the appointment of principals. As long as they maintain a statutory role, the LSCs will approve the four-year principal's contract. At the same time, the central office has developed a set of criteria for being a principal. It remains unclear how the LSCs will incorporate these central guidelines into their selection process or how the central office will implement these recruitment standards. One possibility is that principals will align with LSCs to resist unwanted interference from the central office. The other possibility is that LSCs will cooperate with the central office to standardize principal selection across sites. Also at issue are the incentives at different points in the principals' career that determine promotions or future career direction. Principals may try to win status as a "model" school and garner popular support from those outside the school community. Essentially, it is a quasi-political process as to who gets noticed, promoted, or given support. With loss of tenure, many principals are pressured to become "quasi-politicians," with an interest in accumulating their own political capital. To gain a reputation, many principals "market" their schools through the media or gain recognition as a successful fund-raiser through their ability to win grants and foundation funding. More studies need to be done on this issue to determine the impact of "public relation" success on LSC and central office judgment of principal performance and promotion. As the administration increasingly focuses on improving test scores, principals' success may become tied to schools' test scores. However, test scores are not diagnostic. They may indicate that something is wrong, but not what the problem is. If schools hire someone who can raise test scores, they may lack the knowledge and skills to deal with other things, such as improving instruction or the ability to work with a highly unstable school population. Moreover, they may be unable to sustain the improved test scores. Strategies beyond the improvement of test scores need to be considered when hiring principals. Enhancing the Quality of the Teaching Staff Central to the success of the current administration in improving the quality of education delivered to Chicago students is the quality of teachers. While recognizing that many of the problems in the teaching profession go beyond what any single district can change, improvements in learning are likely to encounter difficulties until adequate attention is given to the quality of the teaching force. Efforts by the current administration to improve teaching have been limited to narrowly defined areas, monitoring schools' staff development plans, and identifying individuals doing an exemplary job and pairing them with other schools as mentors. While the latter may recognize outstanding teachers, it rewards teachers by taking them out of the classroom. As with educational services, there is a reliance on outside consultants and models developed elsewhere to deliver services, and a focus on teachers whose students are not performing well. To improve the quality of teaching, several strategies are suggested. First, the administration needs to develop a teacher recruitment program that will seek out high level, technically proficient personnel. This recruitment effort should look for teachers with subject area competence. Currently, minimal attention is focused on teacher recruitment. Second, teachers need to be trained in how to use student assessment information as a basis for the design of lesson plans and instruction. The current approach has focused more on test taking skills than on how to use assessment information. Third, the teachers' ability to choose, create, and evaluate curriculum needs to be enhanced. Improving teachers' ability to pick a curriculum that is appropriate and, at the same time, challenging, will facilitate student learning. Finally, the ability of teachers to take advantage of professional development opportunities and to acquire the information they need to improve curriculum and instruction and use technological innovations needs to be enhanced. Professional development efforts for current teachers should also focus on developing a teacher's competence in a particular subject area. To enhance professional development, institutional collaboration merits attention. For example, building on the cooperative relationship between the Chicago Teachers Union and the district is a starting point in thinking about improving the quality of the teaching profession. System Vulnerability to State Politics Ultimate authority over the school system rests with the state legislature. In 1999 when the current law expires, an opportunity arises for changes in the arrangements governing the Chicago schools. This makes the current arrangements vulnerable to state politics. Given the partisan and regional conflicts that often guide legislative policy decisions in Illinois, party control of the state house may affect the future governance of the Chicago schools. Support for the current system is uncertain, particularly given the changes in the makeup of the legislature following the 1996 election. Home district constituency becomes part of the decision making process affecting schools by contributing to a particular point of view expressed by a legislator. Constituency characteristics of the home districts of the four legislative leaders in 1990, as shown in Table 15, illustrate some crucial differences. While the Senate Minority Leader's district is mostly black and has a high percentage of the population that is poor, the other three districts are predominantly white and have a lower poverty concentration. Leaders from a district with a homogenous, suburban constituency have few incentives to respond to the needs of Chicago's low-income and minority children. Moreover, there is no clear benchmark as to what constitutes an improved Chicago system. Therefore, current improvements could be deemed as "not good enough" or used to justify future legislative actions that don't support Chicago schools. The legislature could very well argue, for example, that there is no need for additional state money for the Chicago schools since they were able to live within their budget for four years. This ignores the problem of the under-funding of the system as a whole. Integrated governance holds promise as a strategy to improve urban school systems. It reduces the competing authorities that tend to constrain urban schools, thereby allowing the board and administration to implement their educational vision. Appointed administrators and board members often have an advantage over elected officials because they bring their management expertise to the school system. Moreover, they are less accountable to particular constituencies and are, therefore, better able to put system-wide concerns above constituency demands. Whether integrated governance can be widely adopted in other urban districts depends on several conditions. First, the political capital of the mayor is a key element. There is nothing inherent in the structure of the office of the mayor or mayoral leadership per se that insures this framework would work elsewhere. Chicago's conditions are unique in that there is a powerful mayor willing to put his electoral tenure on the line by taking charge of the city's schools, there is a competent administration able to address the challenges of running a large school system, and there are strong ties to the business community and the media that help minimize opposition. Other big city mayors may not possess the political capital necessary to take on the task of improving urban schools, or a political environment favorable to the implementation of a mayoral form of integrated governance. Second, the appointment of competent administrators and board members by the mayor is a political process. Since personnel selection comes from city hall, leadership succession depends on the judgment of the mayor. This in turn depends on the electorate that elects the mayor. There is no guarantee that the current system of competence will continue past the current mayor or could be replicated in another city. Third, successful management of a big-city system is dependent on the top administration using the authority and influence of the office effectively. This is the quality so often referred to as leadership, but rarely defined. It extends beyond the authority of the office to include the ability to influence others to adopt a particular way of thinking or doing things. It depends on the ability of the top administrator to use both personal attributes and office resources to influence others and communicate effectively. However, this skill, while immensely important, is the hardest to institutionalize. Finally, while the current administration has made tremendous strides in improving the management and operations of the school system, there have been few educational improvements. The managerial improvements that have been made are reflective of the new appointments made to the central office. As previously noted, 73% of the new appointments in the central office were made to operations, management, and fiscal positions. Clearly, going outside the usual recruitment pool benefited the system by bringing in people with a different set of skills. However, it is unclear how well these skills will transfer to improving the delivery of education and whether running schools more efficiently will result in improved student achievement. Many of the challenges we identified pertain to the delivery of educational services. To be sure, linkages between the central office and teachers in the classrooms remain weak, and the strategy of addressing the lowest performing schools neglects problems of curriculum and instruction system-wide. The reliance on outside consultants, educational programs, and models demands a means to insure the delivery of quality educational services. Indeed, many of the administration's strategies (such as no promotion, placing schools on remediation and probation, and increased homework) may appeal to particular constituency groups, but it is unclear how these initiatives will improve teaching. These concerns notwithstanding, integrated governance is a promising strategy. Currently, Chicago is the only district where mayoral commitment is highly visible and where political capital is used to improve the system. Further research is needed to better understand how this can work in other urban districts and to identify the crucial components of the redesigned system that are transferable.
1 Kenneth K. Wong, Robert Dreeben, Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., Robert Meyer and Gail L. Sunderman, "System-wide Governance in the Chicago Public Schools: Findings and Recommendations for Institutional Redesign," in Kenneth K. Wong, ed., Advances in Educational Policy Vol. 2: Rethinking School Reform in Chicago (Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, Inc., 1996). 2 Kenneth K. Wong and Mark H. Moulton, "Developing Institutional Performance Indicators for Chicago Schools: Conceptual and Methodological Issues Considered," in Kenneth K. Wong, ed., Advances in Educational Policy Vol. 2: Rethinking School Reform in Chicago (Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, Inc., 1996). 3 The response rate for the questionnaires was approximately 35%. Thirty-nine respondents returned the 1993-95 questionnaire, thirty-two returned the 1995-96 questionnaire. The panel of raters does not constitute a "representative sample" as they are not sampled from any clearly defined population, and the response rate suggests respondents are largely self-selected. However, the measurement technique used-a 3-Facet Rasch Model-mitigates the need for a representative sample. See Wong and Moulton, 1996, for details on the measurement technique. 4 Selection of topics covered is not random and may depend on the selection criteria used by the editorial board and news bureaus. It may exaggerate or under-report the extent to which certain actors engage in particular activities. 5 Kenneth K. Wong and Gail L. Sunderman, "Redesigning Accountability at the System-Wide Level: The Politics of School Reform in Chicago, in Kenneth K. Wong, ed., Advances in Educational Policy Vol. 2: Rethinking School Reform in Chicago (Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, Inc., 1996). 6 State Chapter 1 is state aid allocated to districts based on the concentration of students in poverty. 7 Illinois
State Assembly, Chicago School Reform Amendatory Act, Pub. L. 89-0015,
1995. |