Clearinghouse on Educational Policy and Management College of Education · University of Oregon
	"Search Help" Note that this is a web site search and will not search our databases ("Directory of Organizations", "In-Process Abstracts", the ERIC Database, "Publications").	Trends and Issues: Educational Governance Abstracts Discussion References Resources New Challenges at the Local Level While the promise of greater flexibility has been welcomed at the local level, it also creates new challenges. Flexibility implies that local districts have the capacity to meet the standards and merely need the freedom to take the necessary steps. But meeting the standards may require deep change that not all districts are ready to undertake. The Education Commission of the States notes that flexibility will not work "if parents and students are not effectively engaged and have no incentives to become engaged." To operate under standards-led governance, districts must meet several distinct challenges: • In a system that promises autonomy in exchange for results, the local level must find the means to get the results—no simple task. • Since many districts mirror the top-down compliance orientation of earlier times, they must reform their own governance to allow for greater autonomy at the school and classroom levels. • In many states, the new standards are here now, but the promised flexibility is still in the future. Even as they try to transform their classrooms, many districts are hampered by state and federal rules. For example, just one provision of the revised special-education rules—that regular classroom teachers participate in developing IEPs—could require an enormous drain on faculty time and energy, distracting from other reforms. • Finally, local districts are the main point of contact between the public and the educational system. Amid signs of growing public alienation from the schools, districts must actively communicate with the community, listening carefully as well as articulating the school’s message. Meeting these challenges will require school boards to rethink their role. Traditionally, board members have seen themselves as goal-setters and policymakers, taking a hands-off attitude toward issues of learning and teaching. The new conditions will require boards to constitute themselves and superintendents as "school governance teams" who will measure their impact by student achievement (Richard Goodman and colleagues 1997). Given the magnitude of the challenges, a collaborative, professional approach is essential; casual decision-making, poor communication, or excessive bickering can severely undercut local change efforts. Second, local districts that have clamored for flexibility must be ready to pass some of it on to school sites. In many districts—especially the larger ones—the central office operates much like a state bureaucracy, with an emphasis on control and compliance that favors uniformity and incremental change (Cyrus Driver and colleagues 1997). By contrast, school reformer Deborah Meier (1998) argues that meaningful, lasting reform is built on respect for the uniqueness of people and relationships that come together in a particular school. Unless schools have the authority to make the choices that reflect their uniqueness, reform will be trivial or temporary. Finally, while local districts tend to be preoccupied with the authority granted them by the state, the next decade may require greater attention to the moral authority underlying the whole education system. Some observers have pointed to signs that the public is becoming disengaged with the school system; that is, the community is not just critical of particular policies or conditions, but no longer considers the public schools to be their schools (David Mathews 1996). Reengagement may require extensive dialogue and careful listening, as well as the willingness to set standards that satisfy community needs as well as professional criteria. Toward a Market Model? While school officials at all levels continue to resist the more radical reforms such as voucher systems, the last decade has clearly seen a movement toward models that emphasize local autonomy and individual choice. Site-based management remains strong, public-school choice has become common, and charter schools are becoming part of the educational landscape. The decade ahead may decide whether the new accountability systems produce enough change to satisfy the public, or whether schools will be pushed even closer to market-oriented models. Compiled by Larry Lashway, freelance research analyst.