This book out of Harvard’s Public Educational Leadership Project (PELP) takes on one of the biggest challenges in managing school districts: the relationship between the central office and schools. In meeting needs that vary from building to building, do certain governance structures work better than others? For example, is it better to centralize and make all the decisions “downtown” or decentralize and give autonomy to schools?
Researchers analyzed five large urban districts in four states with varying approaches to their central office/schools relationships, all of which were selected based on improvements in student achievement. The districts shared other similarities, such as serving a wide range of schools and communities, and each enrolled more than sixty-thousand students (mostly of color). PELP’s methodology is best described as a case study approach that included combing through news sources and research reports and interviewing sixty-three district and school leaders.
Researchers reached a perplexing conclusion: Both styles can be successful if the central office and school coordinate their systems, strategies, and visions. Whether centralized, decentralized, or a blend of both, structure has no bearing on student performance. Instead, all that matters is that both parties openly communicate and readjust in order to figure out what is actually working and removing what is not. Some tension is certainly to be expected between the priorities of a school and those of a central office. But working together will produce more productive results than operating as if it’s a zero-sum game. This is what the authors mean by “coherence”—commonsensical solutions that strive to align rather than divide.
Principals ought to play an important role in this because, in addition to having an inherent allegiance to their own institutions, they also understand their schools’ unique needs and challenges. For example, in the more centralized Aldine Independent School District, the central office relied on intermediaries (or area superintendents) to build collaborative relationships with principals. This type of partnership gave principals more of an active role in making decisions. Simultaneously, central offices were able to check the progress of their proposals and receive feedback from those who know their schools best.
The book also explores the importance of organizational culture. A supportive culture can reinforce a district’s strategy, while a toxic one can derail policies. Here “culture” refers to the actual norms that influence individuals’ actions at the school level versus what the central office says should happen. School districts tend to dismiss culture as frivolous in decision-making processes, or else mistakenly assume that culture is static. That’s a mistake, say the authors. And districts that take it seriously see results.
Consider the Long Beach Unified School District, which prioritized improving its academic program. Rather than rolling out initiatives in a top-down approach, the central office encouraged schools to pilot their own projects. Teachers and principals had the opportunity to tweak and revise programs to determine if they should come to fruition. The result was a success. Unsurprisingly, when individuals are invited into the decision-making process and have their voices heard, they are more likely to be invested in implementing the changes they helped to plan.
In the end, the general takeaway is that districts must recognize that there’s no best strategy for governance; instead, the best path is one that strives for coherence in a given environment.
SOURCE: Susan Moore Johnson et al., Achieving Coherence in District Improvement: Managing the Relationship Between the Central Office and Schools (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2015).
