Site-Based Management
Nationally, there have been a number of attempts at school reform in the past decade, in response to our educational system's seeming inability to provide an adequate education.24Hawley, Willis D., "Preparing Students from Today's Families for Tomorrow's Challenges", in Bacharach, Samuel B., Ed., Education Reform; Making Sense of it All, (1990) Often these reforms have been program specific, suggesting that a new teaching method is the answer to the problem of falling test scores, or that some form of reorganization is needed. Implementing these reforms tends to bring a shift in responsibility. Central administrators tend to gain more power, and the individual teacher loses control over his or her classroom. Program decisions are made by the centrally-located administrator, and not by the teacher in the classroom. This trend has been exacerbated by the Desegregation program. The judge's oversight of the SLSD desegregation effort has further increased centralization.
Arguably, attempts to improve education through increased central control have the opposite effect; they lead to a poorer education. A central administrator cannot make a teaching program work, or even know if it can work. Each child is different, and responds to different approaches. The teacher who comes in contact with the students every day is best able to judge which approach suits which student. By taking control out of the hands of teachers, we do not allow them to use the information which can only be accumulate through daily contact with the students. Reforms which increase central control almost automatically damage the educational process.
As part of achieving the goal of improving education, we propose to reverse this trend. We propose to drastically increase the responsibility of teachers, by implementing site-based management.
…under the right circumstances, change orchestrated at the school level has a significant chance of making a difference …Our best bet for improving schools lies not with fine-tuning state reforms (although some of these are, of course, necessary) but with stimulating individual schools to change and providing them with appropriate assistance.25Ibid.
Effective control of individual schools would be given to committees composed of the teachers and administrators at that school.
It should be noted that the description of the actual operation of the site-based committee is purposely vague. Our goal is to encourage individual schools to take over their operations. We must be careful not to dictate a rigid form which they should follow. There are a number of organizational formats possible, most of which utilize some form of executive committee with a means of review by the school faculty as a whole. We will use this general framework in our discussion of the site-based committees, and focus on the committees' responsibilities and the roles of different participants.
As noted, the committees would be composed of the schools principal and a number of teachers. We do not propose giving parents any formalized control; while desirable in theory, in practice parental representation on various forms of site-based committees tends to be ineffective. Studies have shown that even when given formal representation, parents were unable to use it effectively.26Ibid. The parents felt that they lacked the information needed to truly affect the workings of the school, and tended to defer to teachers and principals. Creating site-based committees and achieving actual control at the school level have proven to be two different things.
Despite the seemingly favorable conditions,teachers and parents did not wield significant influence on significant issues at the building level. Descriptions of the subjects considered and the roles played by teachers and parents in those interaction illustrate that the conventional influence pattern was retained. Principals controlled building policies and procedures; teachers controlled the instructional component; and the parents endorsed their efforts.27Ibid.
Subjects Considered
School councils rarely addresses the central subjects of education policy, namely budget, personal, and program. Budget items might "get mentioned," but there was no evidence that the councils discussed budget issues or allocated discretionary funds. Personnel topics surfaced primarily when the district mandated a reduction in the work force or a teacher became the object of a complaint. There was no evidence, however, that councils were actively involved in the selection or evaluation of employees. Program issues achieved what informants termed scant, "superficial" attention. Discussions focused more on supplemental activities such as field trips and extracurricular activities than on required course offerings. They also focused more on program management (e.g., schedules, recess times) than on content. There was virtually no reference to discussions of course objectives, curriculum emphasis, or instructional outcomes in the data.
Moreover, councils rarely addressed subjects salient to teachers and parents. Both teachers and parents characterized topics as "innocuous," "petty" items. Teachers stated they would like to discuss other topics, such as academic program, teacher evaluation, teacher morals, and "how to get more democratic input without fear of retaliation."
This difficulty is in a large part due to the question of authority. Principals are often hesitant to give up a degree of the authority they have earned, and teachers are often unwilling to force the issue. The result in the case described above was that even though greater control was in theory afforded the teachers, they did not exercise that control.
We believe that the existence of the pay-for-performance plan outlined below will counter this tendency. Both teachers and principals would have a strong financial incentive to work toward the most effective school possible; teachers will be encouraged to bring forth suggestions for improving the educational process, and principals, benefit from the improvements also, will be more likely to gracefully accept teachers' input. Further, because the teachers' role will be formalized, much of the uncertainty which existed in the cited example will be removed.
The site-based councils would have almost complete control over the school. They would decide class assignments, use of discretionary funds, make personal decisions, and would have almost complete responsibility for program choices.
Initially, this is likely to generate a degree of upheaval. Different schools will try different approaches. Some will use random pupil assignment, while others will group the students according to ability. Some will wish to try an ungraded first through third. There are any number of programs which have proven effective. Over time, we expect schools to arrive at a formula which does work. Essentially, we are telling the schools what we want them to achieve, in the form of the regular tests, and allowing them to decide how they will do so.
Moving to site-based committees will change the role of the central administration. Instead of being the means of program implementation, it will become a source of information and support. It will be the responsibility of the central administration to monitor the different programs, evaluating their effectiveness, and so build a body of knowledge as to what has worked in what situation. Schools which are experiencing a difficulty in a certain area would then be able to tap the information of the central administration to see how other schools have dealt with similar situation.
A primary duty of the site-based committee will be disciplining and, if necessary, removing teachers who are not adequately fulfilling their duties. Most teachers are very dedicated to their jobs; a person does not become a teacher unless he or she believes they will enjoy teaching. Yet a percentage find they do not like the profession once they are actually teaching. They lose interest in their jobs and their students. It is a truism that a disinterested teacher will be a less effective teacher. It will be the responsibility of the site-committee to evaluate teacher performance, recommend skill improvement where necessary, and if called for remove ineffective teachers.
Next: Pay-For-Performance