Editor's note: This is the second installment of "A Choice Conversation," an ongoing dialogue between Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up for Students and a redefinED host, and John Wilson, a former NEA leader who writes the Unleashed blog at Education Week.
Doug Tuthill: John, in our last exchange you called “for a new contracting arrangement for providers to serve the unique educational needs of targeted student populations and innovation.”
Floridians have heeded your advice and are expanding options for educators and families through innovative public-private partnerships. For example, the Okaloosa school district contracted with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to run Florida’s best aeronautics high school institutes. The Florida Virtual School contracts with Connections Academy to operate its K-5 program, and last year the Duval County school district contracted with local churches to implement programs for suspended students. The Pinellas County teachers union has a corporate subsidiary that contracts with its school board to tutor students; career academies throughout Florida contract for services from a plethora of businesses and trade associations; and the state’s charter schools, Voluntary Pre-K program, McKay Scholarships and tax credit scholarships are all implemented through public-private partnerships, as are many magnet schools.
Managing all these public-private partnerships is challenging, and you’ve suggested using the “institution of public schools” as the oversight entity. I’m curious what you mean by the term “institution of public schools.” I’m also interested in your criteria for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable public-private contracts.
John Wilson: Doug, I guess you could say I am a traditionalist when it comes to describing the institution of public schools, but I am an innovator when it comes to expanding the providers of customized education for targeted students and innovation.
I see the district board of education as the "traffic cop" for assuring that all providers, whether charters, private, or public-private, operate within a contract signed by the board of education and the provider. The "traffic cop" should assure that providers meet their fiduciary responsibility, improve student achievement, and adhere to the relevant laws and regulations as well as the contract that was signed with the board of education. I think the community needs to know these arrangements are cost-efficient and effective with their tax dollars and that their children are receiving a high-quality education. Let me add that I am not so naive as to know that we will need to build, and in some cases rebuild, trust and a shared vision with all parties that provide education opportunities. (more…)
Four school districts on Florida’s east coast are joining with Indian River State College and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the world's largest publisher of educational materials, to form a regional virtual school to compete with the Florida Virtual School (FLVS). Florida recently passed a law requiring every student to pass an online course to graduate and Florida districts are worried they’ll lose revenue if students meet this requirement by taking FLVS courses. We want “to keep the resources within the region,” said St. Lucie Schools Superintendent Michael Lannon.
After years of trying to protect their market share by denying parents choices, Florida school districts are increasingly acknowledging that parental choice is the new normal and they’ll need to improve their programs if they’re going to keep parents in district schools. Hopefully this greater emphasis on customer satisfaction will benefit students, educators, taxpayers and parents.
I was encouraged to see this paragraph in a recent Indianapolis Star article about giving the Indianapolis mayor control of the local school district:
The most likely plan would include mayoral appointment of the School Board, combined with a decentralization of IPS. Schools would have an independence similar to what charter schools have, along with strict accountability to the mayor for performance.
As the parental choice movement continues to grow, pressure will build to give district schools the same management autonomy as charter schools and private schools receiving publicly funded vouchers and scholarships. Within the next 20 years or so, charter schools may be the dominant governance model in public education. If this transition occurs, school boards will stop owning and managing schools and instead become the primary regulatory body for all publicly funded education in their districts.
The big winners from this decentralization will be teachers, students and taxpayers. Teacher unions will resist since their business model assumes a centralized employer, but after a prolonged temper tantrum they’ll adjust and reinvent themselves.
Two divergent approaches to education reform are operating in public education today. Both are focused on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of human capital, but while one seeks greater centralization of power the other seeks greater decentralization.
Recent tenure, evaluation, seniority and merit pay reforms are examples of state government trying to improve education by giving school boards more power and mandating that they use this power to increase teacher productivity. Teacher unions, which were created to curb the power of school boards, oppose this power transfer since it’s their power that is being redistributed to school boards.
School board members seem ambivalent about receiving more centralized management power. They like having this additional power but know teacher unions, which play a significant role in local school board races, will fight them if they use it. So board members are trapped between governors and state legislators who will expect them to use these new powers to improve teaching and learning and teacher unions who will demand board members maintain the status quo.
When faced with this dilemma in Florida, our school boards have traditionally followed the letter of the law to satisfy the state while maintaining the status quo in the districts to keep peace with their unions. I predict school boards in states such as Indiana and Ohio will do the same when implementing their states’ new tenure and merit pay laws. Even though these new state tenure and merit pay laws are intended to benefit low-income children, particularly low-income children of color, they won’t because low-income families lack the political clout to counterbalance the pressure school boards will receive from college-educated, middle-class teachers.
Parental empowerment is the other education reform approach sweeping the country. Magnet schools, homeschooling, virtual schools, dual enrollment, tax credit scholarships and charter schools, among others, are enabling more parents to customize their children’s education by matching them with the learning options that best meet their needs. This latter approach is shifting power from school boards to parents and is opposed by board members and teacher unions.
Ultimately parental empowerment will be what generates systemic and sustainable improvements in publicly-funded education. As parents demand more and better learning options for their children, teachers will have more opportunities to be innovative and entrepreneurial, thereby allowing them to be more empowered, also. Unleashing the knowledge and skills of teachers and parents is the best way for public education to maximize its human resources.
Why teacher unions oppose both teacher and parent empowerment is an interesting story I’ll address in a future post.
In this week's Washington Post, Laura R. Walker, president and chief executive of New York Public Radio, and Jaclyn Sallee, president and chief executive officer of Alaska-based Kohanic Broadcast Corporation, defended taxpayer-funded journalism. According to Walker and Sallee, the federal government currently allocates $430 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which in turn provides “financial support for locally owned and operated public radio and television stations, and acts as a journalistic firewall between the government that provides this funding and the public media journalism it funds.”
Given the success of public radio and television and the growing criticisms of school boards, the governance and management structure of publicly funded media may be a model publicly funded education should consider emulating. (more…)
