Education Models Changing : Citizens Recognizing the Problems

Change for change sake is not in the best interest of anyone, but when you see a problem and understand how it can be solved and take action, marvelous things happen. Common sense and resolve are at work here and the results are clearing the fog of partisan politics to reveal success.

Now we have to make sure we don't lift our foot from the accelerator but keep to the floor. As any race driver will tell you, once you clear the corner and hit the straightaway, you give all you have to get a much advantage as you can before approaching the next corner. Once you are committed to that corner you either brake or proceed at the ultimate allowable speed without exceeding it, which would force you to leaving the track ,to keep the advantage you gain form the last straightaway.

Bottom line is know what you have gained and keep the focus on the next hurdle so when the opportunity comes along you can make the best of it. Knowing how troubled the public schools are and the threat they represent cannot be under stated, there can be no second place in this race, winning the minds of our kids has to be the only game in town.

Traditional School District Models Changing
Source: Jaclyn Zubrzycki, "School Systems Shake Up Organizational Model," Education Week, January 14, 2014.

January 16, 2014

Budget problems and renewed focus on economic policy has led to changes in the traditional school district model, says Jaclyn Zubrycki, a staff writer for Education Week.

The classic school district model involves schools grouped according to geographic boundaries, a central office that oversees hiring and curriculum needs, and a superintendent (governed by a school board) that runs the overall system. While much of that model has stayed the same, budget crises, a need for academic improvement and more free-market approaches to education have changed policies in school districts across the United States:

• Detroit's public school district is governed by an emergency manager. But more than 40 percent of Detroit schoolchildren attend charter schools, which are run by the state's Education Achievement Authority. The school board performs only an advisory role.
• In Memphis, the Shelby County-Memphis district has developed an "innovation zone" comprised of 13 low-performing schools that have been given autonomy over their hiring and budget.
• Similarly, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina has seen a great deal of autonomy transferred to the schools themselves in a project supported by a number of local, philanthropic partners.

Many of these changes are not new. Twelve years ago, Pennsylvania handed over the operations of low-performing schools in the Philadelphia school system to more than 40 private non-profit and for-profit entities.

These changes have taken place in large and small cities alike.