How-Business-and-Civic-Leaders-Can-Make-a-Big-Difference-in-Public-Education

How Business and Civic Leaders Can Make a Big Difference in Public Education A CEOs for Cities Briefing Paper by Paul T Hill Center on Reinventing Public Education Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington Prepared for April 2004 This briefing paper was commissioned by CEOs for Cities to stimulate discussion at the organization’s Spring 2004 national meeting to be held on May and 7, 2004 in Chicago Conclusions expressed herein are the opinions of the author and not necessarily reflect an official policy or position of CEOs for Cities or any of its members or sponsors Copyright 2004 Center on Reinventing Public Education and CEOs for Cities All rights reserved Cover photograph courtesy of morgueFile.com Daniel J Evans School of Public Affairs University of Washington Box 353055 Seattle, WA 98195-3055 206.685.2214 crpe@u.washington.edu One Post Office Square Suite 1600 Boston, MA 02109 617.451.5747 www.ceosforcities.org How Business and Civic Leaders Can Make a Big Difference in Public Education A CEOS for Cities Briefing Paper for Members by Paul T Hill Center on Reinventing Public Education Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington Prepared for CEOs for Cities A national, nonpartisan alliance of mayors, business executives, university presidents and civic leaders that strengthens the economic competitiveness of cities through an exchange and application of best practices, ideas, and advocacy April 2004 Everybody who lives or works in a big city has a stake in the performance of the local public school system Businesses and cultural institutions suffer when thousands of young school graduates are unprepared to productive work or take a full part in civic life Despite nearly two decades of well-publicized efforts, many young people – a majority in whole sectors of some big cities – are unprepared Half of the nation’s minority students not get a high school diploma On average, low-income and minority 12th graders still read and write at about the same level as middle class white 8th graders In many cities, more than 30% of all poor minority students score below the 10th percentile on national reading and math tests The advantaged can run from these facts, but they can’t hide Even families that can get their children into the more effective college prep schools still suffer, as companies struggle to find workers, highly skilled workers resist moving to the city, and property values stagnate None of this is news to big city school superintendents and school board members They are struggling to improve their schools, but the tools at their disposal are weak, and politics disrupts strategy Districts months, i.e Richard Green, Joseph Fernandez, Rudy Crew, Ramon Cortines, Richard Levy, and surely at some point Joel Klein) The objective challenges of educating large numbers of children from destitute families, including many foreign born, are daunting enough But big city districts also face man-made constraints that make their jobs even harder These come from state and federal regulations that prohibit flexible use of money, union contract provisions that strip school leaders of authority and allow experienced teachers to avoid the most challenging schools, and control of all important expenditure decisions by a central district bureaucracy City school districts are further harmed by a self-imposed insulation from broader community resources School districts strive to be fully integrated within, and to depend as little as possible on expertise from the outside They are willing celebrated for improvement can be derided as frauds or failures only a few years later, and some districts can be saved, lost, saved, and lost again in rapid succession (consider New York City’s succession of chancellors who went from being brilliant to hopeless in only a few to accept money, but on their own terms, and will take in-kind donations of services and goods as long as these not affect the internal workings of schools This approach, derived from the “professionali-zation” movement of the early 20th Century, needlessly limits reform options and children’s learning opportunities Most big cities have large universities and sophisticated high-tech industries, yet their school systems often cannot offer all students high-quality mathematics and science instruction Universities, community colleges, museums, private schools, and training organizations all have expertise in instruction, yet they are kept at arms length Businesses have expertise in management, performance monitoring, and finance that school systems need But many fear allowing the snout of the private sector into the tent of public education So public education does without the help it needs In general, public schools are isolated from the forces that bring improvement into other sectors Money and students can’t flow from less to more successful schools Though school districts are often ready to try new things on a small scale, there is no mechanism to spread success: teachers and administrators in other schools are burdened by rules and have little incentive to imitate someone else Teachers and principals whose successes win publicity are more often resented than imitated Meanwhile superintendents and school members are driven by politics to look for improvement in the wrong place; they strive to mandate one sovereign solution that will transform every school in the same way, rather than to create a marketplace of competing ideas That’s why districts that teach children who speak 100 languages and come to school at vastly different levels of readiness to learn nonetheless try to mandate use of a single approach to reading or math instruction In this environment, what should businesses and philanthropies do? Should they continue to work within the public education system? Or should they concentrate on creating alternatives and applying pressure from outside? Fortunately, in the real world the choice is not so stark Businesses and philanthropies can and should continue to support school districts But they must take care to avoid being co-opted by those who would protect the system regardless of its failures FOCUSING ON SOLUTIONS Eight years ago, the Brookings Institution set out to create options for city leaders – mayors, heads of cultural institutions, philanthropies, and businesses, and school board members and superintendents – who hoped to turn around failing big-city school systems We studied many cities that reputedly were making headway on their school performance problems, but the results to date are sobering.1 To this point in the cities we have studied2 virtually all major efforts For more extensive discussions see Hill, Paul T., and Mary Beth Celio, Fixing Urban Schools, Washington DC, Brookings 1998, and Hill, Paul T., Christine Campbell, and James Harvey, It Takes A City: Getting Serious About Urban School Reform, Washington DC, Brookings 2000 We conducted formal studies in Seattle, San Francisco, San Antonio, Boston, Memphis, and New York City, and also worked to improve big city school systems, including mayoral and state takeovers, have been doomed by the same two deficits that sank the school systems in the first place.3 The first deficit is in strategy No city has thought through all the changes that must take place before a chronically low-performing school system can come to operate at a consistently high standard The second deficit is in implementation No city has organized the political and financial support necessary to sustain a reform strategy over a long time On strategy, our book It Takes A City (Brookings 2000)4 shows that a reform strong enough to move a big city school system must have three parts: Incentives to reward good performance and sanction bad, including family and teacher choice that lets people and resources move with reformers in Cleveland, Chicago, Houston, and Denver Possible exceptions are current reform initiatives in Boston, where progress is slow but ongoing, and in Detroit, San Diego, and Cleveland, where change strategies are still taking shape Hill, Paul T., Christine Campbell, and James Harvey, It Takes A City: Getting Serious About Urban School Reform, Washington D.C., Brookings Institution Press, 2000 from less- to more-successful providers of instruction; Investments in capacity, so that new approaches can be tried and educators and parents are not starved of information and ideas, and can ask for and get help; and School freedom of action, so that people with new ideas about how to use money, children’s and teachers’ time, and instructional methods can put them into practice, and also abandon their own practices in favor of better ones they see elsewhere Taken together this is a framework for open and competitive experimentation, the kind of empirical approach to problem solving that works for hard problems like going to the moon or curing cancer But to date no city education system has used it all Most cities emphasize one factor –e.g building school capacity by retraining teachers, providing strong performance incentives and school freedom of action The box on the next page provides an example of a community-wide strategy with all these elements In It Takes a City we call it the Community Partnerships strategy5 It is totally compatible with the ideas outlined in System Change Goes to School, a white paper prepared by Curtis Johnson and Neal Peirce for CEOs for Cities This strategy creates new incentives, by putting all schools, no matter who operates them, into a competitive environment It creates new capacities by introducing new school providers of all sorts and allowing people with good ideas to try them out It creates freedom of action by allowing school operators to use time, money, labor, and technology in new ways Cities relying on superintendents to propose action will not get a strategy as bold as this Superintendents are people who have come  up through “the system,” and though hope  for school improvement they shrink from  pressing reform ideas that would roil  central office staff, unions, and other  entrenched interests. Most such  superintendents are also itinerants who do  not understand the politics of the cities in  which they work, and are thus unable to  marshal grassroots support for reforms It Takes A City proposes two more modest but less promising strategies, one based on radical centralization under a strong executive and another a comprehensive system of school contracting, contained within the geographic and financial boundaries of existing school districts Civic and philanthropic leadership is  needed to formulate and keep a reform  strategy as bold as the Community  Partnerships approach. Key roles for this  leadership include formulating a reform  strategy, organizing political and financial  support for it, and creating institutions  outside the control of the public school  system to sustain reform On implementation, It Takes a City concludes no strategy is selfexecuting Big-city reforms face a tough array of implementation problems An initiative that threatens no one will change little and cannot make a substantial difference in schools Yet superintendents and school board majorities are easily swept aside by small, organized groups, often led by teachers who dislike the changes proposed The inside-the-system relationships of school board, teachers union, and school superintendent are too enmeshed in conflict to allow formulation of a profound reform strategy, and too unstable to allow one to survive Once it is clear that fundamental reform is necessary, the mayor or other senior local leaders – the ones who normally organize major civic projects like applications for the Olympics or responses to major threats to the city’s economic well-being – must take responsibility for strategybuilding Community Partnerships is a strategy that does not respect the traditional boundaries between assets owned by the public school bureaucracy and other institutions, public and private It offers a no-holds-barred approach to the question, “How can this community use all its assets to provide the best education for all our children?” A new community authority – one with jurisdiction over an existing school district or a wider geographic area – would oversee the supply of educational opportunities for all children It could license many entities to provide K-12 instruction, including conventional public school systems, charter schools, private contractor whether for- or non-profit, and unconventional options such as colleges, universities, libraries, church-supported systems willing to operate under First Amendment constraints, and dispersed “cyber schools.” The only schools excluded would be those that could not be licensed, did not want to be considered part of a public system, or will not accept the public per-pupil expenditure as full payment of tuition Parents would have choices among all forms of schools The new community authority would control all funds for public education and would write checks to schools based on their enrollments It could enter master contracts with local public systems, but it would also be free to license other providers to serve children in the same areas Public school boards would receive per pupil amounts for all children served by their school, but nothing extra Public school boards could then run their own schools or contract with independent providers for them Because their schools would compete with other schools run under very different auspices, public school boards would have strong incentives to eliminate unnecessary overhead costs and put as much money into the schools, and on instruction, as possible The new authority could hold back a small amount of money to incubate new schools and encourage development of new options for poorly served groups or neighborhoods Public school boards, with their broad portfolios of schools and economies of scale, would presumably have an advantage over smaller providers when it came to meeting new needs Dayton, Ohio depend on philanthropy for core support but also charge some fees to participating schools and school developers Creating such institutions in big cities is a very promising role for philanthropy In addition, donors can provide seed money so that teachers, principals, and parents hoping to start new schools can pay the fees charged by incubators, and buy other materials and equipment required to support their planning Businesses and philanthropies can also take a direct hand in creating new schools In Chicago, an independent philanthropy called Business and Professional People in the Public Interest wrote a “request for proposals” and managed the selection process for groups to create 200 small new elementary schools Another business-funded group, Leadership for Quality Education, has provided organizational and analytical assistance to help Chicago’s charter school office establish 35 innovative new public elementary and high schools Similar groups are now working in Cleveland Foundations can also pay for market surveys to estimate demand for different kinds of schools, and subsidize the onetime costs of planning for a specific new school and recruiting and training its teachers Philanthropists wishing to help create many new schools in a short time might also pay to import school development expertise from New American Schools design teams or from education management organizations like the nonprofit Aspire Public Schools, the San Francisco-based KIPP Academy program, or the New York Citybased for-profit Edison Schools Another potential source of new schools is nonprofit organizations like the YMCA that have already run many education programs Such organizations have generally stayed on the sidelines to date, which is understandable – until recently anyone ready to develop large numbers of new public schools would have been all dressed up with no place to go Now that the need is evident, one possible supply-side solution is interfaith coalitions of churches that have experience running their own schools The Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Jews all know how to run simple private schools that focus on instruction Hundreds of thousands of people either now teach and administer in such schools, or have done so in the past These people know how to make such schools work, and they could start new ones Tragically, as Catholic archdioceses implode financially, the number of experienced people available will grow Interfaith coalitions have other advantages: they include organizations with financial and managerial competence, established nonprofit status, and access to funds They can easily pass constitutional scrutiny by offering value-based education that is does not proselytize for any church Such coalitions have been effective providers of lowincome housing and social services Now is the time for them to turn to education Interfaith coalitions already exist in virtually every city All that’s required is a little leadership to move them into providing schools A single leader – whether a rabbi, minister, priest, or lay leader, could assemble a group to develop charter schools or create new schools to serve children who leave failed public schools A mayor or county executive could perform this convening function National foundations interested in sparking a supply response could offer start-up funds for interfaith coalitions willing to create new schools New Pipelines for Educators Though urban superintendents often complain that they cannot find teachers and principals, actual shortages are rare In most localities, save the few with very high rates of immigration, there are enough certified teachers and principals to fill all available slots However, quality is a different matter The real complaint is that there are too few teachers of high ability, especially in math and science, and that people with principal certificates are often mediocre and unprepared to lead serious school improvement initiatives Apparently, the education schools and career ladders now available produce plenty of people, just not enough good ones Private organizations, with help from philanthropists, are already creating alternative training programs for individuals who want to be teachers or principals but not want to endure several years of training in an education school These include the well-known Teach for America program, which places talented college graduates in high-poverty rural and inner-city schools, and the Department of Defense’s “Troops to Teachers” program, which transitions military personnel into classrooms across the nation The San Francisco-based Pisces Foundation is funding a specialized program of training for future principals looking to open schools based on the KIPP Academy model, itself the product of two former Teach for America members Houston, New York City, Chicago, and other large school districts are also creating their own training programs, enabling them to certify teachers from sources other than conventional education schools In New York City, for example, educated individuals from other walks of life are able to gain provisional teaching certificates with a summer’s preparation, and then work toward full certification as they teach These are important initiatives and worthy recipients of funding Yet new training mechanisms are only part of the answer City schools also need to attract talented personnel and make teaching as attractive to people who want to teach for just a few years as to those who are sure it will be their life’s work Philanthropy can help new people enter teaching in two additional ways:  Creating new organizations that can employ teachers under different rules and provide extra compensation for those whose skills are in greatest demand  Creating new forms of retirement and health benefits that can allow people to move more freely between teaching and other occupations Teacher employment is now constrained by civil service and collective bargaining conventions These prevent school systems from getting the teachers they need in three ways: 1) by forbidding extra pay for people with rare skills; 2) by tying pay increments to seniority rather than performance; and 3) by making training in pedagogy an absolute prerequisite for all teaching, even in areas like science and mathematics, where no amount of pedagogical expertise can compensate for a lack of content knowledge These problems all stem from politics and collective bargaining One possible solution is to create a new status for teachers with scarce or highly specialized skills Science, mathematics, special education, and other teachers with rare skills could be employed by independent organizations, which would be manpower vendors to the school district and provide instruction to them on a contract basis Such organizations—let’s call them teacher providers—could employ teachers and provide their salaries and benefits The school district would contract with them for instructional services; the amounts paid could combine current salaries, benefits, and expenditures for in-service training and substitutes The providers would then be responsible for recruitment, training, and compensation As contract employees, teachers would not be covered by the same rules on pay and certification that now constrain school districts (Due to union resistance few districts have found teachers in this way, with one exception: athletic coaches, whom some schools hire on a contract basis.) Individuals working for a cooperative could be assigned to work in one school or many (advanced physics teachers might be able to work in two or three high schools), and could work full or part time Some individuals might keep concurrent jobs in industry or pursue advanced degrees while working part-time as teachers College faculty could also moonlight as schoolteachers Individuals with advanced degrees, who now make little as adjunct faculty at colleges and universities, could be paid much better for teaching part-time in public schools Individual teachers’ pay and benefits, including contributions to vested retirement accounts, could be based on scarcity of skills and the quality of their performance, rather than on seniority Thus, highly capable younger people, and individuals who are masters of pedagogy in one discipline, could maximize their productivity and pay Providers would have strong incentives to use teachers’ time as efficiently as possible The result would be their assigning teachers only to those courses that they can teach well It would also promote experimentation with effective ways to use capital, especially computerbased instruction and televised presentations by master teachers Teacher providers might, in fact, be the mechanism whereby high-leverage uses of technology are finally brought into the public schools Contractors might also provide school leadership As with teachers, school leaders could be contract employees and would not have to meet all the arcane requirements that apply to district-employed school principals School districts facing shortages of principals would then be able to tap a fresh supply of people experienced in managing small organizations Teacher providers would eventually be self-supporting However, philanthropic funding for design, trial operation, legal and financial preparation, and the development of recruitment and training capacities is needed to get them started Teacher providers would be more viable organizations if businesses and philanthropies worked on creating portable employee benefit packages Current teacher retirement funds are tied to particular school systems or states, and subject to benefit limits that discourage senior teachers from working past their mid-50s Inflexible government benefit packages also give teachers less freedom than private sector employees to select among health insurance, housing assistance, and other benefits providers Current benefits for teachers are typically good for married, settled middleaged people, but less valuable for younger, single, mobile people Privately managed, portable retirement funds could support expansion of the pool of potential teachers in two ways First, they would allow people to move more readily from private sector jobs into teaching, and vice versa This would enable professionals who would like to teach for a while—sometimes more than once—to teach without sacrificing retirement income It would also make it more likely that experienced teachers who move from one state to another would decide to continue teaching: they could continue building retirement savings rather than being forced, as typically happens today, to start over on the lowest steps of a new retirement system Second, privately-managed portable retirement funds would ease the problem of “maxing out.” This common provision of government retirement plans means that senior employees eventually reach a point at which they cannot add further to their retirement savings Understanding that their real incomes have suddenly dropped sharply, many leave public employment at about age 55 Some simply quit working, but others use their skills elsewhere “Maxed out” teachers are now a boon to private and charter schools, which can offer them a better deal on retirement Bigcity schools need to be able to compete for these teachers, and portable private pension funds could permit it In the long run, such benefit pools would be financially selfsustaining But foundation funding is necessary to create new providers and to attract existing benefit vendors into this field Foundation funding for business formation, legal and financial analysis, and for shortterm demonstration programs could help create new teacher benefit options Helping Schools Manage the Risk of High Costs for Special Education Laws on education of handicapped students are a major challenge for charters and others that would compete with district-run schools Schools that remain connected to school districts must pay hundreds of dollars per student to support the central office special education unit Schools that maintain no connection to school districts must pay for whatever services their handicapped students need, including placement in residential facilities costing as much as $50,000 per pupil This sets up a dilemma: to avoid the financial ruin that could result if a seriously handicapped child were to enroll, many new schools stay close to the very districts whose control they hoped to escape Further, charters and other schools that rely on school districts often get far less than they pay for Because charter schools hope to avoid labeling children as handicapped, they work hard to solve students’ learning problems early Charters in effect transfer money to district schools that are careless with the “handicapped” label Schools in a voucher system could face the same dilemma As long as public funding brings an absolute obligation to provide special education services, schools must either affiliate with districts or take huge risks Some charter schools are forming special education risk pools, which are good until one school’s unexpected costs create havoc with many schools’ budgets A better solution would be insurance for special education costs Schools could buy insurance coverage from commercial underwriters, including deductibles for small extra costs and “catastrophic coverage” for the rare instance when a student requires residential placement A mature insurance program could be loss rated, so that schools with excellent track records of solving children’s problems without applying the “handicapped” label would pay less than schools that use the label carelessly A special education insurance program would be good for schools and for children Schools would know in advance what special education would cost each year – no awful surprises Students would also benefit from schools’ efforts to solve learning problems before they became overwhelming Children who truly need special services would also benefit, because the funding would be guaranteed by insurance No insurance underwriter has offered such insurance, for two reasons: First, school districts have covered their own costs, largely by robbing other generaleducation accounts to pay for their burgeoning special education offices Within districts, the managers of special education have had no incentive to control costs, and superintendents are afraid to cross the groups that represent handicapped children Second, information about individual schools’ expenditures has been hidden in district budgets that record costs by function, not by school An insurance industry could emerge rapidly, however, if businesses and philanthropies offered to support start-up insurance funds and pay excess losses for small pilot projects Charter and voucher-funded schools could buy insurance for a few hundred dollars per pupil and have their costs adjusted annually on the basis of experience This small innovation, which relies more on business entrepreneurship than on policy activism, could make a huge difference in the numbers of groups willing to start schools of choice, and in the financial survival of new schools Ensuring Fair Access to School Facilities Without major political or legal pressures, regular public school systems are unlikely to make school space available to schools other than those they operate themselves Facilities managers in some cities have admitted tearing down public school structures rather than allowing them to be used by “competitive” contract, charter, or privately run schools Philanthropy can support emergence of new schooling options by helping districts get out of the real-estate business A major foundation or business coalition could help a school district uncouple the property management function from its school district by creating a new quasi-public institution, a Public School Real Estate Trust.7 The For a more complete discussion of these ideas see Michael Trust would own all public school buildings and oversee the district’s capital expenditures The Trust would have three key features First, it would have a clear mission: to ensure that all publicly funded schools (traditional schools, charter schools, and contract schools) have timely access to the space they need Second, the Trust would be flexible; it would have the freedom and incentive to use a variety of tools to make sure every publicly funded school has a place to thrive It might allow other community organizations to rent space while schools are not in session—so-called mixed-use agreements—in order to squeeze some of the market value out of school properties; it might enter partnerships to take advantage of private providers’ capitalraising advantages Third, the Trust would be accountable: the district and community could create clear criteria for judging its performance based on its mission.8 DeArmond, Rethinking Bricks and Mortar: New Approaches to School Facilities Supply, Seattle, Center on Re-Inventing Public Education, 2001 In Oklahoma City, public officials recognize the value of creating an independent capacity to manage capital infrastructure In 2001, the city’s mayor proposed creating a seven member public By creating a new institution dedicated to managing school real estate, philanthropy can help ensure that a city’s school buildings don’t constrain the educational opportunities it can offer its children or hinder its attempts at reform CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR CEOS AND CITIES The new institutions described in this paper can help address the intrinsic deficiencies of school districts Yet, these institutions cannot create themselves Local districts are unlikely to launch them If they are to come into being, they will need to be financed by some combination of philanthropic and statewide or national initiative The total cost of these new institutions and capacities will be significant, but probably not more than the amount of business and foundation support now provided big-city school systems In Seattle, for example, one analysis of philanthropic giving estimated authority to manage the school district’s buildings instead of the district donations of nearly $150 per student Even if only receiving one-third of that rate, a school system the size of Houston, Chicago, or Los Angeles would now receive private grants in excess $20 million annually These grants now support less productive initiatives than those suggested here But if thoughtfully reallocated and coordinated, the same amounts of money could easily pay to build vital new local capacities to sustain school reform Table outlines the approximate costs of building and sustaining these institutions in a major metropolitan area It distinguishes the start-up costs of such institutions as independent data analysis organizations, new schools, and new teacher providers, and the annual costs of supporting them through grants from foundations and businesses The start-up costs are predictable and have very little to with the size of the metropolitan area Some of the annual operating costs, however, depend on district size Thus a large district might need to start five to ten schools each year, while a small district could get by with one or two Some new institutions (e.g a school real estate trust and a teacher provider) should be able to pay their own operating costs TABLE 1: Start-Up and Sustaining Costs of New Institutions Start-Up Costs Annual Sustaining Costs $100 thousand per school $0-$50,000 per school Employment contractors $1.5 million over years none Benefit pools $1.5 million over years none Insurance for special education $3 million over years none Real estate trust $3 million over years none NEW SCHOOLS NEW SOURCES OF TEACHERS INSTITUTIONS TO CREATE AN EVEN PLAYING FIELD Such investments will require careful planning and collaboration among funders Individual foundations or business philanthropies will have their own abilities and constraints But philanthropies must allow their education grant officers to enter agreements with other funders, and to contribute to pooled funds for initiatives that no single funder can afford, financially or politically, on its own Local philanthropies expecting public education to change should no less themselves They must open themselves to new and more challenging roles, and to collaboration in initiatives that will discomfit educators and generate criticism Other philanthropic approaches are possible Readers piqued by these ideas should also look at the ideas for philanthropists on the websites of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (www.crpe.org) and the Thomas Fordham Foundation (www.Fordhamfoundation.org) Urban education is everybody’s problem, but business and civic leaders can make unique contributions to its solution Elected officials often avoid involvement with a struggling school system, considering it a no-win proposition Educators are either embedded in the existing system or, in the case of private school leaders, excluded from it Only business and civic leaders have the combination of standing and resources necessary to transform public education To use these assets effectively, business and civic leaders must enter a game that lasts many innings and requires many different tactics, sometimes helping the school district and sometimes subjecting it to external pressures and competition The game is hard but it can and must be won, even if it goes into extra innings APPENDIX What a Civic Reform Oversight Group Would Do in a Community Partnership Model The best form of civic leadership is one that guides a city through major transitions These are groups, like the Commercial Club of Chicago and the Cincinnati Business Committee, that normally organize applications for the Olympics or mount campaigns to support investments to transform the city’s economic infrastructure Traditionally, mayors and business leaders dominated such groups, but these leadership entities now, quite properly, include minority, community, and religious leaders as well Besides preserving the flame of the city’s educational vision, these groups can operate as buffers between the schools and the community, interpreting the district to the larger community and the community’s crosscurrents to the district Across the nation, virtually every major city can draw on a coalition of powerful local interests to advance the city’s well-being For example:  The Commercial Club of Chicago transformed the downtown and waterfront  Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Conference helped clean up air pollution in the city, revitalized downtown, and helped legendary school superintendent Richard Wallace transform the schools in the 1980s  Cincinnati’s Business Committee led a levy campaign for adequate school funding and uses its clout in the state capital to win the school system relief from burdensome regulations  In Washington, DC, the Washington Board of Trade has employed its mandate to improve the business climate to lobby for District home rule, a state-of-the-art subway system, and improvements in city schools Although the make-up of each of these groups differs slightly from one city to another, the most effective seem to include leaders from several different communities: the political establishment, the business community, and the foundation and art worlds They: Mobilize political support for a reform strategy Community leaders understand that school board elections are the forums in which entire reform initiatives can be sustained or lost Nothing can protect a reform against a newly elected school board that claims a mandate to trash the reform strategy or fire a superintendent School boards are not good forums for creating integrated strategy but they are excellent platforms from which reform initiatives and their leaders can be destroyed A civic reform oversight group cannot guarantee election results or prevent a well-mobilized majority from having its way But it can develop an election strategy, provide public information, make sure that good candidates are fielded, and manage voter turnout initiatives, all indispensable parts of reform implementation Survive Superintendent Succession The typical big-city superintendent’s two-and-onehalf year tenure is far too short to create and institutionalize a reform strategy Faced with the likelihood of superintendent turnover, leaders of a civic reform oversight group must make sure successive superintendents are hired to continue and build upon the city’s reform strategy, not reject and replace it A civic reform oversight group needs to pay close attention to the school board’s preparations to hire a new superintendent and use its moral authority – and the mayor’s influence – to make sure that the premises on which new superintendents are hired reaffirm the city’s commitment to its basic reform strategy Arrange Regulatory Relief and State Support A civic reform oversight group can help promote flexible use of funds provided by the state or passed through the state from the federal government Sometimes, all that is required is that someone asks for help Leaders of a civic reform oversight group not have to accept the first thing they hear about what is permissible and what cannot be done They can and should be the community’s leading edge in seeking advice and cooperation from high-level state and federal officials, including their state’s governor and the U.S Secretary of Education Foundation heads and business CEOs have their own direct access to the governor and senior legislators and can plead their locality’s case effectively They have far more leverage in the state capital than any school superintendent and they can deal directly with top government leaders, over the heads of state education agency officials Procter and Gamble’s successful advocacy for Cincinnati school reform is exemplary in this regard Track Failures and Act to Fix Problems Reform strategies can take many years to have desired effects on student learning Community leaders who “wind up it up and forget it” will eventually learn that important parts of the reform strategy never happened, or happened in ways other than originally designed The only way to prevent unpleasant surprises of implementation failure is to create systems of “leading indicators.” These tell reform leaders whether key implementation tasks have been done as expected and whether school staff and students are responding in the ways expected For example, oversight of a reform strategy whose first step is to allocate all funds to schools on a per-pupil basis should make clear whether money was distributed as intended It might also verify whether school leaders had the freedom to spend these funds, and whether they used it in ways anticipated by the reform strategy Positive results not prove that the reform will work, but negative ones would almost certainly imply that the reform would not achieve the intended effects unless implementation is corrected Though the people in charge of day-to-day reform implementation inevitably care about appearances, heads of foundations and business philanthropies should care only about results They are therefore the right ones to establish and pay for oversight and adjustment of the reform Build A Citizen Constituency Though senior civic leaders are legitimate initiators of school reform, strategies cannot be sustained without grassroots support Ultimately, everything depends on parents and other taxpayers If they understand the direction of reform and are confident that it is benefiting their children, no group is likely to oppose it effectively Citizens need to know why a reform strategy is being initiated, how it is supposed to work, and how it will affect their children They should also know what changes to expect in their schools, and whom to call if they see that promised changes are not happening Even when superintendents and board members support a reform strategy, school districts cannot be trusted to provide needed information about it Permanent central office staff and union leaders may support the change, but the can just as easily create a flow of counter-reform information, which the superintendent is powerless to stop A continuing function of a civic reform oversight group must be to provide layperson-friendly explanations of the reform, and make sure citizens are never surprised about what is coming and how their own children’s schools will be affected In every case, the group’s goal should be to avoid having to mount defensive campaigns against rumors, by telling the story first and providing the framework in which parents get and receive information