STATE-TO-DISTRICT ASSISTANCE
IN
UNDERPERFORMING SCHOOL DISTRICTS
When school districts fail to meet their responsibilities to educate students, state departments of education by law have to step up and become the responsible party. But do these state agencies have the knowledge and capacity to do what the districts have not done? Are they oriented and equipped to get better results?
The national experience in state-to-district assistance is characterized by tactics in the absence of strategy and activities in the absence of accomplishment. For state departments of education to achieve better results, there is a fundamental need for new approaches. Support from external partners is crucial, notably in convening the right players—including key community stakeholders—and facilitating often contentious dialogue to identify, analyze, and solve the problems that led to failure.
Lessons learned: critical components of an effective strategy
The most critical lessons from experience are in the effective use of three levers for change. State interventions at the district level have educational, organizational, and political dimensions, but these interventions are largely approached from a one-dimensional perspective—educational. Unless states collaborate with partners who understand and can ensure that organizational and political dimensions are also concurrently addressed, successful state-to-district interventions will continue to be elusive.
The components needed in a strategy to move from mission impossible—essentially the current state of affairs—to mission possible, wherein states can achieve better results, include:
- Meeting the educational requirements of balancing state responsibilities with federal statutes and traditions of local control.
- Building the organizational capacities necessary for reconfiguring the current policy compliance system into an effective service-delivery system.
- Addressing the political implications of balancing political pressure with educational wisdom.
Getting markedly better results requires partners that understand and use these three key levers for change to maximize the state’s impact in transforming underperforming school districts and building community capacity, thereby ensuring a better future for students.
Using educational levers. In our work with states, CTAC has found that state educational interventions are often characterized by the following:
- The purpose of state intervention is often unclear.
- States often overlook critical steps of diagnosis.
- The impact on student achievement is decidedly mixed.
- The distinction between activity and accomplishment is often blurred.
- The focus is on adopting models rather than on changing systems.
- Evaluating progress in student achievement, organizational change, and community capacity requires the use of multiple measures.
- Standards and assessment data can provide a needed foundation for change.
Using organizational levers. State-to-district intervention creates strains on and reveals gaps in the service delivery abilities of state departments of education. In part, this is because intervening at the district level is more complex than at the individual school level. It is also because state departments of education encounter a range of interrelated challenges at the district level, among them the need to develop new partners, to overcome organizational deficiencies in both the district and the state, and to be prepared to make mid-course corrections. Organizational lessons learned include:
- States have a better track record in triage than in building the foundation for educational improvements.
- Intervening at the district level is not just a scaling up of state-to-school interventions.
- A state department of education needs partners—starting prior to the intervention.
- The state’s lack of organizational capacities often mirrors the same deficiencies in many of the districts.
- The state needs mechanisms for making mid-course corrections.
Using political levers. The political dimensions of a state-to-district intervention are often the most publicly visible. People make judgments about the underperforming district and education overall in the state. Moreover, functions that are outside the expertise of many state departments of education become extremely important to the success of the intervention, among them community capacity building, convening, and community organizing. And when all is said and done, the state needs to be clear about its exit strategy. These political learnings include:
- The entire state educational system will be judged by its weakest components.
- Few states focus on building community capacity—and suffer for it.
- The power of convening is a core part of an intervention.
- The communications strategy has to be vigilant and multi-tiered.
- Community organizing is a necessary element of a state intervention.
- The exit strategy must be clear.
CTAC experience
CTAC has provided technical assistance within a number of state-to-district interventions, including in New Jersey and California. Student achievement increases occurred in all participating districts.
In New Jersey, CTAC conducted a longitudinal study of the impact of the state’s takeover of the Newark Public Schools. This involved interviewing more than 200 individuals, examining survey responses from nearly 10,000 teachers, parents, students and administrators, and analyzing extensive student and school performance data. The culminating report describes the process that led to the state takeover, delineates the core elements of reform, and details strategies that states should adopt if they are contemplating school district takeovers.
In Ohio, CTAC provided four years of assistance to the Cleveland Public Schools during a state takeover. Schools participating in CTAC’s Standard Bearer Schools process outperformed the rest of the district in three out of four areas on state proficiency tests. CTAC also assisted the district to implement a principal evaluation system, and guided the reorganization of the central administration.
In California, CTAC was selected to assist schools in two districts through the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming School Program. Through this program, CTAC assessed student achievement, current conditions, instructional strategies, and parent involvement. We then assisted each school to develop a plan to address issues identified and to increase student achievement.
For more information, see Levers for Change: Pathways for State-to-District Assistance in Underperforming School Districts. Commissioned by the Center for American Progress, this paper identifies the phases of state-to-district assistance from 1983 to the present, provides the platform for learning from the recurring examples of unsuccessful practices, and describes the components needed in an effective strategy wherein states can achieve better results.