Title I-derland

You might be familiar with these stats: the average urban education superintendent’s tenure is 3.6 years (56 percent improvement since 1999, when it was 2.3 years). In the private sector, average CEO tenure is around 7 years, nearly double that of urban superintendents.

So is superintendent turnover the reason urban systems are struggling? Not really.

Commentators such as Reed Hastings (three notes: (1) Reed has donated to New Schools for New Orleans, where I work (2) I don’t really have an opinion on Netflix’s pricing strategy (3) other education bloggers, given their day jobs, do) are closer to the truth: To understand district struggles, we need to look one step above the superintendent. We need to look at school boards.

Reed’s argument: Elected school boards are too beholden to political winds, and to maintain student achievement growth we need self-perpetuating boards (appointed boards where sitting members select new board members). Reed points to charter school boards as an example of a better governance structure.

Reed’s major point — that self-perpetuating boards will have increased consistency in mission and strategic alignment — is a good one. And there are other important benefits:

1. Better Democracy, Way More Accountability: There are many ways to achieve democratic empowerment and real accountability. Here are two: (a) elections (b) parental choice. My take: giving people power over how to spend their tax dollars (school choice) is more important than giving people power to elect (in low voter turnout elections) the people who manage a government monopoly. But, this being the land of the free, we don’t even have to choose. We can still either (a) elect boards who manage charter approvals and closures or (b) elect executive branch officials who manage the charter process. Either way, elected officials will still determine who operates public schools. Will charter board governance be perfect? If for-profit corporate governance is an indication, definitely not. Will this structure bring more democracy and accountability to public schools? Yes it will. There are many ways to vote: with your feet, with your purse, and with your ballot. Let’s give people the power to do all three.
2. Autonomy, Failure, and Scale: Great progress often comes from experimentation and failure. Sometimes variation works, sometimes it doesn’t. The key is to create a system that allows for experimentation but prevents system failure. Large school boards are  generally too centralized to effectively run experiments, especially compared to the natural innovation that occurs with larger charter markets, where different schools try different educational approaches.  Also, because they are the only game in town, districts can’t really fail (unless they are taken over by another government run institution, usually the State). And, in the instances where districts excel, by their very nature they cannot scale to serve more children because they are local monopolies with limited geographic jurisdiction.
3. Reducing the Risks of Command and Control: The more complicated the issue, the less likely command and control will work. Educating kids is complicated, and command and control over teachers and principals has serious risks. Let’s look at another complicated system: economic development. Yes, China’s centralized economy has been able to take advantage of the low-hanging fruit of industrialization. Much less clear is whether China will be able to command and control its way to an innovative economy. The U.S.S.R. (note to younger readers: it used to be a country) did not. One other thing: All it takes is one bad leader in a command and control system, and things can go very badly. There’s a reason that China has so much room to grow in the first place. (Yes, one good superintendent can do a lot of good. But what are the odds of getting five in a row? If you think they’re good, more purchases available here.)

The above three rationales are, well, deeply American: power to the people, innovation, and limited power — no different than apple pie. So why is this issue so contentious? Why is no one clamoring to really break up the system? Don’t blame the unions or the Tea Party or the Occupy Wall Street folks (or whomever you wish to scapegoat). Your average citizen is not advocating for charter school districts (though opinion polls are favorable in New Orleans). Charter districts — which would allow for choice, innovation, and limited power — are way out of the mainstream. Why?

Here’s my theory: the more people care about something, the greater the instinct is to regulate it. It’s (a) a way of signaling you care and (b) a hope to gain greater control over what you care about. Subjecting our kids to the “free market” just feels wrong. But perhaps it’s time to reverse that feeling: subjecting our kids to local monopolies should feel even worse. And, of course, we all know what rich people do: they spend 10-20K a year to subject their kids to the free market (private schools). They’re so cruel!

Will change take time? Yes. Transitioning from a command and control district to a charter district could take a city a decade to do right. But it will give power to schools and educators, where the power – and the accountability – belongs.

Photo Credit: Eric Savitz

Guest Contributor Neerav Kingsland is Chief Strategy Officer of New Schools for New Orleans.