Reform Through Site Based Decision-making and Smalll Schools

By Susanne Lea

What would it take?

· Give principals maximum flexibility to control the variables that determine success, in collaboration with school leaders. This means having more site autonomy over professional development, personnel, budget and curricular choices, in order to meet the needs of students at each individual school.

· Give schools flexibility over operations and scheduling. Allow schools to purchase products and services directly through point of sale and other arrangements. Give school leaders flexibility to structure time for collaborative planning and inquiry into how to best serve their students.

· Provide school leaders with the opportunity, training and resources to break large schools into smaller, more autonomous and intimate school environments.

· Create a new role for Central Office, focused on support and oversight functions. This means adopting a customer-service approach to supporting the ongoing work of classrooms and schools, performing core legal and oversight functions; and intervening when schools do not improve.

· Hold principals accountable for school performance under a system of monitoring and evaluation based on agreed upon measures of school success. It is the job of individual school communities to analyze and evaluate student achievement data and then use their new autonomy effectively to revise practices and introduce innovative strategies to impact teaching and learning.

· Maximize school district resources to pay for superior principals and teachers. We must actively engage with the broader community on public and private partnerships to bring essential resources to the classroom, and to provide services such as arts education, counseling and after school programs.