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Budde, RayEducation by Charter: Restructuring School Districts.Key to Long-Term Continuing Improvement in AmericanEducation.Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement ofthe Northeast & Islands, Andover, MA.88126p.Publication Sales, Regional Laboratory forEducational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands,290 South Main Street, Andover, MA 01810 ($12.00 plus$2.50 postage and handling).Viewpoints (120) -- Reports - Evaluative/Feasibility(142)

EDRS PRICE MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS.DESCRIPTORS Administrative Principles; Administrator Role;

Educational Change; Educational Planning; ElementarySecondary Education; *Organizational Change;*Organizational Development; *School DistrictReorganization; Superintendents

ABSTRACTThis booklet proposes a 10-year plan for

restructuring local school districts entitled "Education by Charter."An introductory section cites current demands for educational reformand cites proposed remedies in order to suggest that nothing short offundamental change in the internal organization of the schooldistrict will sustain and incorporate these needed reforms. The nextsection addresses the challeilge of reorganizing the school districtby analyzing the long-term evolution of the school district, thestructural elements of the present organization, pressures on thepresent organization, and goals and tools for reorganization. Themain section, "Education by Charter: Restructuring School Districts,"sets forth a hypothetical scenario, "Hometown Public Schools," toillustrate the process of reorganizing a school district over thenext 10 years. Ten "Events" are portrayed to dramatize this process.Of these, the fourth event is an extended explanation of the keyconcept, "Education by Charter." The summary presents 12 goals ofreorganization, discusses other strategies for reorganizing a schooldistrict, and touches on the costs and on the relationship of schooldistrict reorganization to other reforms. Twenty-seven references areincluded. (TE)

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Education by Charter:Restructuring School DistrictsKey to long-termcontinuing improvementin American education

Ray Budde

1988

The Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast & Islands

Copyright ®1988 Ray Budde

Published by

The Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvementof the Northeast & Islands290 South Main StreetAndover, Massachusetts 01810(617) 470-0098

All other reforms are conditionedupon reform in the quality and character

of those who engage in theteaching profession.

John Dewey, 1903

CONTENTSPreface

1 Need to Reorganize School Districts10 Challenge of Reorganizing the School District

18 Goals and Tools for Reorganization

23 Education by Charter: Restructuring School DistrictsLife Cycle of an Educational Charter

39 Stage 1. Generating Ideas42 Stage 2. Planning the Charter45 Stage 3. Preparing for Teaching45 Stage 4. Teaching under the Charter46 Stage 5. Program Monitoring and Evaluation

68 Reorganized K-12 Functions/Services

75 New G7ganizational Chart

78 Plan for Staffing K-12 Functions

80 The "Septuple School Calendar"

95 Summary and Other Consitlerations102 References

C

FIGURES

13 Figure 1. Organizational Chart Hometown Public SchoolsA Typical Medium Size School District of 4550 Pupils

35 Figure 2. Charter between Henry Hudson and the Directorsof the East India Company

40 Figure 3. Five Stages in the Life Cycle of a Three-YearEducational Charter

59 Figure 5. Humanities Program for Juniors and SeniorsHometown Public Schools 1991-1996

69 Figure 6. The Hexagon of Knowledge for Persons Age 10 and OlderCurriculum Structure for the Hometown Public Schools1995-2005

77 Figure 7. Organizational Relationships Hometown Public Schools1995-2005

83 Figure 8. Septuple School Calendar 1996-1997 School YearHometown Public Schools

85 Figure 9. Analysis of 261 Weekdays Fscal/School YearStarting July 1, 1996 and Ending June 30, 1997

86 Figure 10. Septuple Credit System

87 Figure 11. "S" Units of Credit for Various LengthCourses During Thrms of Different Length

PrefaceIn the second act of Hugo's Les Miserables,

after the revolution has failed and all seems lost, alament rises from the now deserted barricade,"Nothing ever changes; nothing ever will!"

Given the tendency of American education toswing from status quo to reform and back tostatus quo, we cannot help but wonder; Will thepresent education reform movement result insustained education improvement for allstudents? Or will it, before this century ends,sputter to a halt? And will some observer cry,"American education never changes; and it neverwill!"?

We hope that this time the reforms take hold.That this time the recommendations become areality sustained, continuing, and long-term.

The Regional Laboratory is dedicated tohelping school people initiate and sustain long-term change. We remind people involved in schoolimprovement efforts that change is a process thatrequires ongoing attention.and nurturing. Sus-tained school improvement can only be achievedthrough continuous and dynamic processes thatrequire strong commitment, effective analysis andplanning, a climate supportive of change, andongoing evaluation of improvement activities.

Ray Budde and I have had numerous conver-sations about the subtleties and challenges ofachieving genuine change in school organizations.This kind of change is difficult to achieve and cer-tainly cannot be reached within the confines of asingle, September-to-June school year. Indeed,Dr. Budde has Bill Wright, the superintendent inthe case study that comprises a major portion ofEducation by Charter, propose a ten-year plan forrestructuring the Hometown Pub''c Schools.

In his ten years as superintendent inHometown, Bill is able, through his vision ofeducation by charter, to incorporate many of thecurrent reform recommendations into the veryfabric of the school district organization:

School board members become betteracquainted with classroom programs andcurriculum.Teachers gain more autonomy in the classroomand more decision-making power ininstructional matters.Students assume responsibility for their ownlearning and behavior.Teacher career development plans andinservice education activities become moreclosely linked with the instructional and pro-gram needs of the school.The school calendar changes from a ten-month,rural-based school year to a longer year forstudents and a full-time, twelve-month workyear for faculty.The role of principal is revitalized as creator ofsafe, positive environments for learning andsupporter of teachers, who are responsible forinstruction.The computer and other emerging technologiesare applied widely in curriculum, planning, andresearch.Research and professional contributions areintegrated with the needs of the district.Permanent functions solicit and encourage theactive participation of parents and persons frombusiness and other vocations in the educationof the children and youth of the community.

Education by Charter is offered as one modelfor restructuring the local school district Thereare others, of course, just as there are other waysto restructure a school, a department of educa-tion, a professional association, a teacher traininginstitution, or any organization.

The Regional Laboratory is pleased to publishEducation by Charter: Restructuring School Dis-tricts as part of its continuing series of books andarticles promoting improvement in AmericanEducation.

David P. Crandall, Executive DirectorThe Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvementof the Northeast and Islands

Our little systems have their day;They have their day and cease to be...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Need to Reorganize School Districts

1 Call for Education Reform

3 Proposed Remedies

5 Recommendations for Reorganization

10 Challenge of Reorganizing the School District

Call for Educational Reform

"Educational reform," "school improvement,"or simply, "We've got to do something about ourpublic schools" seem very much on the minds ofAmericans in the late 1980's. It is worthwhile toread some excerpts from reports of the variouscommissions and study groups concerned aboutthe present state of public education in America.

From the report of the National Commission onEducation, which was formed early in PresidentReagan's first term in office and made its reportin 1983:

Our nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged pre-eminence in commerce, industry, and technologicalinnovation is being overtaken by competitors throughoutthe world...Knowledge, learning, information, and skilledintelligence are the new raw materials of internationalcommerce...If only to keep and improve on the slim com-petitive edge v,. still retain in world markets, we mustdedicate ourselves to the reform of our educational sys-tem for the benefit of all old and young alike, affluentand poor, majority and minority. Learning is the indis-pensable investment required for success in the "infor-mation age" we are entering...

[E]ducational reform should focus on the goal of creatinga Learning Society. At the heart of such a society is thecommitment to a set of values and to a system of educa-tion that affords all members the opportunity to stretchtheir minds to full capacity, from early childhoodthrough adulthood, learning more as the world itselfchanges. Such a society has as a basic foundation theidea that education is important not only because ofwhat it contributes to one's career goals but alsobecause of the value it adds to the general quality ofone's life...In our view, formal schooling in youth is theessential foundation for learning throughout one's life...

And where there should be a coherent continuum oflearning, we have none, but instead an often incoherent,outdated patchwork quilt...Our findings and testimonyconfirm the vitality of a number of notable schools andprograms, but their very distinction stands out against a

vast mass shaped by tensions and pressures that inhibitsystematic academic and vocational achievement for themajority of students...And the ideal of academicexcellence as the primary goal of schooling seems to befading across tht board in America...i

Four years later, the Carnegie Forum on Educa-tion and the Economy in the report of its TaskForce on Teaching as a Profession again put thespotlight on education.

America's ability to compete in world markets is erod-ing. The productivity growth of our competitors outdis-tances our own. The capacity of our economy to providea high standard of living for all our people is increasinglyin doubt...Large numbers of American children are inlimbo ignorant of the past and unprepared for thefuture. Many are dropping out not just out of schoolbut out of productive society.

As in past economic and social crises, Americans turn toeducation...They have reaffirmed the belief that the aimfor greater productivity is not in conflict with thedevelopment of independent and creative minds. Thereis a new concensus on the urgency of making ourschools once again engines of progress, productivity, andprosperity.2

And the very title Time for Results: The Gover-nors' 1991 Report on Education indicates boththat "something substantial should change inAmerican education" and that "something" shouldhappen in the next five years.

Better schools mean better jobs. Unless states face thesequestions, Americans won't keep our high standard ofliving. To meet stiff competition from workers in the restof the world, we must educate ourselves and ourchildren as we never have before...

The nation and the states and school districts needbetter report cards about results, and about whatstudents know and can do...

Restructuring School Districts ii

American public education has fallen into some deepruts. Some of the changes that need to be made are sodeep and will take so long that unless the Governorspush, small changes will be labeled reforms and nothingwill happen except spending more money...

No one else can set the agenda in a state the way aGovernor can...The Governors are in this for the longhaul...Governors want a new compact with professionaleducators in America so we can lead a coalition ofeveryone interesteu in better schools. We want to takethe next steps together...3

Calls for reform of American education are notnew. Calls have been sounded during other timesand under other circumstances. Hopefully, theforegoing excl2rpts from the studies have pro-vided an indication of the ferment and tenor ofthese times, the late 1980's.

12Education :ly Charter

Proposed Remedies

Much of the impetus behind the current reformmovement in education is the conviction of manyleaders in American society that the United Statesis losing the battle in the world economic market-place. "Doing something about the public schools"is seen as one of the major solutions for this pro-blem. Proposed remedies for the public schools'current set of ills abound.

Curriculum content must become morerigorous and graduation requirementsstrengthened. Students must be given morehomework. The school day and the school yearshould be lengthened.

Teachers must be made accountable for theresults (or lack of results) achieved by theirstudents. Incompetent teachers should be fired.The more able teachers should work a longer pro-fessional year and be paid substantially highersalaries. Teachers should have the opportunity ofadvancing through a number of distinct levelsduring their careers.

It is hoped that higher salary levels and moreprestigious opportunities will attract higherquality beginners into preparation programs.Undergraduate preparation programs should bescrapped in favor of field-centered graduate pro-grams. Entering students will have earned abachelors degree in a substantive academic area.

And the list of needed reforms goes on. Qualitydaycare centers and preschool programs must bemade more available to poor and minorityfamilies. Early prevention programs must beinitiated in elementary and junior high school forat-risk boys and girls. A concerted effort has to bemade at the high school level to reduce the grow-ing number of dropouts.

The number of business-education partnershipsshould be greatly increased. A major goal of theseefforts should be to put realism into the training)f young people for the changing world of work.

Each of these proposed remedies has merit. Ifall were implemented during the next five years,the face of American public education wouldsurely be changed. It is not likely, however, thatall these major changes will occur in any kind ofconnected, coordinated way within five years. Thebattle line will be a jagged one: significantchanges will be made in some areas; modestchanges will be made to address other problems;and elsewhere stalemate or even retreat will bethe order of the day.

Restructuring School Districts

13

4-

14 1 uEducation by Charter

Recommendations for Reorganization

The changes and reforms being sought inAmerican education are important and are longoverdue. I believe that little long-term progresswill be made on any front unless the local schooldistrict where teaching and learning actuallytake place is organized in a substantially newand different way.

Changing the internal organization of the schooldistrict would involve making substantial changesin the roles of teachers, principals, the superin-tendent, the school board, parents, and others inthe community. What do the reformers have tosay about changing the roles of the main actors onthe local educational scene?

Changing the role of the teacher

First a voice from the distant past JohnDewey writing in a 1903 issue of The ElementarySchool Teacher:

Until the public school system is organized in such a waythat every teacher has some regular and representativeway in which he or she can register judgment upon mat-ters of educational importance, with the assurance thatthis judgment will somehow affect the school system, theassertion that the present system is not, from the inter-nal standpoint, democratic seems to be justified.

What does democracy mean save that the individual is tohave a share in determing the conditions and the aims ofhis own work and that on the whole, through the freeand mutual harmonizing of different individuals, thework of the world is better done than when planned,arranged, and directed by a few, riv matter how wise orof how good intent that few...

If the teaching force is inept and unintelligent and irres-ponsible, surely the primary problem is that of theirimprovement. Only by sharing in some responsible taskdoes there come a fitness to share in it. The argumentthat we must wait until men and women are fully ready

to assume intellectual and social responsibilities wouldhave defeated every step in the democratic directionthat has ever been taken...4

And eik, years later, in A Nation at Risk,giving teachers an eleven-month contract andestablishing career ladders are seen as two meansfor improving teaching.

School boards should adopt an 11-month contract forteachers. This would insure time for curriculum andprofessional development...

School boards, administrators, and teachers shouldcooperate to develop career ladders for teacheis thatdistinguish among the beginning instructor, theexperienced teacher, and the master teacher.5

The Carnegie report calls for more teacherautonomy, collegial styles of decision making, andsupport staff for teachers.

Teachers should have...the ability to work with otherpeople in work groups that decide for themselves how toget the job done...

Teachers must think for themselves,...be able to actindependently and collaborate with others, and rendercritical judgment...

Teachers should be provided with the discretion andautonomy that are the hallmarks of professional work...

Districts should foster collegial styles of decisionmakingand teaching in schools in which "Lead Teachers" play acentral role...

Teachers should be provided the support staff they needto be more effective and productive, and should be pre-pared to take responsibility for overseeing the work ofadditional staff with a range of skills and experience...

School districts should consider a variety of approachesto school leadership...6


le

In a paper written for this study, Denis Doylesees as one alternative a school turned over toteachers.

Mt is possible to imagine teachers running their ownschools within the public sector: a single building in alarge system could be given the professional autonomyto manage itself, both administratively and substantially.Teachers could select their own administrator whowould work for them or be one of them and by doingso restore the original meaning of the term principal:principal teacher...

Teachers, however, if they take the issue of pro-fessionalism seriously, have it within their power toforge a new institution and a new set of relationships tomake it work, for both consumers and pro-viders...Schools can emc:ge from their historic foun-dations, laid in the industrial revolution, to newfoundations laid in the modern, post-industrial society.'

In Time for Results: The Governors' 1991Report on Education, an even stronger case ismade for organizational changes which would letteachers be responsible for the instruction func-tion. From the report of the Task Force onTeaching:

[There should be] more than one educational leader.Teachers will have to be involved in decisions aboutdiscipline, school goals, their own continuing education,curriculum, and schoolwide problem solving. It also re-quires a new definition of the principal's job .°

And from the report of the Task Force onLeadership and Management:

Organizing for improvement will require extensive.leadership, some of which must come from teachers.Decisions must be made closer to the classroom.

In a restructured school, different teachers will playdifferent roles...Carcer ladders will increase varietyand responsibility in teaching and improve the skillsof teachers.9

Changing the principal's role

Changing the principal's role can be viewed asthe flip-side of changing the role of teachers: theprincipal has "x" amount of decision-makingpower; to create a more effective school, a portionof this power, say one half of "x", now has to betaken away from the principal and given to theteachers; or perhaps as suggested by Mr. Doyle ina particular alternative school, all of "x" is takenfrom the principal and given to the teachersthus creating a teacher-run school. The recom-mendations of the reformers do not propose sucha simplistic transfer of power.

In A Nation at Risk, there is no recommenda-tion to remove any power from the principal (orfrom the superintendent). Indeed, the wordingimplies that these two positions be strengthenedthrough further training. The principal and thesuperintendent are to continue to play "crucialleadership roles," and the leadership skills to bedeveloped (or improved) involve "persuasion, set-ting goals and developing community concensusbehind them, and managerial and supervisoryskills. "

In the Carnegie report, a more open stance istaken with regard to school leadership and therole of the principal.

No organization can function well without strong andeffective leadership and schools are no exception. Butthe single model for leadership found in most schools isbetter suited to business or government than to thefunction of education. The model of the non-teachingprincipal as head of the school can work in support ofthe collegial style of schooling we propose, but there aremany other models that should be tried.

Among them are schools headed by Lead Teachers act-ing as a committee, one of whom acts like a managingpartner in a professional partnership. In such schools,the teachers might hire the administrators rather thanthe other way around.

Education by Charter

Once the fundamental idea that the primary source ofexpertise for improving schools lies within them[teachers], many ways to organize for leadership arepossible."

The Task Force on Teaching would require "anew definition of the principal's job, to emphasizehis or her responsibility to develop and use theleadership, professionalism and participation ofteachers"; however, some twenty pages later inthe same main report, the Task Force onLeadership and Management recommends onlythat preparation and inservice programs for prin-cipals be upgraded so that they can provideleadership for "school imnrovement."12

f he most radical proposal in all of the reportscalling for educational reform is found in one ofthe "Supporting Works" of the governors' study.Roland Barth, Co-Director of the Principals' Cen-ter at Harvard University, proposes a very dif-ferent kind of school, one which, if brought intobeing, would require a dramatic change in therole of the principal (as well as changes in roles ofeveryone else associated with the school).

I see...the concept of a school as a community of lear-ners, a place where everyone is engaged in learning andteaching teachers, principal, parents and students...

The central question for a community of learners is not"what should they know and do and how to get them toknow and do it," but rather "under what conditions willprincipal and student and teacher become serious, com-mitted, sustained, lifelong, cooperative learners?"...

[This leads] to some fresh thinking about the culture ofthe school and what people do there. For instance, theprincipal need no longer be "head teacher" pretendingto know, one who consumes lists from above and pro-pagates lists to those below. The more crucial role of theprincipal is as "head learner," engaging in the mostimportant enterprise of the school, experiencing, dis-playing, modeling, and celebrating what is hoped andexpected readers and pupils will do...."

Role of the school board and superintendent

Only one of the reports calling for educationalreform would alter the traditional roles of theschool board and the superintendent. This loneexception is the report of a study done by theInstitute for Educational Leadership entitledSchool Boards Strengthening Grass RootsLeadership. This is the latest of the reports andseems to be in response to the content of theearlier reports and expresses a theme of: "Heywait, don't forget that the school board and thesuperintendent are key players in this game ofeducational reform!"

...So far, improvement has been stimulated by statepolicymakers. Govei nors and legislators, often but-tressed by or responding to civic and business leaders,have initiated unprecedented efforts to improve thequality of public education.

For the most part, these state-level initiatives havebypassed local school boards. School boards feel theyhave, at best, been only peripherally involved, that theyhave been cast in a passive role and are perceived asreactors rather than partners in shaping changes.

Yet, the national agenda is now being cast as states tryimplementing recent policy initiatives and face the com-plexities of restructuring education at the school districtand classroom levels. The success or failure of theseefforts rests squarely with local school boards, teachers,administrators and communities. Because school boardsare charged by states and localities to make policy andgovern local public education, their willingness andcapacity to lead, in large measure, will determine thelong-range success or failure of school improvementefforts.

The study is based on responses (and analysisof responses) from 216 chairpersons and 1,350board members in nine metropolitan areas. Over54% of the sample came from suburban areas;35% small town/rural; and 11% urban. About three-


fourths of the respondents were from districtswith 5,000 or fewer pupils. Most of the remaining25% were from districts of 36,000 pupils or over.

The need for change was voiced with ratherdeep feelings in the selected quotations whichpreceded sections of the report. From a schoolboard member in California, "There always seemsto be additional information that causes us tochange our minds." A Colorado member respon-ded, "From our perspective, the major issue is thestate effort to usurp local control and make schooldistricts holding companies for the state." Deepfrustrations were expressed by two other respon-dents, "We tear each other up" and "We don't dis-cuss education."

In the concluding chapter, "indicators" of aneffective board are listed. For some of theseindicators to become realities, there would needto be a redefinition of the major roles within theschool district including the roles of the schoolboard and superintendent. The first nineindicators, in particular, might be realized if therewere important changes in the school districtorganization.1. An effective board addresses most of its time

and energy to education and educationaloutcomes.

2. An effective board believes that advocacy forthe educational interests of children and youthis its primary responsibility.

3. An effective board concentrates on goals anduses strategic planning to accomplish itspurposes.

4. An effective board works to ensure an adequateflow of resources and achieves equity in theirdistribution.

5. An effective board harnesses the strengths itdiversity, integrates special needs and interestsinto the goals of the system and fosters bothassertiveness and cooperation.

6. An effective board deals openly and straightfor-wardly with controversy.

7. An effective board leads the community in mat-ters of public education, seeking and respond-ing to many forms of participation by thecommunity.

8. An effective board exercises continuing over-sight of education programs and their management, draws information for this purpose frommany sources and knows enough to ask theright questions.

9. An effective board, in consultation with itssuperintendent, works out and periodicallyreaffirms the separate areas of administrativeand policy responsibilities and how theseseparations will be maintained.1

Changing the role of parents

No substantial change in the role of parents isseen within the organization of the local schools."School Councils," on which parents are represen-ted, are increasing in number and may, even-tually, be more than advisory in nature.

The Task Force on Parent Involvement andChoice of the governors' study devoted a greatdeal of effort to investigating the need for andthe advantages of parents being able to choosethe school their children attend.

One way to alter the relationship between parents andeducators is to permit families to select among variouspublic schools...

Families have greater commitment to education pro-grams they select; educators find it easier to work withfamilies who have made a conscious selection...

Allan Odden of the National Institute of Education tes-tified to the task force: "Effective schools have distinc-tive cultures; students and teachers who do not fit theculture are uncomfortable with i!. Giving parents and

Education by Charter15

students more choices regarding public schools to attendcould not only strengthen the culture of each school, butalEo improve public satisfaction.""

The fact of having choice of school may not initself change the role of parents; however, parentchoice (if it becomes widespread) may have suffi-cient impact to change the internal organization ofboth the schools chosen and the schools rejected.

Organization and at-risk students

Only the governors' study goes into depth aboutwhat needs to be done for students likely to beunsuccessful in school. A number of impor-tant initiatives are recommended, including:increased cooperation between schools, humanservices agencies and local businesses; earlyidentification and intervention programs; moreindividualized and smal. group instruction andcounseling during school years; and combinationschool/work programs to help keep older at-riskstudents in school after graduation.

Recommendations are made to extend the pro-grams of the schools, e.g., preschools for disad-vantaged young children; however, there is norecommendation in the material from the TaskForce on Readiness which calls for or would implyany need for substantial change in the organiza-tion of the school or the school district.

Summary

To change the Internal organization of theschool district, the roles of the main actors on thelocal educational scene must be substantiallychanged.

There is considerable interest in changing therole of the teacher: teachers should be givenmore autonomy; decisions about curriculumand other school matters should be made

closer to the classroom; perhaps a committee ofLead Teachers should run the school.Except for one radical proposal calling for aschool to be a "community of learners," there islittle interest in changing the traditional role ofthe principal.In the study which examined the strengths andweaknesses of school boards, recommendationsfor "strengthening grass roots leadership"could be more easily accomplishedif the structure of the school district werechanged. Implementation of these recommen-dations would also result in significant changesin the role of the superintendent.

Parents may find a new role developing asrepresentatives on local school councils. Somestrongly urge that parents be able to choosethe school their children attend this mightforce organizational change in chosen schoolsas well as in rejected schools.No recommendation is made which wouldstructurally connect human services agenciesor local businesses with the school district(with the view of better serving at-risk pupils).The strongest statement calling for reorganiz

ing the school comes, not from current reformers,but from our voice from the past. John Dewey in1903 felt very strongly that all reforms are con-ditioned on first changing the character of the"school organization."

All other reforms are conditioned upon reform in thequality and character of those who engage in the teach-ing profession...But as long as a school organizationwhich is undemocratic in principle tends to repel fromall but the higher portions of the school system those ofindependent force, of intellectual initiative, and of inven-tive ability, or tends to hamper them in their work afterthey find their way into the schoolroom, so long all otherreforms are compromised at their source and postponedindefinitely for fruition.'"

Restructuring School Districts (20

Challenge of Reorganizingthe School District

There are at least three different ways toview the organization of the school district. Inthis paper, we are focusing on the internalorganization of the school district. We are notconcerned with the reorganization of smallschool districts into a larger regional schooldistrict. (This is frequently referred to asschool district reorganization.) Nor are wedealing with whether the public schools arefiscally independent of the local municipalityand can set their own tax rate, or whetherthe public schools are an integral part of themunicipality and are considered to be fiscallydependent on city or town government.

Before considering a new model for theinternal organization of the school district,let's set forth some background and arationale for reorganization by considering:

1. Long-term Evolution of the School District2. Structural Timbers of Present Organization3. Pressures on Present Organization4. Goals and Tools for Reorganization


1. Long -term Evolution of the School District

Anyone who would propose a new model schooldistrict organization must confront the reality ofhistory. The present organizational form has beenover 300 years in the making! Its roots can betraced back to early colonial times when a distinc-tion was made between primary schools for somebut not all children and secondary preparatoryschools for a few select boys who wouldultimately become the professionals of their day.The use of the property tax to support localgovernmental functions also started in colonialtimes.

The present September t,, mid-June schoolyear is an extension of the pattern of school termsused when most Americans lived on farms andchildren were needed as labor during the plantingand harvesting seasons.

With the growth of cities during the last half ofthe nineteenth century and with the need to edu-cate growing numbers of immigrant children, thegraded school was conceived and was widelyadopted. Along with this, principals (principalteachers) and superintendents (the first superin-tendents were appointed in the 1830's) becamenecessary to administer larger schools and morenumerous schools within larger towns and cities.

Education in this country has primarily been alocal function operating under state law; however,federal participation is not new. In the early partof the last century, the Northwest Ordinancerequired that a portion of each section of federallyowned land, when disposed of, be set aside forthe support of public schools. The Morrill Act,intially passed in 1862, set up land-grant college..The institutions and programs established underthis act and subsequent extensions of the act havebeen of considerable importanLe to public educa-tion in rural areas.

Vocational education has been supporteddirectly by pass-through funding for well over ahalf century. Since World War II, the list offederally supported local efforts has lengthened.

Organizationally, federally funded programshave added an important dimension to localeducation. These programs, with the exception ofreve-me sharing, have always been categorical innature. This has required local educators tospecify objectives in a particular area of study fora described group of students. Thus, categoricalfunding has forced schools to move towardobjective-oriented, more client-orientedcurriculum.

Attempts to equalize educational opportunityand the push to establish junior high schoolsbegan shortly after the turn of the century. The

of having a "kindergarten" for five-year-oldswas developed in Germany about this time andwhen imported to this country added another"grade level" to the vertical structure of publicschools. It should be noted that seven decadesafter being introduced into this country, kin-dergarten still does not exist in some states and isnot mandatory in others. (And some states arenow considering universal preschool!)

Middle schools had their debut in the 1950's.While they have found some acceptance, theyremain only one of a number of ways to structureeducation for the in-between pupils ages eleven tofourteen.

The manner in which human knowledge isdivided for purposes of educating the young andhow these divisions have evolved is much tooambitious a task to undertake as part of this briefhistorical sketch of school district organization.Here are just two examples of how changes havebeen made in how knowledge is categorized forthe purposes of schooling: "language arts" as acombining of reading, spelling, literature, com-position, debate, and dramatics; "social studies"


as a pulling together of parts of history, govern-ment, economics, civics, sociology, geography, andanthropology.

Difficulty of "changing things"

For social institutions such as education,government, and health care systems, forms andstructures evolve slowly and, once in place, tendto persist and endure. Changing "the existingorder of things" is risky business. Hark to thewarning of Machiavelli about the difficulties facedby those who would introduce changes.

And let it be noted that there is no more delicatematter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct,nor more ch.. btful in its success, than to set up as aleader in the ihiroduction of changes.

For he who innovates will have for his enemies all thosewho are well off under the existing order of things, andonly lukewarm supporters in those who might be betteroff under the new. This lukewarm temper arises partlyfrom the fear of adversaries who have the laws [presentorganization] on their side, and partly from the incre-dulity of mankind, who will never admit the meritof anything new, until they have seen it proved bythe event.

The result, however, is that whenever the enemies ofchange make an attack, they do so with the zeal of par-tisans while the others defend themselves so feebly as toendanger both themselves and their cause..."'

2. Structural Timbers of Present Organization

Webster's III defines three forms of the wordorganization:

Organ: A differentiated structure (as a heart, kidney,leaf, flower) made up of various cells and tissues andadapted for the performance of some specified functionand grouped with other structures sharing a commonfunction into systems.

Organic: Constituting a whole whose parts are mutuallydependent or intrinsically related; having systemiccoordination.

Organization: The administrative and functional struc-ture of an organization (as a business, political party,military unit) including established relationships of per-sonnel through lines of authority and responsibility withdelegated and assigned duties."

The specifics of organization of the Americanschool district vary with size; however, all schooldistricts regardless of size have some commonfeatures. For purposes of this paper, a "mediumsize school district," one with 350 pupils per gradeand a total pupil population of 4,550 pupils, will beused as the example. Its organization is charted inFigure 1.

The characteristics, the "various cells andtissues," the "mutually dependent or intrinsically relatedparts which constitute the whole" of our exampleschool district are:

A school board which serves as the policy body(and sometimes the court). Members are elec-ted for a specific number of years by the votersof the school district.A line and staff bureaucracy in which there isdelegation of authority and assigning of respon-sibilities. Educators and support personnel fillspecified roles; when a person leaves a posi-tion, another person is employed to fill the"slot."


n4 0

Figure 1. Organizational Chart - Hometown Public Schools

A Typical Medium Size School District of 4550 Pupils

STAFFPOSITIONS

I

CURRICULUMDIRECTOR

HOMETOWN SCHOOL BOARD

SUPERINTENDENTI

LINEPOSITIONS

PUPIL PERSONNELSERVICES DIRECTOR

1----

PERSONNELDIRECTOR

BUSINESSMANAGER

3 ELEMENTARY PRINCIPALS MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL350 PUPILS IN EACH OF 1050 PUPILS IN 1400 PUPILS INTHREE K-5 SCHOOLS GRADES 6,7 & 8 GRADES 9 -12

TEACHERS

PUPILS

TEACHERS

PUPILS

TEACHERS

PUPILS


A superintendent of schools who serves asexecutive officer for the school board and chiefadministrator of the school district.Persons in staff positions who are responsibleto!the superintendent or to a principal.Buildings, grounds, equipment, and suppliesappropriate to content of curriculum and age ofpupils.

PzJncipals who are in charge of buildings andeducational programs for specific age levels ofpupils.Teachers who are assigned to instructional res-ponsibilities in specific grades and content andsubject areas.Pupils, the receivers of instruction, who areassigned into age/grade classrooms. The typicalpupil moves from one "class" to another duringthe couLbe of a day and a week and moves onegrade at a time from kindergarten to highschool graduation in thirteen years.Content in kindergarten and lower gradesorganized by specific communication and num-ber skills with content for older pupils dividedinto "subjects." The number of elective subjectstends to increase as pupils grow older.The "whole school system" funded almostentirely from tax sources which are received ona single year basis. The "system" is in fulloperation for all pupils from early September ofone year until mid-June of the following year.Except for some monitoring and evaluation bythe state and federal governments and anaccreditation visit every ten years by the secon-dary school accrediting association team, alltesting and evaluation efforts are carried outand controlled internally.

3. Pressures on Present Organization

Why is now the late 19811's the time whenserious consideration should be given to restruc-turing the school district? Why not let the slowpace of evolution continue, ailtAying changes insociety to gradually build up sufficient strength toforce incremental changes in school districtorganization?

Now is the time simply because Americansociety is in an era of exceedingly rapid change, withone change stumbling over another, and everything seemingly changing at the same time. Thepace and intensity of change is so rapid that small,incremental changes in structure would beineffective in mucting the emerging problems andpressures.

We could label the organization of the schooldistrict as being "worn out" or "bruised" becauseof the pressures caused by changes during thelast forty years. We must be careful not to per-sonalize the term "school district." The schooldistrict is people. While structure can be roughlycharted and described on paper, structure is inthe heads of people. People demonstrate vilatthe organization is by their behavior, which isdetermined by what they perceive their roles tobe and, more importantly, by what they thinkothers expect their roles to be.

Pressures, then, result because events andtrends in the environment of the school districtcall for behaviors that are different from thoseeducators have used with success in the past.

Let's look at the events and trends which havebrought intense pressures on persons filling thetraditional roles within the school organization.And again, organizational matters need to beviewed in a long-term context. We will use a timeperiod of forty years as our temporal contextfrom the end of World War II to the present.

26Education by Charter

Collective bargaining in the public sector. Theemergence of collective bargaining in educationforced a major change in the organization of theschool district. With regard to compensation andconditions of work, teachers are no longer com-pelled to communicate their needs through theauthority levels of the school district. Rather, theynow deal collectively and directly with the schoolboard. The superintendent, who used to viewhimself/herself as the leader of the local pro-fessional group in all important matters, nowassumes the role of advisor and information pro-vider to the school board and sits on the manage-ment side of the negotiating table.

There are hard questions as well as stronglyheld opinions about the impact of collectivebargaining on public education. Has the profes-sion of education been irretrievably split with theintroduction of adversarial relationships? Oris public education better off than in a prior era,which was frequently marked by paternalism,favoritism and arbitrary decision making? Is thework day and the work week too unionized? Orare we better off with a more precise definition ofwork time and private time? Who "owns" thecurriculum and who should participate in andhave jurisdiction over changing and developingthe curriculum?

Splintering of a workable consensus of valueswithin the community. From the mid-1960's to themid-1970's, American society passed through atumultuous period which forced us to reexamineour basic values. In the process we started doubt-ing the efficacy of our social institutions. We hadgovernment which couldn't govern; our prisonsseemed to be creating criminals; the state mentalhealth hospitals dehumanized persons alreadyemotionally ill; schools didn't seem to be teach-ing; and families had lost the ability to nourish.

Some of us even cast doubt on a fundamentalAmerican premise: that society would grow andprosper if we only let "reason" and "pragmatism"be our guides. When reason and pragmatismfailed, some turned to drugs, Eastern religions,mysticism, and even to the occult to diLs-over whatwas really true and important about life. Almostpredictably, movements and pressures developedto recapture the traditional American values.

Is it the task of the school to help build a newconcensus of values within the community? Canschools function well without a fairly wide agree-ment on basic values within the community? Towhat extent are alternative schools, alternativecurriculum, and even alternative materials andlesson plans helpful in meeting the presentschism or chaos of values? What can schools do tocounter the present homogenization of text andreference books caused by pressures onpublishers who need to satisfy "everybody" inorder to have a nationwide market for theirproducts?

Changes in the American family. The list ofchanges is a familiar one...both parents workingbecause of choice or economic necessity...moredivorces...confusion and hostility in raising ofchildren...more single parent families...teenagepregnancies...more latchkey children...more poorchildren...more abused and neglected children.

Are serving breakfasts and offering extendedday programs with us on a permanent basis? Willschools be asked to enter the infant and toddlerdaycare business? Has the TV screen become thenew "hearth" of the American family? Whatimpact does 25 to 35 hours of passive viewinghave on pupils' capacity and desire to learn inschool?

What role should the school assume towardfamilies in which parents have lost control overtheir children? If the family becomes weaker, less


27

nurturing and caring, will schools be required tofurnish the controls and the emotional supportformerly provided by the home? (Perhaps home-room will really become home - room.)

The changing labor market. Among the factorswhich underlie the rapid changes taking place inthe American economy are: fierce competitionfrom other countries which have cheap, plentiful,and increasingly more skilled workers; roboticsand other technologies, the introduction of whichdecreases the need for human labor; thousands offarmers choosing to or being forced to leave thefield of agriculture. And as already noted, it is thefear of America losing its competitive edge thathas been the prime motivating factor behind thecurrent education reform movement.

But can schools really do anything about thechange in the number and nature of jobs? Are notmost of the causal factors well beyond the controlof people responsible for the quality of publiceducation? Other than adding electronics,robotics, and computer literacy and technology ascourses, what can be done to change vocationaleducation? Can schools be flexible enough to stoptraining students for jobs which may not exist infive years?

Should the public schools be held responsiblefor what seemingly are past sins, such as: Thelarge number of adult illiterates who are atincreasing disadvantage in the volatile labormarket? The negative attitudes many workershave toward work which might be one factorwhich undermines the productivity of wholeindustries? Should adult education and continuingeducation become a more integral part of an allinclusive educational system based on the needfor lifelong learning in vocational as well as otherareas of life?

Growing sense of world community. Formingand continuing existence of the UnitedNations...Rapid international transportation andinstant worldwide communications...Explorationof the moon and the planets...The increasing psy-chological awareness of Planet Earth by havingthe experience of viewing the world fromspace...The threat of a catastrophic nuclearwar...The increasing realization that majorenvironmental problems cross national boun-daries and require multi-national solutions.

How do the public schools educate the"American citizen" who must also be a " worldcitizen?" Do we need more curricula like K-12Global Education?

Changing structure of knowledge and research."Knowledge" now doubles in three years itused to take a decade! The problems as well asthe opportunities now facing mankind whetherthese be building space stations, protecting theenvironment, preventing nuclear war, alteringhuman genes, devising a world financial structure,discovering the origin and destiny of the universe,or stopping the AIDS epidemic are systemic innature and cannot be dealt with within a singlesphere of knowlege or traditional discipline.

Modern problems are inter-disciplinary orcross-disciplinary. "Double-name" fields abound:psychobiology, biophysics, astrophysics,biochemistry, sociobiology, etc. Of particularinterest to educators are the scholars inneuroanatomy, neurobiology, neurolinguistics,neuropsychology, and neurosurgery who are dis-covering new knowledge about the structure andfunctioning of the human brain. At the heart ofthis proliferation and reclassification ofknowledge are the instruments making it all poss-ible: the electron microscope, the high energyparticle accelerator, more powerful visual andradio telescopes, and increasingly sophisticated


26

and more widely available computers just toname four.

How can educators and students deal with thisever increasing sheer bulk of human knowledge?Do we educate pupils to be primarily processoriented, information gatherers and sorters, andlifelong searchers after truth? Are there new setsof fundamental facts, skills, and attitudes? Shouldnot the whole K-12 curriculum be reexaminedand perhaps be divided into new and morefunctional categories? Will new knowledge aboutthe brain bring about a whole new synthesis inthe field of psychology? How can teachers keep upwith and apply new information about perception,attention, memory, and learning styles to dailylesson plans?

And there are yet other events and trendswhich have put pressures on persons filling thetraditional roles of teacher, counselor, principal,superintendent and school board member...Thedecrease in the percentage of families withchildren in school and the larger portion of thepopulation on fixed incomes are two of a numberof factors which have made tax caps politicallypopular...The increasing number of non-Englishspeaking pupils from families with differentcultures and values has posed a challenge formany school districts...The "drug problem," the"discipline problem," the "not- interested -in-learning problem," the "truancy problem," and the"dropout problem" all part of the problem sideof many American secondary schools...Decliningenrollment brought about significant reductions instagy: in some parts of the country. Among theresults of this trend was the loss to education ofmany of the youngest and most recently preparedprofessionals.

These have been among the main trends andevents of the past four decades which have madean impact on or have created serious challengeson the school district organization the "schooldistrict organization" being defined as the peoplefilling the major roles in local school districts.


.a

4. Goals and Tools for Reorganization

One must have reasons for wanting to changethe structure of one of the community's basicinstitutions, the school district. In addition, toolsand strategies must be present in the culturewhich would make it possible for a new form ofschool district to be conceptualized.

Goals for reorganization

Goals for reorganization are simply purposesand organizational features which would bedifficult to bring about within the current struc-ture. The following goals would he applicable toany new model of a school district, not just onebased on education by charter within a ten-year plan. Given the problems, conditions, andopportunities of the 1990's, a school board andeducational staff should be able to accomplish thefollowing twelve goals within the framework of areorganized school district.1. Give teachers responsibility for and control

over instruction.2. Insure that pupils assume responsibility for

their own learning and behavior and that theyacquire the attitudes and skills to becomelifelong learners.

3. Link career development plans and pro-fessional growth activities to the instructionalmaterials, curriculum and services needs of theschool district.

4. Move the school district from a ten-month,rural-based school year to a 210+ day schoolyear for students and a full-time, twelve-monthwork year for teachers.

5. Provide opportunities for teachers to undertakeprofessional-level, non-classroom responsibilitiesas part of their careers.

6. Establish a program budgeting/accounting sys-tem which will enable educational programs tobe planned and implemented over a three -to-five -year period of time.

7. Enable principals to revitalize their leadershiproles as creators of safe, positive environmentsfor learning and supporters of teachers who areresponsible for instruction.

8. Establish a program/services monitoring andevaluation system not under the control ofthose whose programs and services are beingmonitored and evaluated.

9. Productively tap and cope with the vast expan-sion and fundamental changes taking placewithin and across the fields and disciplines ofknowledge.

10. Make wide and appropriate applications of thecomputer and other emerging developmentsin technology and communications.

11. Integrate various levels of educationalresearch and professional contributions intothe "fabric" of the school district.

12. Solicit and encourage the active participationof parents and persons from business andother vocations in the education of thechildren and youth of the community.

Tools for reorganization

Tools for restructuring a social institution can-not be created out of thin air. The means for re-structuring are themselves artifacts which havehad to be invented and developed within the cul-ture in order to be ac ailable for use.

Let's use the last five decades from WorldWar II until the present as the time period.What new tools have emerged during thesefifty years to help us to better understandhuman personality and how individuals


relate to groups and organizations? What newways now exist for creating, storing, and accessingknowledge?

Several organizing tools originated duringWorld War H. "Long-term planning" wasgiven considerable impetus by the need for "bat-tle plans." By necessity, we learned the know-howof conceiving, capturing on paper, and implement-ing complex sets of plans which coordinated thefunctions of planes, ships, underwater demolitionteams, and amphibious troops for operations suchas the invasion of various islands in the Pacificduring World War II. The navy developed a plan-ning tool, "PERT," which cut many months offthe time needed to design and build a ship. Thistool has been successfully used in reducing thetime it takes to plan and build a school.

In the 1950's, "Educational Sociology" firstappeared in graduate catalogs of schools of educa-tion. Concepts from cultural anthropology appliedto education formed part of the rationale for thiscourse. The school could be viewed as a sub-culture within the community a subculture verydifferent from the subculture of a church, a fac-tory, a store, or the local Rotary Club. Other con-tent in this field focused on identifying powergroups in the community and distinguishing be-tween the formal power structure of the com-munity ("the way things are supposed to be") andthe informal power structure ("the way thingsreally are").

Increased categorical support from the fedc.ralgovernment provided educators in practically allAmerican school districts with experience in plan-ning and operating funded projects. For the firsttime, educators became proposal writers and, toobtain needed financing, were forced to targetneeds of specific groups of students and to statedoable objectives. Often evaluation plans had tobe in place prior to the approval of funding. "How

to Write Performance Objectives" as well as othertopics related to securing allocated and dis-cretionary monies were popular topics inworkshops held throughout the country.

Entire areas of study and research focusing onthe productivity and behavior of the individual inthe organization have been conceptualized."Organizational Development" ("OD") is one suchnew area. We know a great deal more about howchange and innovation can be fostered orthwarted by "the establishment." A step-by-stepformula can be used by a school district if itdesires to replicate a program or service that wassuccessfully developed and implementedelsewhere.

We now know more about human personalityand how the individual psyche relates to family,group, and organization. The following did notexist prior to 1945: Maslow's hierarchy of needs;intense, confrontational workshops for leadersand group facilitators; ways to identify learningstyles of pupils and teaching styles of teachers;insights from the neurosciences that turf and psy-chological ownership issues originate in our deep,primitive brain and this list could go on and on.

Visit any large bookstore and you are sure tofind a complete section of books and material on"Career Development." And in the field of educa-tion in particular, we have the know-how of main-taining and upgrading the knowledge and skills ofpersonnel. Many school districts now have or areworking toward quality inservice education pro-grams based on both individual and curriculumneeds. And there is solid research to fall back onas to what will work and what will not work.

"Systems thinking" has emerged during thesefifty years. Virtually every school district has hadto organize and operate "client-orientededucational programs:" first, for children fromeconomically and culturally disadvantaged


families; next for handicapped children; and thenfor other target populations such as high-riskstudents who are potential school dropouts. Need-less to say, grafting client-oriented program struc-tures on to the traditional school bureaucracy hascaused considerable "organizational stress."

Many school districts now use PPBS, ProgramPlanning Budgeting System. PPBS on computergives the school district the capability of extend-ing the financial structure beyond a single yeareven though revenue is received annually andsome major expenditures such as future salariesmay not be known exactly.

It is difficult to measure the impact and impor-tance of the availability to school districts ofjnCreasingly more powerful, small computers.Using the new superchip, one company is seekingto develop a computer and software which canmodel the birth and life of galaxies. TheEncyclopedia Britannica is already on disc and thetime is not too far distant when the entire Libraryof Congress can be accessed by a seventh gradersitting at a desk in the local junior high school.The computer is not only a tool to assist in re-structuring the school district but also a reasonwhy the local school district needs to berestructured.

Reorganizing the school district will indeed be achallenge. Its evolution has been long-term withmajor organizational changes occurring decadesapart.

There are heavy pressures on the present"structural timbers" of the school district. Theemerging context for education in the "Infor-mation Age" requires new behaviors whichconflict with or are outside of the responsibilitiesof those now in the major roles in local schools.

Out of the present problems and stresses canbe drawn "goals" or criteria for any proposed newmodel of the school district. And we have, overthe past fifty years, invented tools and strategieswhich now make restructuring the school districtpossible.


Nor does anyone pour new wine into old bottles.If he does, the wine will pour out and the bottles

will be ruined. New wine should be pouredinto fresh bottles.

Jesus of Nazareth

Education by Charter:Restructuring School Districts

23 Event 1. Resignation of Horace Dodd, Superintendentof the Hometown Public Schools.

25 Event 2. Presentation of Dr. William Wright, applicant for the posi-tion of Superintendent, Hometown Public Schools.

29 Event 3. Dr. Wright's session with the Executive Committee andBuilding Representatives of the HometownTeachers Association.

33 Event 4. Explanation of "Education by Charter" by the newsuperintendent, Dr. Bill Wright, at the opening pre-schoolmeeting for the total staff of the Hometown PublicSchools.

51 Event 5. Rec.- lest for Charter Planning Funds by the PrimaryTeachers of the Brookside Elementary School.

55 Event 6. Report of Elementary and Middle School Mathematicsand Science Teachers on the Use of Planning Funds.

57 Event 7. Request for Educational Charter for Humanities Programfor High School Juniors and Seniors.

61 Event 8. Establishing Study Group on Longer School Year andNew K-12 Fundons.

59 Event 9. Recommendation for Reorganized K-12 Functions andNew "Septuple School/Work Year".

89 Event 10. Bill Wright reminisces about the past ten years and startsthinking about his future.

21

And now let's slip into the shoes of Dr. WilliamWright, applicant for superintendent of our exam-ple school district, the Hometown Public Schools.Dr. Wright will use many of the tools forreorganization in restructuring the HometownPublic Schools over a ten-year period, starting in1989 and ending in 1999.

The first of ten "events" is the resignation of thecurrent superintendent of the Hometown schools,Mr. Horace Dodd.. .

E.( lucation by Charter

Event 1.Resignation of Horace Dodd, Superintendentof the Hometown Public Schools.

Scene.

The October, 1988 school board meeting in thehigh school library. The board is ready for its nextagenda item, "5. Statement by superintendent"under New Business. Chairperson MarilynO'Keefe has called on Superintendent HoraceDodd.

I've asked Ms. O'Keefe for about five minuteson the agenda this evening.

As you know, I'm starting my eighteenth yearas superintendent of the Hometown PublicSchools. It's been a good eighteen years ohwe've had some rough years but also quite a num-ber of really good years.

It occurred to me while I was fishing at SquamLake last summer that we're now educatingchildren and young people who will be spend-ing most or almost all of their adult lives in the21st century...This town is changing...This countryis changing...The world is changing...And we ascitizens and educators have to figure out ways tokeep up with all this.

I appreciate your offer of another three-yearcontract. But I'll be hitting my 61st birthday inFebruary and I'm starting to think about doingsome traveling, perhaps teaching another courseat State University. Might even try to do somewriting.

From the school district's point of view, I reallythink it's time for you to have a new person assuperintendent. That person can come in with afresh vision of what the Hometown Public Schoolsshould be or become in the next five or ten years.A new person would be more able to help you andthe staff to adjust to all these changes that aretaking place.

I weighed the option oi breaking this news nowor waiting until about March. October may seem abit early it makes me a "lame duck" for overeight months. On the other hand, it gives you acomfortable amount of time to initiate and carryout the search process for a new superintendent.

Many thanks for the solid support you've givenme over the years. I will be resigning effectiveJune 30,1989 and will incorporate my letter ofresignation into the package for the agenda of theNovember meeting.


24


39o

Event 2.Presentation of Dr. William Wright, applicantfor the position of Superintendent, HometownPublic Schools.

Scene.

Wednesday evening, March 9,1988 in the highschool auditorium. Dr. Wright is one of fivefinalists who have been invited to make twenty-minute presentations to a regular meeting of theschool board. The meeting has been moved fromthe library to the auditorium to accommodate thelarge number of teachers, other school staff, andtownspeople who have turned out for the meeting.

Thank you, Ms. O'Keefe. I am very pleased tobe able to share my ideas about education withthe school board and staff of the Hometownschools and the parents and other citizens of thecommunity.

I believe that our greatest resource for improv-ing our schools lies in the untapped, unusedcapabilities of people...

Like the vast reserve of energy and learningpower within bored and unstimulated pupils.Like the richness and creativity inside theheads and hearts of teachers locked into anoutdated curriculum, using bland, pablumtextbooks locked into an instructional systemwhich they had no part in making and whichthey have no power to change.Like the communication and group processskills of principals which are poorly usedbecause they are saddled with the impossible,know-ii- l!, generalized rule of "educationalleader."

Like the unfulfilled aspirations of parents whostand outside the system and who see theinitial enthusiasm of their children turn to"Ugh school!" as the weight of "schooling"takes its effect.Like the dried up energy of a librarian with avision of connecting books, materials, and com-puter data banks with learning experienceshaving to settle for "teaching the kids how touse the library."We are in a new age. Our society has gone

through the agricultural and industrial revolutionsand now we're in the age of services and informa-tion. What an exciting time to be a part of theeducational scene whether it be as student,teacher, principal, specialist, parent or citizen.With knowledge doubling every three years anddisciplines and fields of study and research beingrestructured, the opportunity for the HometownPublic Schools to make a quantum leap forward inimproving the quality.of our enterprise is waitingto be seized.

There are some serious questions to address:Can we educate pupils in such a way that they notonly learn how to learn in school but also developskills and attitudes to becom' lifelong learners?Can we devise an organizational structure whichwill give teachers full responsibility for the func-tion of instruction? How can principals take thelead in creating and maintaining a positive climatefor learning in our schools? Can we more directlyconnect career development and professionalgrowth activities with the curriculum and pro-


gram needs of the school? How can we supportteams of teachers and specialists in developingchallenging learning materials to replace the"common denominator, bland, pablum" qualitytextbooks foist, d on us by commercialpublishers? Are there ways to make parents bothclients and participants in the education of their,hildren? Can we extend the walls of theclassroom to include the rich resources of thecommunity and region in which we are located?

I believe there are positive ways to answerthese questions, but we have to be willing tochange the way we organize our effort and ourresources. Most importantly we have to escapethe prison of the 10-month, rural-based schoolyear. Major problems are seldom solved nor canserious planning for improvement be done withina 10-month period of time or with a 10-monthmentality. We've got to start thinking morelong range.

Now and for the past century, school "starts"around Labor Day. Everybody is fresh for the newschool year. We seem to go uphill until aboutThanksgiving.

Then the holiday spirit sets in. Somehowwe survive the winter doldrums of January andFebruary. After that it's all downhill and we startlosing it all about May 15 when the seniors startleaving. By that time the rest of us are leavingpsychologically eager to embrace what thesummer will bring us.

Solutions to the serious problems we face donot fit within a ten-month year. Nor do the oppor-tunities for building curriculum or growing pro-fessionally. A much longer, connected period oftime is needed. And if organizational restruc-turing is called for, we're talking about a five-to-ten-year period of time.

I would propose of a ten-year plan a decadeplan to help us productively solve the problemswe face and seize the opportunities which are

available to us. The timefrarne I propose wouldstart July 1, 1989 and end Jam 30, 1999. Here ismy "Decade Plan for School Improvement for theHometown Public Schools."

Year 1, 1989-1990. Encourage up to three pilotteams of teachers to develop three-to-five-yearplans for the school board to approve. Theseplans I call them "Educational Charters"would include items such as: rationale andscope of their teaching and curriculum; des-cription of the developmental and learningneeds of their pupils; strategies for helpingpupils acquire lifelong learning skills; howcareer plans and professional growth activitiesare linked with curriculum and programneeds; materials, media to be used (includingcomputer applications); and the manner inwhich inside/outside program evaluation willtake place.

Years 2 and 3, 1990-1991 and 1991-1992.Depending on when the applications for char-ters are completed and approved, the pilotteams would go into the first of their three tofive-year plans. One team might be ready bythe start of school in 1990; the others might notbe ready until the following year.Year 4, 1992-1993. Presuming that the pilotteams were being successful and that therewere an increasing number of teams ofteachers wanting to develop charters, I wouldsee the need for an intensive institute-workshop to address needs such as: How doesthe school board change its pattern of operationso that it can spend an increasing amount oflime on curriculum matters? How should theever-expanding amount of knowledge becategorized for school purposes? What K-12functions should be institutionalized to supporteducational charters during their planning and


operational stages? Participants in thisinstitute/workshop would include: schoolboard; professional staff; parents, communityresource persons, and others who have helpedin starting Education by Charters; represen-tatives from the secondary schools/collegesaccrediting agency; and selected expertsdepending on the questions to be addressed.(State "school improvement funds" could betapped to cover the cost of such an institute/workshop.)

c Year 5, 1993-1994. Under the school districtcurriculum structure worked out at theinstitute/workshop, additional teams ofteachers would be encouraged to apply forcharters. Detailed plans for new K-12 functions(including budget amounts) would bedeveloped so that these functions wouldbecome operational July 1, 1994.Year 6, 1994-1995. The newly designedfunctions to support educational charters wouldbe implemented. The early charters would beexpiring and teams would have to decidewhether to let the charter terminate or to applyfor a new or revised charter. It is hoped that bythe end of this school year 75% of education inHometown would be conducted undereducational charters.Years 7, 8, and 9, July 1, 1995 throughJune 30,1998. The new organization for theHometown Public Schools (based on Educationby Charter) would now be in full operation.During Year 8, the Hometown High Schoolwould host its ten-year accreditation visitationteam. The accrediting agency will have alreadyapproved the reorganization of the curriculumof the high school. The high school will beevaluated on the basis of its performancewithin the new curriculum structure.

Year 10, 1998-1999. A second intensive insti-tute/workshop would be held to evaluatethe impact of the reorganization of the schooldistrict. Out of this evaluation wo. ' come theseeds nd shape of the second de plan forthe Hometown Public Schools. .conddecade plan would start on July 1, 1999 and endJune 30, 2009.

Well, that's my vision for the public schools ofHometown for the next ten years. Obviously,under this reorganization, the superintendent(and others) will be taking on some differentresponsibilities. Today's superintendent needs tobe a planner as well as a teacher of planning.Please note on my resume that, in addition tobeing a member of the ASCD and the AASA, I amactive in the American Planning Association andthe American Society for Training andDevelopment.

There is yet another dimension of thinking indecade terms. Ten years is probably as long asanyone should stay on as a superintendent in thesame community. By the end of ten years, asuperintendent would probably have contributedall that he/she is able to contribute in one setting.Looking at it the other way, after ten years asuperintendent would be boxed in by knowingpretty much what is expected of him/her invarious situations. How creative would thesuperintendent be the second time around? Howoriginal would his/her vision be in developing andconceptualizing that second decade plan? I thinkthe school district would be ready for a new per-son as its educational leader.

I see my twenty minut,s are up. I will pleasedto answer any questions...

Restruduring School Districts

40

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41 Education by Charter

42

Event 3.Dr. Wright's session with the ExecutiveCommittee and Building Representatives of theHometown Teachers Association.

Scene.

Time and ;::-^e: 3:30pm, Wednesday April 13,1988 in the high school library. It's commonknowledge (1) that the school board favorsDr. Wright over the other four final;sts and (2)that Wr. Wright is in the final stages of applicationfor three other superintendencies in the state.Dr. Wright requested this meeting with theteachers association prior to the time the boardwould be making the final decision.

I appreciate this opportunity to talk with theExecutive Committee and Buildingaepresen-tatives of the Hometown Teachers Association.

Along with the four other finalists, I havevisited your schools and I've talked with youindividually and as building faculties and I'vedrunk your coffee I counted at least 45 cups!

It is rather extraordinary for an applicant torequest an extra step in the search process. Buthave proposed some rather fundamental changesin how we should organize ourselves to provideeducation for the children and youth of this com-munity. Very few of these changes can happenunless you as teachers and I as a new superinten-dent have some common ground right from thestart.

Teachers responsible for instruction

The time has come for teachers, bothindividually and in what I call "charter teams," toaccept full responsibility for the function ofinstruction. I would do this by having teachersreceive three-to-five-year mandates (and funds)for instruction directly from the school boardwith no one between the teachers and the schoolboard, not me as superintendent, nor your prin-cipal, nor a K-12 curriculum director. Andobviously this is going to change all our roles inthe school district the boxes on theorganizational chart will be moving around a bit!

A superintendent, principal, or curriculumdirector could be a participant on charter teamsproviding they taught on a regular basis in thearea of their expertise.

I am aware that there are studies which showthat teachers vary considerably in their desire tobuild and control the, curriculum they teach. Someare chafing under the "what's there" that was put"there" by somebody else, perhaps a X-12curriculum director with token input from theteachers. Other teachers could care less theysimply want to teach what's expected and nothave to worry about updating or revitalizing theknowledge base they are drawing on for theirlesson plans.

Along with teachers having full responsibilityfor instruction, we would need to set up specificprogram evaluation plans which would have anoutside force or component built into them. Ireally don't see any problem here after all weseldom let students who are responsible for theirlearning evaluate their own work (perhaps weshould). I believe an inside-outside programevaluation plan can be worked out which would besatisfactory to both the teachers association andthe school board.


4'L.)

Teaching needs to be a full-time job

Teaching should be i full-time, full-year pro-fessional job. And I think we can achieve this goalin Hometown in the next five to ten years.

The changes I am proposing will take many,many hours of planning and work. Many of thesehours will be in addition to and outside the workday and work year in your collective bargainingagreement. And I don't believe good thinking andproductive work happen after a full school day.Parents and others from the community includingprofessors from State University should be par-ticipants with you on charter teams. Teamsmight meet evenings, Saturday mornings, aswell as during vacation and summer periods.

Integrating career development and schoolneeds

Individual career development and professionalgrowth activities need to tie much more directlywill the curriculum development and programneeds of educational charters. I don't think werealize the degree of deterioration of lessonswhich has occurred because of our over-relianceon commercially produced textbooks andclassroom materials. We've got the brains and theknow-how to do much better than this. But thiskind of preparation for instruction takes a greatdeal of time that is not now given teachers lotsof individual time and lots of group time.

Teachers need support services

We haven't done very well in schools in provid-ing secretarial and clerical help for teachers. Withword processing now a part of the support scene,with appropriate use of work-study high schoolstudents, and with a larger number of secretariesand clerks, I think we can go a long way in making

it possible for teachers to devote practically all oftheir time to higher level professional instructiontasks than typing, recording and running off andcollating classroom materials.

Recruitment and selection of teachers

Let me touch on another area of common con-cern before coming back to a beginning step forworking toward a full professional year for alleducators.

What happens when a teacher retires or movesto another state at the end of the second year of afive year charter? I would see charter team mem-bers taking a great deal of responsibility in termsof the manner in which that teacher's services arereplaced. Remember, each educational charter ison its own multi-year budget. Let's say that theteacher who is leaving is making $32,000 per year.If all the other teachers on the charter team areexperienced, a beginning teacher might beemployed for $22,000. This leaves a resource of$30,000 of resources which could be used by theteam for other purposes over the remaining threeyears of the charter.

Or perhaps there is a period of unforeseendeclining enrollment and the teacher would notneed to be replaced. This will provide $96,000 ofresources for the remaining three years of thecharter. (I'm sure the school board would want todo some negotiating with the the charter team onthe use of so large an amount of money!)

In addition to teachers having some real sayover resources allocated to them, I would wantcharter team members to play important roles inselecting replacements and hiring additional staff.

Common hourly amount for extra time

Let's get back to the extra-time, extra -pay issue.In a preliminary discussion with the school board


about a possible contract for me, I proposed thatthe equivalent of one month of my twelve-monthcontract be considered as "planning time" andthat for that month I would be paid at the samerate as any other professional in the district whowas putting in time on curriculum and programdevelopment and professional growth activitiessuch time being outside the regular work day andwork year.

To figure this common rate, I took the 186-daywork year, 8-hour work day, and $24,000 salaryfigure and came up with about $16 per hour fornext year. I realize that $24,000 is at the lowerend of the salary schedule, but this formula pro-vides much more than the $10 per hour nowbeing paid to teachers for working extra time.

Here are several examples of how this wouldwork: where the content of a 45-contact hourgraduate course is needed by a charter team, ateacher would be paid $720 plus tuition; for a twoand a half hour charter team evening session,each teacher would receive $40; for five four-hourmornings of curriculum work in the summer, eachparticipating teacher would receive $320.

You can see that, as increasing numbers ofteachers become involved in planning andimplementing educational charters, this willbecome a sizeable addition to the school budget.I've gone into this in considerable detail with theschool board and they know where I stand on this.And they also are aware of how this could even-tually make possible a full-time professionalyear for teachers as well as a longer, restruc-tured school year for pupils.

I think I have talked enough for now. Are thereany questions?

There were many questions some very poin-ted ones. Dr. Wright handle" the questions in avery direct manner. He reminded the teachersthat the calls for "school improvement" were, in avery real sense, warnings which neither teachers,administrators nor the school board could ignore.

Well, thank you for the spirited response. Thebusiness of reorganizing a school district is a for-midable challenge. After all, some of its timbershave been in place for several centuries. A neworganization of school district will not be in placeby Christmas or even two or three Christmas'sfrom now.

You haven't been able to ask all of your ques-tions and I certainly don't have all the answers. Ifthere is some measure of common ground onwhich teachers, administrators, and school boardof Hometown can stand at the start, I think wecould have an exciting time during the 1990's.

If appointed, I would be going into considerabledetail about the origin of charters and theirapplication to education at a pre-school staff meet-ing in late August. I would be looking for two orthree teams of teachers to start planning theircharters next year with the thought of starting toteach under the charters in September, 1989 orlater in that school year.

I understand that you have a time scheduled toshare your perceptions of this meeting with theschool board. Thank you for meeting with me thisafternoon.


45

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Event 4.Explanation of "Education by Charter" by thenew superintendent, Dr. Bill Wright, at theopening pre-school staff meeting of theHometown Public Schools.

Scene.

Following a joint meeting of the ExecutiveCommittee of the teachers association and mem-bers of the school board in late April, Dr. Wrightwas appointed superintendent and given a three-year roll-over contract. During the late spring andearly summer, Dr. Wright met with central officestaff, spent a great deal of time with the prin-cipals, and participated in an intensive three-weekinstitute cosponsored by the American PlanningAssociation and the American Society for Trainingand Development.

Now it's 9:00 am, Wednesday, August 31,1988.The staff of the Hometown Public Schools ismeeting in the high school auditorium to hear anaddress by their new superintendent.

Welcome to a new school year. It is a newschool year in a number of ways: new for me asyour superintendent; new for you in having toacclimate yourself to another person's way oflooking at and doing things; and it's new for all ofus as we prepare ourselves for educating childrenand youth in the last decade of this century.

You've heard me talk a lot about creating aschool district in which teachers are given fullresponsibility for the function of instruction. AndI've sugg 'sted a concept of "Education by

Charter" as a way of doing this. Let me explainthe connection between giving teachersresponsibility for instruction and Education byCharter by answering three questions:1. What is the origin and meaning of the term

charter?2. How can the concept of charter or chartering

be applied to education?3. How might we as a school district move toward

"Education by Charter?'

1. What is the origin and meaning of the termcharter?

The idea of a charter being a "written agree-ment" goes back over a thousand years. Theagreement between King John and the Englishbarons which was signed at Runnymede onJune 15, 1215 was called the "Magna Carta" or"Great Charter."

Definition 2a in Webster's III defines charter as"an instrument in writing from the sovereignpower of a...country granting or guaranteeingrights, franchises, or privileges."21

Let's look at one charter that was used duringthe Age of Exploration in the early seventeenthcentury.

The time: 1609. The place: The office of theDirectors of the East India Company, Amsterdam,Holland. The occasion: The signing of a contract


40

or charter between the East India Company andone Henry Hudson.

I'll put a transparency (Figure 2) on the screenwhich gives us the text of that charter...Take afew minutes to read it. The "legalese" isn'tany worse than what we use today in our legaldocuments!

After a few minutes pause, Dr. Wright continued.

2. How can the concept of charter or charteringbe applied to education?

In Definition 3 of charter, Webster's III gives usour starting point in applying the concept of char-ter to education: "An instrument in writing fromthe constituted authorities of an order...creating alocal unit and defining its powers."23

Now let's dissect this charter and see how wemight apply its elements to education.

1. First of all, there is a grantor a personor group in authority. In this charter, the grantorwas the East India Company. In a school district,the grantor would be the duly elected schoolboard of the community.

2. The charter was granted to the granteesomeone with a vision or a plan. Henry Hudson'svision: "that there must in the northern parts apassage corresponding to the one found byMagellan near the South Pole." In a school dis-trict, the grantees would be teams of teacherswith visions of how to construct and implementmore relevant educational programs or how torevitalize programs that have endured the test oftime. Note, that a charter was granted directly tothe person or persons responsible for planningand carrying out the vision.

3. The charter usually called for explorationinto unknown territory and involved a degree ofrisk to the persons undertaking the exploration.One clause in the charter covers the possibleevent of Henry Hudson perishing in this venture:"...and, in case (which God prevent) he do notcome back or arrive hereabouts within a year, theDirectors shall further pay to hi^ wife two hun-dred guilders in cash..." There's a lot of unknownterritory in the field of education. People with avision of a better school and especially thosewilling to change their roles and relationshipswithin their schools will be leaving the safeground of present practice and traditional struc-ture. "Education by Charter" is a vehicle for us touse to launch into the future and this cannot bedone without taking some risks.

4. A charter implied both the idea of a franchiseand the idea of competition. The charter inviiedthe idea of a franchise in that the East IndiaCompany would not be sending another explorerout with the same charge as they were givingHenry Hudson. The situation was competitive inthe sense that the East India Company was anx-ious to sign a charter with Hendry Hudson inorder to woo him away from others who wouldhave liked to have had his services. The kingsand official trading companies were in keen com-petition for the resources which lay to the west.

If ninth and tenth-gradeliiilaTelChersapplied to the school board for a charter andthere were no options to their required classesthe school board in approving their request for acharter would be giving these teachers afranchise.

But let's suppose that there were two groups ofprimary teachers each with a totally different wayof teaching beginning reading. Why mix thesecontentious forces in the same elementary school?The board in this case might issue three distinct


4 D

Figure 2. Charter between Henry Hudson and theDirectors of the East India Company

(OVERHEAD TRANSPARENCY)

On this eighth of January in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and nine, theDirectors of the East India Company of the Chamber of Amsterdam of the ten years reckoningof the one part, and Mr. Henry Hudson, Englishman, assisted by Jodocus Hondius, of theother part, have agreed in the manner following, to wit:

- That the said Directors shall in the first place equip a small vessel or yachtof about thirty lasts burden, with which, well provided with men, provisions,and other necessaries, the above named Hudson shall about the first of April,sail, in order to search for a passage by the North, around by the North sideof Nova Zembla, and shall continue thus along that parallel until he shall beable to sail Southward to the latitude of sixty degrees.

He shall obtain as much knowledge of the lands as can be done without any con-siderable loss of time, and if it is possible, return immediately in order tomake a faithful report and relation of his voyage to the Directors, and to deliverover his journals, log-books, and charts, together with an account of everythingwhatsoever which shall happen to him during the voyage without keeping anythingback; for which said voyage the Directors shall pay to the said Hudson, as wellas for his outfit for the said voyage, as for the support of his wife and children,the sum of eight hundred guilders;

- and in case (which God prevent) he do not come back or arrive hereabouts withina year, the Directors shall further nay to his wife two hundred guilders in cash;and thereupcn they shall not be further liable to him or his heirs, unless he shalleither afterwards or within the year arrive and have found the passage good andsuitable for the Company to use; in which case the Directors will reward the before-nambd Hudson ff-r his dangers, trouble and knowledge in their discretion, with whichthe before-mentioned Hudson is content.

- And in case the Directols think proper to prosecute and continue the same voyage,it is stipulated and agresd with the before-named Hudson, that he shall make hisresidence in this cu- rry wits, his wife and children and shall enter into the em-ploymnnt of nc one other than the Company 4ini lints at the discretion of the Directors,who also promise to make him satisfied and content for such further service in alljustice and equity. All without fraud or evil intent.

In witness of the truth, two contacts are made hereof of the same tenor and are subscribedby both parties and also by Jodfseus, Hondius, interpreter and witness. band as above,(signed) Dirk Van Os, J. Poppe, .lenry Hudson, (lower down signed) Jodocus E .ius, witness.j

35

and different charters: one to a team advocating atotal language growth approach; a second charterto a team dedicated to emphasizing a logicallysequenced phonics program; and a third charterto a team of eclectic teachers who would drawfreely from all approaches. Parents who desired areading program other than the one in theirneighborhood school could choose to send theirchild to the school with the program of theirchoice. This would be an example of usingEducation by Charter to foster competition.

5. The grantor of the charter provided thesupplies and resources for the enterprise.Henry Hudson was given a "small vessel or yachtof about thirty lasts burden" which was to be"well provided with men, provisions and othernecessaries." Through a multi-year, computer-based purchasing system, teachers in charterteams would be given the supplies and materialsthey themselves have chosen to facilitate instruc-tion. Secretarial and clerical support for teacherswould be a "resource" provided to charter teams.Obviously, the "small vessel or yacht" equateswith appropriate furniture and classroom space.The term "well provided with men" implies atrained or trainable crew and would be analagousto a qualified teaching staff.

6. The charter contained within it specific direc-tions for the grantee and a definite length of timefor him to complete the activity. Henry Hudsonwas to sail on April 1st "in order to search for apassage by the North, around by the North side ofNova Zembla, and shall continue thus along thatparallel until he shall be able to sail Southward tothe latitude of 60 degrees. He shall obtain asmuch knowledge of the land as can be donewithout any considerable loss of time, and if it ispossible return immediat-ly..."

To obtain approval, a charter planning teamwould have to set forth its philosophy, methodol-ogy, the manner in which it would help pupilsacquire lifelong learning attLades and skills, andthe learning needs of specific groups and num-bers of students. In addition, as with Henry Hud-son, each charter would have a beginning dateand an ending date at which time the charterwould cease to exist or would have to be renewedfor another three-to-five-year period.

7. The charter spelled out in detail the pay orrewards for the explorer. In Henry Hudson's case,"the Directors shall pay to the said Hudson, aswell as for his outfit for the said voyage, as for thesupport of his wife and children, the sum of eighthundred guilders..."

In addition to regular salaries and extra sti-pends for planning and inservice time, I wouldsee a number of important rewards materializingfor "teacher explorers." I think that Education byCharter can be the catalyst which will help us turnthe corner in making teaching into a full-time,full-year profession. And the intangible rewardswould be just as important such as the excite-ment of bringing the cutting edge of the fields ofknowledge and research right into the classroom.

8. The charter provided a means for theexplorer to be accountable to the grantor forresults in a very specific way. Henry Hudson was"to make a faithful report in relation of his voyageto the Directors, and to deliver over his journals,log-books and charts, together with an account ofeverything whatsoever which shall happen to himduring the voyage without keeping anythingback..."

Any program evaluation or accountability sys-tem controlled by those being evaluated or beingheld accountable is simply not creditable. Thereare a number of w.: us to put "outside forces" into


5 .1.

program evaluation. But to work, there must alsobe understanding and positive participation on thepart of those whose program is being evaluated sothat, as Hudson's charter provides, he must"deliver...an account of...whatsoever shall hap-pen...without keeping anything back."

For a charter to be approved, it would have tocontain a predetermined program evaluation plan

hich involved genuine outside participation.

I think you can see that there is a reasonable fitbetween the elements of a charter from the Age ofExploration and the elements of a charter whichcould be used by a school board to fundeducational programs for a period of three to fiveyears.

There are many questions which have to beaddressed, such as: What kinds of programs canbe funded under charters? How many teachersshould there be on charter teams? How manycharters will we have in the Hometown PublicScl..)ols in five years? What kind of support ser-vices would be needed to keep 20 to 25 chartersoperating?

We'll be getting to some of these questions aswe go along this morning, but for now, let's definean educational charter as "a written instrumentused by a school board to directly fund a team ofteachers to carry out an educational program fora period of three-to-five years."

We're not entirely in strange territory as wethink about organizing our school district aroundEducation by Charter.

The Hometown Public Schools already has pro-gram experiences which will be of great help aswe test out the feasibility of Education by Charter.The organizational elements of Educution byCharter such as: building curriculum on the

basis of societal needs; designating beginning andending dates for funding cycles; planning forindividual needs and learning styles of students;and providing outside program evaluation. We allknow what these programs are and many ofyou serve as staff for these programs: vocationaleducation, Chapter I compensatory education,special education, and the replication of validatednational products. And many of the structura', tim-bers of th^ present traditional school districtorganization will need to remain in place. It's justthat in Education by Charter the major boxes onthe organizational chart are moved around a bitand the whole operation is placed into a longertimeframe.

How then do we proceed if we want to organizethe function of instruction around the concept ofEducation by Charter?

First of all, let me tell you how we ought not ..oproceed and that is to somehow divide all"Knowledge and Skills Needed, K-12" into 25 or30 chunks, put everybody on one or more CharterPlanning Teams, spend two weeks next summerwriting charters, and, BINGO! by this time nextyear we're all into Education by Charter. Thiswould be disastrous!

Getting into something new takes time,especially when that something new involveschanging roles and relationships in your organiza-tion. Let's take the time to get our feet wet. Iwould like two or three teams to give Educationby Charter a try. Let's see if the idea works andlet's get the bugs out of it. And if it doesn't work,we will have learned some important things in theprocess.


38


L. .

Life Cycle of an Educational Charter

To help you know what I'm asking you to con-sider, let's walk through the "Five Stages in theLife Cycle of a Three-Year Educational Charter."Here we come to the only handout of themorning...

Several persons in the front row assistDr. Wright in distributing copies of Figure 3to the teachers.

Glance at the chart for a few minutes and thenwe'll go through it step by step or rather "stageby stage." "Stage" actually is a better word than"step" as it implies things happening over aperiod of time. "Step," it seems, is moreapplicable to a single happening which mightoccur instantaneously or within a very shortperiod of time.

First of all, notice the long, thin horizontal boxat the top of Figure 3 with "Career Developmentand Inset-vice Education Activities Can Feed in atany Stage" typed inside of it. I think it's crucialthat our personal, individual career developmentactivities as well as inservice education activitiesbe fused into the program and curriculumdevelopment needs of the school district. And ofpractical value to all of us, the cost of pro-fessionals acquiring new knowledge and skills is alegitimate cost of educating students and shouldbe paid for out of the regular school budget.

Note that acquiring new ideas and processingthem can be a part of any of the five stages ofEducation by Charter this is not limited toStage 4 when a charter is functioning with pupils.

Now let's go through the five stages in the lifecycle of a three-year educational charter.

Stage 1. Generating Ideas

The initial impetus for wanting to teach underan educational charter may come from one ormore of a number of sources:

Strong dissatisfaction with the presentcurriculum or teaching situation.Excitement from trying out a successful newteaching strategy which could be developed andexpanded.Ideas a group of teachers bring back from aworkshop led by a nationally known figurein education.

A new plan for organizing instruction learnedby a teacher taking a graduate course inadministration.Ideas picked up during a visitation to aclassroom in another school.Ideas generated from reading, and/or viewingvideo cassettes and television programs.Pressures felt by teachers and administratorsto respond to the hidden and not so hiddencriticism of schools found in the variousnational reports calling for educational reform.

After initial exposure to some new ideas, agroup of teachers would meet. Interested parentsor other citizens of the community might join inthese preliminary discussions. Selected use ofconsultants might be helpful. Provision would bemade in the Charter Planning Account to payteachers for extra time and to cover costs ofconsultants.

The dotted lines on the box for Stage 1 indicatethat there may be a rather fuzzy starting pointand a rather indefinite time period for this stage.The time of closure for Stage 1, however, is verydefinite. When the team of teachers feels like it


Figure 3. Five Stages in the Life Cycle of. . .

Career Development and Inservice. . .

Stage 1.

Generating---4 Ideas

\fr

S=PT1989

40

Stpge 2.

PlanningtheCharter

Stage 4.

Teaching under the Educational Charter

Stage 3.

PreparingforTeaching

Stage 5.

Program Monitoring and Evaluation

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JAN JUNE SEPT JAN JUNE SEPT1990 1990 1990 1991 1991 1995

First Year

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. . .a Three-Year Educational Charter

STAGES IN CHARTER RENEWAL PROCESS

. . Education Activities feed in at any stage

TEACHING UNDER

II

L

THE EDUCATIONAL CHARTER

Stage 4.

.1

RenewedTeaching under

Stage 1. Educational Charter

(Start of second cycleGeneratingIdeas (andprocessing

Stage 2.this one

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years)

results ofprogram

PlanningRenewal of

Stage 3.I I

evaluation) Charter Preparing I I

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II MonitoringandEvaluation

PROGRAM MONITORING AND EVALUATION

TEACHING UNDER THE EDUCATIONAL CHARTER

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First Yearunder renewal

41

has sufficient preliminary ideas and is somotivated, it makes a ten-minute presentationdirectly to the school board in which it requestsfunds to plan their charter.

To assist teams of teachers in obtaining resour-ces for planning, I am preparing a concise singlepage, two-sided form, REQUEST FOR CHARTERPLANNING FUNDS.

The front side of the form would include itemssuch as: subject or curriculum areas; ages orgrades of pupils to be taught under the prospec-tive charter; a list of exploratory steps the teamhas gone through thus far; names of all ofthe persons who would make up the CharterPlanning Committee; preliminary plans formeetings and activities including inservice educa-tion and professional growth activities; and thetype and amount of secretarial and supportservices needed.

On the reverse side of the form would be spacefor a budget for items such as: extra-timestipends for teachers; fees and expenses for con-sultants; registrations for workshops and courses;costs for visiting programs in other schools; andthe amount needed. for compensation of secretaryand/or other support personnel. At the bottom ofthis second side would be a place for the schoolboard chairpeison to indicate the decision madewith regard to the request for planning funds. Theboard's three alternatives would be: approval assubmitted; approval rith recommended changes;or denial with reasons for denial.

A most important final task for the team ofteachers in Stage 1 would be to develop a sharp,concise ten-minute presentation to the schoolboard indicating why this planning money isneeded and what might be the potential benefitsto students if this charter were planned andultimately implemented.

Stage 2. Planning the Charter

Stage 2 begins with the approval of the requestfor planning funds by the school board. This stagecould vary in length from several months to ayear or more. On your handout (Figure 3), thelength of time indicated is about four months.Stage 2 ends with the team of teachers (who makeup only part of the Charter Planning Committee)submitting the educational charter to the schoolboard for approval.

The Charter Planning Committee would havethe membership indicated in the request forfunds. It would set up its own organization andprocedures for making decisions. The CharterPlanning Committee would engage in many of thesame kind of activities as those on the "impetuslist"in Stage 1. "Generating ideas" would still con-tinue but activities would become more focusedas the tithe came for writing and submitting thecharter.

Strategic use of small group process

Gathering ideas is important, but equallyimportant is the manner in which a group pro-cesses the ideas it has gathered.

In our zeal to individualize instruction, in ourpreoccupation with our own individual personalgrowth, and in our overuse of the medium groupsize of 25 to 30 (classroom size), we tend to forgetabout the ri.vr.v...r and creativity inherent in thesmall group where the size of the group might bebetween eight and fifteen members all of whomare struggling with the same complex, contentiousproblem.

I would recommend that midway through thecharter planning period the committee spend twodays (including the evening between the twodays) in a workshop/retreat setting. It would bewell if the deliberations of the group were led byan outside facilitator.


During these two days, the committee wouldtotally immerse itself in all aspects and details ofthe vision for a new or revitalized educationalprogram. Multiple resources should be usedincluding: a child or adolescent psychologist whowould be strong in learning and behavior theory;professors or other experts in the subject fields;teachers outside the school district who arealready implementing all or part of the desirednew program; etc.

I would not have the Charter Planning Commit-tee come to any closure at the end of these twodays. Let me slip into the role of facilitator at theclosing session: "Our purpose for these two dayswas not to nail anything down, but rather it was toflush out all the ideas, options, programs, andstructures which relate to our vision. Now I wantyou to let these ideas incubate for a while, tobounce around in your head, and then see if; indi-vidually or in conversations with others, you canstart putting all these ideas into a program thatcan form the basis for our charter. We will meetfor a whole day just ten days from now oursame group in the same place and at the end ofthat day we will know if all the good things wehave been thinking about can happen." That thirdday, then, is the time when the componentsof people, resources, time, and space are puttogether to form the charter educational program.

Preparing the educational charter

I have not completed the actual form for theeducational charter. I would see it as a carefullyconstructed, folded, single piece of paper,11"X 17" in size. This format gives us four81/2"X 11" sides which, when printed, would pro-vide space for all the information a school boardwould need to act on a request for a charter.

And there's an advantage in using a foldedform. The form itself could be designed to

be a file folder for the many items which wouldaccumulate during the life of the charter.

There are two different kinds of items whichshould be included on the charter form. The firstkind has to do with gathering information relativeto the charter being a long-term agreement be-tween the school board and the charter team.Examples of the first kind of items would be:1. Date and title of the charter.2. Beginning and ending dates of the charter.3. Wording to the effect that the charter places

specific responsibilities and obligations on bothparties to the agreement.

4. Space at the end of the charter for signatures ofthe grantor (minimum of a majority of aquorum present at a particular meeting of theschool board) and grantee (the team of teachersrequesting the charter).

There are a number of alternatives with regardto the second kind of items to be included on thecharter form. The specific responsibilities andobligations of each party could be listed. A morefunctional alternative would be to include onlyitems which are "program monitor-able" and"program evaluate-able." Doing this wouldautomatically provide us with the structure forStage 5. Program Monitoring and Evaluation. Theinformation provided for each of these itemswould then become a category for documentationduring the life of the charter.

Among this second kind of items, I wouldsee the following as being "observable,""monitor-able," and "evaluate-able":

Projected enrollment by grade level and subjectarea over the life of the charter.Disciplines and fields of knowledge which pro-vide the rationale and support for this charterprogram.


Applicable psychologies of learning and themanner in which individualization and groupprocess are used to maximize the learning ofevery pupil.Links with pupil personnel services and com-munity human services agencies.Plan for helping pupils acquire the skills andattitudes to become learners in school and out-side of school and to become lifelong learners.Pupil learning objectives stated in as measur-able terms as possible; group and individualtesting program for pupils and how this relatesto schoolwide and state-mandated testingprograms; and the manner in which results oftesting will be used.Pattern of courses and learning experiences forpupils during the life of the charter.Assignments of teachers, aides, clerical staff,and volunteers.Examples of how career development andinservice education activities will be fusedwith the curriculum and program needs ofthe charter.Plan for encouraging parents and others fromthe community to help and support courses andprograms of the charter.Plan for use of textbooks, references, com-puters, and school and community libraries andmedia centers.Program budget for major categories for thethree-to-five-year operation of the charter, in-cluding an estimated amount needed for extrapay for extra time for teachers; amounts wouldbe set according to current price levels andprovisions in the negotiated contract.Manner in which the charter team is organizedfor decision making; relationship to optionalCharter Advisory Committee.

Summary of how data could be collected toserve as documentation for progrr monitoringand evaluation; designation of two teachers toserve on a five-person Program Monitoring andEvaluation Committee.

The final step in Stage 2 as in Stage 1 is a pre-sentation of a request to the school board.

Here we have a hard reality to face: the schoolboard's heavy agenda. You can see that ifnumerous teams of teachers have to make pre-sentations to request planning funds and if manyof these teams go on to request approval of char-ters, there is a danger that the already overloadedagenda will become even more overloaded. I'mworking with the board to see if we can'tstreamline the meetings so that in a year fromnow they will be able to devote at least half oftheir time to curriculum and instructional mat-ters. And this is as it should be the policy bodyof a school district rightfully should spend at leasthalf its time directly on what the schools are inbusiness for, the educational programs forchildren and youth.

But we need to be careful at our end of it aswell. If you'll remember, I recommended limitingany presentation for the REQUEST FORCHARTER PLANNING FUNDS to ten minutes,with an additional five minutes for the board touse to ask questions. Let's try twenty minutes asan appropriate amount of time for a team ofteachers to request approval of a charter. Thiswould leave ten minutes for a question andanswer period.

One reason why this might work is that I wouldwant the completed charter in the hands of schoolboard members at least one month prior to themeeting at which they would have to act on it.This month's lead time would be of advantage tothe charter team in that it would give sufficienttime to develop a sharp, concise, and interesting


6 (1

twenty-minute presentation. Options for media fora presentation are obvious: slide-cassette pro-gram; videotape; transparencies; felt tip pen andnewsprint; printed materials; etc. This kind ofpreparation time would make it possible for thedevelopment of a superlative presentation.

One important serendipity of these com-munications and presentations: what a wonderfuland meaningful way to continually educate ourschool board members (and community throughthe press coverage) about what we do in ourclassrooms!

Stage 2 then, ends with the school board takingone of three actions on the request for a charter:accepting it as written; accepting it with recommendations for changes; or denying the charterand providing in writing the reasons for denial.

Stage 3. Preparing for Teaching

The length of Stage 3 could vary from three tonine months. A team which had its charterapproved at the January meeting of the boardwould have nine months until the start of the nextschool year to prepare for teaching under thecharter. On the life cycle chart, a charter ap-proved at the May meeting gives the charterteam a period of four months for preparationsbefore classes start in September:

Time usage in Stage 3 as in Stages 1 and 2 isnot solid time, but rather a well planned sequenceof activities which would have to be undertakenbefore any new program of studies could start.Stage 3 activities would include:

Completing writing the curriculum to beimplemented under the charter.Further developing the details of howindividual career development activities andinservice educational programs will be used tosupport the objectives and programs of thecharter.

If stated in the charter, restructuring theCharter Planning Committee into a CharterAdvisory Committee.Assisting the two teachers designated to serveon the Program Monitoring and EvaluationCommittee with their responsibility fordocumenting charter programs and activities.Developing and printing a brochure to explainthe educational program to parents andstudents.Making sure that pupil enrollment proceduresas well as space and scheduling needs aretaken care of.Ordering texts, references, audio-visualmaterials, and software.Working with the principal to set up secretarialand clerical services as provided in the charter.

Stage 3 ends or kind of melds into the timeschool actually starts under the charter. Generallythat would be in late August or early Septemberat the start of a new school year. But charteroperations could commence at the start of thesecond semester in January or at any time duringthe school year.

Stage 4. Teaching under the Charter

Stage 4 simply stated is "school" schoolis in operation, courses have begun, pupilsare in classes, and teachers are teaching.

An upgraded K-12 function is already in placewhich will provide each charter team with budgetstatus reports on the first day of each quarter inSeptember, December, March, and June. Budgetstatus reports for all or selected accounts wouldbe available at any other time as requested.

The budget status report would indicate foreach account: approved budget amount for each


year; amount encumbered by purchases; expen-ditures; and amount of money still available foruse.

As more and more charters come into opera-tion, we will start getting some feel about thenumber and kind of other K-12 functions neededto support education by charter.

Career development and inservice educationactivities are carried out as planned. If there isneed for replacing staff members, 'already agreedupon procedures in the charter would beimplemented.

Three or four months are allowed to go bybefore any thought is given to starting Stage 5:Program Monitoring and Evaluation. This allowsthe charter team start-up time and the chanceto experience what it's like to teach withinan organization in which you and your colleagueshave responsibility and control over your pro-fessional work.

Stage 4, ends when the charter expires at theend of three, four or five years.

Stage 5. Program Monitoring and Evaluation

Provisions for program monitoring and evalua-tion are included in the educational charter: com-position of the Program Monitoring andEvaluation Committee; observable, tangibleactivities which can be monitored and evaluated;and the two designated teachers from the charterteam who will serve on the committee.

I've done quite a bit of thinking about thisstage and particularly about how to achievegenuine "inside" and "outcide" participation. Wehave to be careful as we wiirk to create a neworganization for the school district that it will notbe destined to collapse by the sheer weight of thenumber of planning, advisory, and evaluationcommittees.

There are two phases to Stage 5. First, settingup a means for ongoing documentation and datacollection. (Every program, every class, generates"monitor-able" and "evaluate-able" kinds of datathrough day-by-day operation the trick is tocollect this data without exerting high amounts ofenergy.) Secondly, a small group needs to becharged with the responsibility of sifting throughthe documentation and making some sense out ofit to determine the extent to which the program issucceeding or failing.

Most of you who have had to have outside pro-gram evaluation for funded projects have turnedto Dr. Robert Slesher, educational researchspecialist at State University as programevaluator. You have indicated to me that you findhim to be a fair-minded, competent, and diligentperson when it comes to evaluting educationalprograms. He has indicated that he would beavailable on a part-time, consultant basis to helpus through the pilot phase of education by charter.

Dr. Slesher will work with the initial charterteams to set up a file drawer in which to gatherevaluative data about charter activities as thisdata is generated. He would also chair a five-person monitoring and evaluation committeewhich would meet no more than three times ayear to digest and analyze the data collected. Thislevel of effort should be able to produce sufficientfeedback to both the charter team and the schoolboard during the life of the charter.

I would suggest the following membership for acharter's monitoring and evaluation committee:the two designated teachers from the charterteam; a Hometown principal other than the prin-cipal of the building in which the charter classesare housed; a person with in-depth knowledge ofthe subject areas and age group, but not anemployee of the Hometown Public Schools (thisperson could be a parent, a teacher from aneighboring school district, an instructor inteacher education etc.); and Dr. Slesher who


would both chair and staff the committee.Having the same person chair and be staff for

each of the initial program monitoring and evalua-tion committees will help us determine the com-mon and different threads of evaluative activitiesfor different kinds of charters.

Early in the final year of the charter, theProgram Monitoring and Evaluation Committeewould summarize its conclusions under one ofthree recommendations: "The charter should berenewed as presently operating." "The chartershould be renewed but some important changesneed to be made." or "The charter should not berenewed for the following reasons..."

This recommendation, then, is submitted to theschool board with the charter team's request forfunds to plan for renewal or when the charterteam makes its final report.

I've said nothing thus far about teacher eval-uation. I expressed my opinions on teacher eval-uation in some detail during the question andanswer session in my meeting with the teachersassociation last April.

Let me pose the same questions I raised then.Answer these questions on the basis of your ownexperience with, and knowledge about, teacherevaluation zither here in Hometown or in otherschool districts.

On the basis of teacher evaluation, how manyincompetent teachers have been fired?On the basis of teacher evaluation, how manyso-so, boring, humdrum teachers have beencounseled to move out of education intoanother area of endeavor?On ttic basis of teacher evaluation, how manyexciting, relevant inservice education experien-ces have materialized for staff?On the basis of teacher evaluation, how manyteachers have been motivated to conceptualizerealistic and meaningful lifelong career plans?

On the basis of teacher evaluation, how manycompetent career teachers are writing articlesfor professional journals and serving on stateand national committees and councils?

I'm not saying we do away with our presentteacher evaluation plan. Actually, what has beendeveloped here in Hometown is one of the bestI've seen. Let's continue with it in an honest,straightforward manner. But I would like to investmore of my time and I would like principalsand supervisors to invest more of their time inhelping develop an organization for the school dis-trict in which teachers have full responsiblity forand operating control over their professional jobs.

Forgive this aside. I kind of get carried awaywhen I talk about teacher evaluation. I think thatout of our experience with Education by Chartermay come an even more productive plan forteacher evaluation.

Let's get back to our handout on the stages inthe life cycle of an educational charter. Note thatStage 4. Teaching under the Charter and Stage 5.Program Monitoring and Evaluation feed rightinto Stages 1, 2, and 3 of the charter renewal pro-cess. And this happens well before the end of thelast year in the life of the original charter. Thisoverlap in timing will insure that there is nobreak in the educational program should the deci-sion be made to renew the charter.

Now to my third question of the morning. Thiswill be much briefer and will conclude myremarks this morning.


3. How might we as a school district movetoward Education by Charter?

It's not often that we think about organizationalmatters especially about whether or not to takeapart the structure we're now working in (and wemay be very comfortable working in) and seeing ifwe can put the pieces together in a different wayto enable us to do an even better job. And I haveto admit that "reorganizing" is tiring and anxiety-ridden. But this, I think, is good evidence of howimportant the framework is that we choose towork in.

As Frank Lloyd Wright said so eloquently,"We build houses, and then they build us." Ourpresent organization (our prescribed roles in theschool district) allows us to do some things andboxes us in with regard to doing other things.

Well, what do we do with our old "house?" Castit off? We can't do that the result would bechaos. But let's break it apart a bit and see whathappens.

I would like two, three, or four teams ofteachers to give Education by Charter a try. Thisyear would be for exploring and planning; nocharter would start until next September.

As three or four teams try Education byCharter, we will start getting a feel for some otherdimensions of our new school district organiza-tion. How am I as a superintendent going to feelabout that first charter going directly to the schoolboard from a team of teachers without my havingto make a recommendation? Will I be happy asthe "senior teacher" of planning? How will a prin-cipal feel about being a support person to severalteams of teachers instead of being the"educational leader?" How will a teaching prin-cipal react to being a member but not the chair-person of charter team? How will parents"behave" on Charter Planning Committees andProgram Monitoring Committees? How real is it

to expect that we can teach in such a way thatpupils genuinely take responsibility for their ownlearning and behavior? Can we, through model-ing and other means, help pupils realize that weare now living in the Information Age and thatlifelong learning skills are as necessary as islearning how to read? I think it's going to beexciting, and perhaps a bit threatening.

In addition, I think we'll get som.) definite ideasof what K-12 functions all charters would needpresuming that the idea works and that in a fewyears 75% of education in Hometown might beunder charters. Will "Curriculum," "PersonnelServices," "Pupil Personnel Services," and"Business Office" be adequate K-12 functions tosupport charters? Will we need to abandon theseand start from scratch with a new districtwidesuppot t system that more closely fits the needs of25 or 30 educational charters?

And finally, I think we'll want to be alert towhat happens to the "ethos" of our individualschools. All of us have experienced the power ofcommunity when we have worked as part of aschool staff in a building where the atmospherewas positive and supportive. Occasionally vie mayhave been part of a school that was shaken by acrisis or experienced personality conflictsamongst the staff and the atmosphere seemedpoisoned and sour. As the number of chartersincrease, I would hope that those not in chartersbecome interested observers and that we do allwe can to encourage communication among allstaff members in a school. Nothing could killEducation by Charter quicker than if we split our-selves into two camps: the "regulars" and thoseon charter teams.

Let's not forget that Education by Charter pro-vides us with a vehicle for achieving both alonger, restructured school year for pupilsand a full-time, professional year for teachers.

60duca iion by Charier

You have been most patient. I've asked prin-cipals for at least an hour in each of your buildingmeetings during the next day and a half. This hasbeen quite a dose and I'm sure we'll have a lot totalk about in these building meetings. Thank youfor listening. Have a good day!

Dr Wright met with each building staff andanswered many questions about Education byCharter. He outlined the steps a group of teacherscould take if they wanted to be a pilot charterteam.

Dr. Wright sensed a reluctance to volunteer thatseemed natural, after all, volunteers sometimesgot shot at! By mid-October, however, there werethree groups of teachers interested in becomingpilot teams. In each case, the teachers either hadsomething they wanted to try out or else they sawEducation by Charter as a means for confrontingsome major, continuing frustrations.

Over the past two years, many of the kin-dergarten and primary teachers at BrooksideElementary School took courses and par-ticipated in workshops in which they wereexposed to a whole new set of ideas about`how to teach beginning reading and writing.They have been wanting to visit some otherschools as well as organize a two-day inservicefor all kindergarten and primary teachers inHometown; but somehow there was never thetime or energy to get beyond just talkingabout this new "language growth" approach toteaching beginning communication skills.

For years, the middle school math and scienceteachers and the fourth and fifth-grade teacherswho taught math and science have feuded overthe "why," "how," "what," and the "when" toteach math and science. Part of the difficultywas due to the fact that the teachers taught in

four different buildings. They really had to goout of their way to talk to one another. PerhapsEducation by Charter would be a means forbringing some reason into this emotion-chargedsituation.At the high school, several English, socialstudies, and art teachers had taken federallyfunded humanities institutes during the pasttwo summers. They would like to explore thefeasibility of setting up a "HumanitiesDepartment" as a way of pulling together somerelated subjects for college-bound juniors andseniors. They felt these students were notbeing helped to see the relationship of impor-tant ideas in various subjects which were nowbeing taught in a separate and isolated fashion.

In EVENTS 5, 6, and 7, Mary Brown (first gradeteacher), Ronald Jenkins (middle schoolmathematics teacher), and Dorothy Parker (chair-person of the high school English Department)will be making presentations to the HometownSchool Board at three different points in time inthe life cycle of an educational charter.

Restruduring School Dist rids

6 71

JOE


Event 5.Request for charter planning funds bythe primary teachers of the BrooksideElementary School.

Scene.

The kindergarten, first- and second-gradeteachers at Brookside, one of the three elemen-tary schools in Hometown, are very excited aboutsome new ideas for teaching beginning readingand writing. Of particular interest is how theteaching of these skills can be enhanced by theadoption of a "whole language" rationale for theprimary curriculum.

Mary Brown, veteran first-grade teacher atBrookside, has been asked by her colleagues torequest charter planning funds at the February,1989 meeting of the Hometown School Board.

Thank you, Ms. O'Keefe (chairperson of schoolboard). You have our completed REQUEST FORCHARTER PLANNING FUNDS with the attachedchart (Figure 4) which illustrates the relationshipsamong the various components of the primarycurriculum we would like to implement next fall.Here's why we think it makes sense to move inthis direction.

As you know, since the early 1980's, the statehas required basic skills testing at odd-numberedgrade levels starting with Grade 1. At first we tes-ted for just reading and mathematics. Two yearsago, writing (composition) was added.

Our response as primary teachers in Home-town was similar to what primary teachers did ind her school districts we started to specialize

and then we started to clamp down. Kinder-garten teachers beefed up their efforts to havepupils learn their letters and numbers. In firstand second grades, we started exchanging pupilsso that teachers who felt stronger teaching read-ing taught reading and teachers who felt strongerteaching mathematics taught mathematics.

Several years ago the budget allowed us to addthree special subjects all the way down to firstgrade art, music and physical education. As youcan see, our six, seven, and eight year olds aremoving around quite a bit from teacher to teacher.

We took a look at our pupils' schedulesespecially the schedules for first and second.graders. We discovered that our six and sevenyear olds moved more times during the weekthan middle school students! And to top it off,Chapter I pupils were being "pulled out" of ourclassrooms an additional three times per weekand these pupils needed the stability of same timeand same place even more than the rest of thepupils!

With all this concentrated effort on basic skillsteaching, one would think that the the state-mandated test results would start to show somesignificant improvement. This has not happened.In genera) the test results have flattened out andthe score for comprehension in reading hasactually started to drop.

Dr. Martha Barton, Superintendent of theSelma Alabama Public Schools, in an article in theChristian Science Monitor, has stated the problemthis way:


70

In recent years there's been an overemphasis on basicskills, and it's been disastrous for y.iung children. Theexcessive drill and practive on isolated skills left manyof them floundering...2

We're starting to notice something else aboutour young boys and girls and it's hard to putyour finger on this, let alone test it. Our boys andgirls, especially those who are less mature, seemto always be on edge. Their attention spans arevery short. We're not sure how to motivate themto work on the reading and phonics tasks we thinkthey should be doing. They seem passive exceptwhen we get out the large picture books whichwere just recently published. There's very littleprint in these books and the words that are in thebooks are in very large print. But the pictures arejust beautiful, almost life size!

Another thing we've noticed is that there's notrouble at all when we are viewing a goodeducational video or television program. No pro-blem with the attention span when this ishappening.

Perhaps we are beginning to see the impact oftelevision on this, the third generation of childrenwho are growing up with television in the home.And it occurred to us as we thought about thisthat this is the first generation of children whoseparents had significant exposure to televisionwhen they were children.

Sn last year, as you know, we took ananonymous survey of parents to determine theviewing habits of our young pupils. What theylooked at was disturbing. But what was even moredisturbing was the amount of viewing time perweek: the average was 23 hours per week; somefive and six year olds were spending more than 30hours a week in front of the tube. It's rathersobering to think that many of our pupils arespending more time passively viewing televisionthan they spend in school! Was this not something

that we as teachers of beginning reading and writ-ing should be concerned about? And if we wereconcerned, was there anything we could do aboutit?

We think we have found one approach which,with support from our parents, will help our kin-dergarten and primary boys and girls make aqtlantum in learning their basic skills.

The whole language approach

The primary teachers at Brookside and severalof the teachers in the other two elementaryschools are becoming increasingly interested in anew approach in educating five-to-eight-year-oldchildren. The three premises of this "wholelanguage" approach are:

The different aspects of language reading,writing, speaking, listening, vocabularybuilding, phonics, syntax, semantics are allinterrelated and interdependent.Writing should be taught along with reading,some say even before reading. Doing this helpschildren understand that they can express theirideas using letters and words which they andothers can then read. Right now a child mightdefine reading and writing as filling in theblanks on ditto worksheets. There may be aconsiderable delay before children discoverthat reading has any real personal meaningor practical value.All areas of the curriculum provide youngchildren with opportunities to have real-life experiences which can form a base for help-ing them develop "whole language power."There are many sources of ideas and rationale

for this new approach to primary education. Themore important ones are listed in our request forplanning funds: James Moffett's model for alanguage curriculum; numerous i ationally

7 1Education by Charter

Figure 4. Curriculum for Kindergarten - Grade Two

Primary Education Charter

NUMBER ANDSPACE CONCEPTS(MATHEMATICS)

THEME UNITS INSCIENCE ANDSOCIAL STUDIES

GROWTH INLANGUAGE

LEARNING AND APPLYINGLITERACY ANDDISCOURSE SKILLS

CULTURAL ENRICHMENTTHROUGH ART, MUSICAND DRAMATICS

HEALTH, MOVEMENT,DEVELOPING MOTORSKILLS (PHYS.ED.)

ACCOMPLISHING OBJECTIVESOF INDIVIDUAL EDUCATIONAL PLANS

WITHIN INDIVIDUAL/SMALL GROUP/CLASSROOM SETTINGS

Key to longterm improvement in American education

7

validated writing projects such as the New JerseyWriting Project and the Williamstown(Massachusetts) "Everybody Write" Project;IBM's software program on learning to read bywriting; etc. There are a number of school dis-tricts within close driving distance which haveexperienced success in some of these programs.(We have money in our request for groups ofteachers and parents to visit some of theseprograms.)

Components for new primary program

You might want to glance at die diagram of thecurriculum (Figure 4) while I go over what we willwant to have tied together in our request for athree-year charter.

We need to develop a schedule which givesclassroom teachers more longer blocks of timeduring the week. This is necessary because of theway in which we will be teaching beginning read-ing and writing. In addition, the longer time.periods will help us do a better job of integratingart, music, and dramatics into the regularactivities of the classroom.

For this age child, it is not necessary to con-sider social studies or science as being sequentialsubjects. They do not have to be studied everyday or even every week. By organizing these sub-jects into "thematic units" and alternating socialstudies and science, we go even further in creat-ing longer blocks of time. A major task during thecharter planning period will be to choose the unitswe want to use and then gather resources andideas on which to base lesson plans.

I'm sure we will be recommending all-day kin-dergarten for next year for this charter. I knowthe board has been talking about this ever sincethe sixth grade moved in with the seventh andeighth grade to create the middle school. Havingall-day kindergarten in one school will give the

town a chance to pilot test the idea before makingthe change for the whole school district.

We're planning to have overlapping ages in eachgrade: five and six year olds in kindergarten; five,six and seven year olds in first grade; and six,seven, and eight year olds in second grade. Thisarrangement will give us flexibility in the place-ment of pupils we would not be grouping byability but we would be taking into account somematurity and developmental factors.

We want parents to be much more active in theeducation of their children. And this is alreadyhappening in 75% of our homes this year,parents are trying out a nationally developed pro-gram for helping children reduce the amount oftime they watch television as well as helping themmake better choices in what they do watch.Several parents will be a part of the charter teamand will help us figure out ways to promote"whole language growth" within the familysetting.

Other activities during the charter planningperiod are listed in our request for funds. Pleasenote that these activities are open to teachers andparents from the other two schools...I see Dr.Wright looking as his watch my ten minutes onthe agenda has turned into fourteen. I hope thereis time for your questions.

Dr. Wright was forgiving inasmuch as this was thefirst request for charter planning funds. Theboard did have a few questions. They would likeincluded in the request for a charter any studiesof standardized test scores which would indicatethat children learn how to read as well or betterunder the whole language approach than they dounder present methods.. A! the conclusion of ashort question and answer period, the schoolboard approved the request for charter planningfunds and the primary teachers at Brooksidemoved into Stage 2. Planning the Charter.


Event 6.Report of elementary and middle schoolmathematics and science teachers on heuse of planning funds.

Scene.

For a number of years, there has been consider-able bickering back and forth between laterelementary teachers and middle school teacherson the what and the how of teaching mathematicsand science to children nine to thirteen year& ofage.

In February, 1990, the middle school principal andthe curriculum director called a meeting of mathand science teachers in these grades to see ifthere was any interest in trying Education byCharter as a means of addressing these continu-ing problems and tensions.

There was int-rest, but it was felt that the groupwould be too largo if all of the twenty teachersinvolved in the teaching of math and sciencebecame involved. The group decided to have theteachers on either side of the "gap" between theelementary and the middle schools make up thecharter planning team, nine teachers: two fromeach of the elementary schools; one sixth-grademath teacher; one sixth-grade science teacher;and one teacher, Ronald Jenkins, who teachesboth math and science in the sixth grade.

In April, the board approved the teachers' requestfor $1,500 in charter planning funds. And now, atthe October, 1990 school board meeting, spokes-man Ronald Jenkins is making his report on howthe planning funds were used. The teachers,however, are not requesting an educationalcharter.

Thank you, ... I woulG like to summarize theefforts of fifth and sixth-grade math and scienceteachers since we received planning funds lastApril.

Our first session in late April was a good one.We listed all the problems that needed to beaddressed. By the end of the meeting, we feltgood about being able to work together to solvethem.

But a real hitch developed when we tried tofigure out a schedule for meetings during the latespring and summer. Two of the middle schoolteachers had fulltime summer jobs which startedright after school ended. Three fifth-gradeteachers had already paid for package tours toEurope.

We were able to meet twice before the end ofschool and we made some progress in coordina-ting the math program of the elementary andsecondary schools. At our last meeting in thespring, we decided to spend an entire day andevening in late August to see if we could resolvethe tough remaining issues. Several members ofthe charter planning team would be attending athree-day science curriculum institute in July.They might be able to bring back some freshideas that would get us out of the bind of teachingoverlapping science units in fifth and sixth grades.

Well, we had the August meeting. Dr. ClarenceGreen, the school psychologist, chaired the dis-cussions. Dr. Green has no background in eitherof the subjects, but he has considerable skill inhelping people in a group get all their concernsout on the table and then addressing them.

Restructuring School Districts rj

Our day ended with an agreement on foursolutions which we will be trying during the nexttwo years.1. Extend the elementary schools' Developmen-

tal Mathematics Program" up through sixthgrade. The sixth-grade math teachers hadnever examined this program in detail. Theywere pleasantly surprised with the depth of theconcepts and the variety of activities in thiscurriculum. At their request, the distributorprovided a training session which was com-pleted just last week. They will be using partsof the curriculum this year with full implemen-tation scheduled for next September. This,then, in mathematics at least will be quite astrong bridge across the gap between fifth andsixth grades.

2. Establish sets of alternating year theme unitsin science in fourth and fifth grades. Under thisplan, teachers will be covering a common set ofscience units in both grades four and five eachyear. (During the following year, there wouldbe a second set of science units for both grades.And, if this plan works, the two-year sequencecan be continued.) Teachers in the two gradeswill be able to do a lot of things together.

3. Provide a half-time helping teacher in sciencefor grades four and five. Starting in January, Ihave arranged with my middle school principaland the elementary principals and teachers tobe a "helping science teacher" in grades fourand five. My responsibilities will includedeveloping written curriculum for the tentheme units and assisting teachers in gather-ing resources and trying some hands-onapproaches in teaching science.

4. Design and pilot test S MATH-SCIENCESKILLS SUMMARY CARD which will help uskeep track of an individual pupil's progressfrom fifth through eighth grade. We will use

these cards in a meeting each May to shareinformation about individual pupils whichstudents are doing well, who might needChapter I help, and which pupils havecapabilities and motivation which enable themto go way beyond our standard curriculum. Forthese more able pupils, we are developing someindividual and small group independent studyprojects.

This, in a sense, is a two-year plan; but it's notan educational charter. Being in four differentbuildings and having many conflicting school andpersonal schedules made it difficult for us as acharter planning team. We felt very uncomfortableabout moving to the next stage and being a ,har-ter team. We decided not to apply for aneducational charter.

As to the planning money we did not use it tofinance our summer vacations! Page 4 in ourreport spells out exactly how it was used and that$600 of the $1,500 was returned to the CharterPlanning Account...Thank , ou for your time. Iwould be glad to answer any questions...

Dr. Wright was obviously disappointed that thissecond group of teachers decided not to apply foran educational charter. In a way, these teacherswere caught up in a "chicken-before-the-eggtrap." Education by Charter was meant to helpteachers work their way toward being employedfor the whole year; but, in this case, summer jobsand vacation plans made within the context of theold school year prevented teachers from par-ticipating in planning an educational charter.

Dr. White did recognize, however, that theelementary and middle school mah and scienceteachers had resolved a number of sticky pro-blems and had planned to meet each spring tokeep the lines of communication open.


7J

Event 7.Request for educational charter fora humanities program for high schooljuniors and seniors.

Scene

During March 1987 Hometown High School hadits ten-year visit by an accreditation team fromthe Mid-Central Association of Schools andColleges.

As part of this evaluation, members of theaccrediting team made a detailed study of theactual subjects taken by a . epresentative sampleof twenty seniors. After reviewing course selec-tions, each student was interviewed to determinehis/her reasons for choosing the subjects whichhad been taken during high school.

The patterns of courses taken during ninth andtenth grades were rather similar, as pupils weretied into taking numerous required courses. Foreleventh and twelfth grades, however, the pat-terns of courses taken seemed very unpredict-able, even chaotic. The reasons students gave fortheir choices seldom had anything to do with anyinherent academic interest: "Marjorie and Iwanted to be in the same classes we've been inthe same classes ever since third grade;" I didn'ttake Mr. Grey's physics course as I needed tokeep my grade point average up and he givesonly three 'A's' in each class"; "I took an extraacademic class in my junior year so I could coastwhen I became a senior"; etc.

Let's hear the rest of the story from DorothyParker, chairperson of the English Departmentand spokesperson for the Charter Planning Com-mittee, at the January, 1990 meeting of theHometown School Board. Ms. Parker is conclu-ding her remarks about how high school teachersfrom several departments became interested inpossibly starting a humanities program for juniorsand seniors.

...and I guess we could have predicted thereasons our seniors would give for choosing cour-ses during their last two years of high school. Foryears each department had been offering a wholestring of electives which we thought had somebasis in either student interest or would providecontent or skills needed for college or work.Actually, if we're honest with ourselves, our selec-tions were based much more on what we liked toteach or what we felt prepared to teach.

The accreditation team made a strong recom-mendation that the staff study the problem of theproliferation of electives during the junior andsenior years. They charged us with the respon-sibility of coming up with a unifying philosophy orrationale for the educational program for the lasttwo years of high school. One member of the team


I/

thought that "the humanities" would be worthconsidering as a consolidating concept. She gaveus the name and address of a contact person inthe office of the National Endowment for theHumanities.

During the next school year, four of us weresuccessful in applying for funds to attend summerinstitutes. During the summer of 1988, twoteachers participated in "A Collaborative Projectfor the Combined Study of Literature andHistory"; one teacher attended the "SummerInstitute for Pre-Collegiate Instructors in theHumanities"; and the fourth teacher had astrong interest in written composition attendedthe "Humanities and Writing Project."

Early in the fall after the summer institutes,several of us became members of an advisorycommittee which assisted Professor Zwingli atState University in hip application for funding an"Institute for Developing a High SchoolHumanities Program." The application wasapproved and the institute was held this pastsummer. Because Hometown high School wasdesignated in the grant as being a pilot school, wefilled eight of the twenty enrollment slots. Wewere responsible for developing a humanities pro-gram for juniors and seniors for our own nighschool.

With our application for a charter, you wereLach given a copy of the humanities curriculummanual which we wrote last summer. If you willturn to Figure 5 on Page 14, you will see a goodoverview of how the program will start with 50juniors next fall and can be expanded to 200juniors and seniors by 1995-1996. Should theProgram Monitoring and Evaluation Committeemake the judgment that the charter should not berenewed, the program can be phased down duringthe last two years of the charter.

The humanities program will function in half-day time blocks either in the morning or after-noon. This will allow for activities such as: visitingmuseums; doing extended research and writingprojects; writing and rehearsing plays; and invit-ing outside speakers. Once a month the human-ities program will offer an evening seminaror dramatic presentation in which parents andothers from the community would beparticipating.

What will we be tying together in our proposedhumanities program? History, literature, govern-ment, composition, art, dramatics, and, to a cer-tain extent, linguistics and foreign languages.

We had an intense debate within the CharterPlanning Team as to whether or not a studentwould have to have earned at least a "B" averagebefore being admitted to the program. We finallydecided against having any such requirement andin favor of letting students and their parents makethe decision. We are preparing a description ofour program, and, if the school board grants thecharter, we will have an evening meeting withjuniors and their parents a week from Wednesday.

We still have a great deal of work to do. Theteachers who will be teaching courses next yearwill be spending three weeks this summer locat-ing and developing resources for lesson plans.

We sent a copy of our curriculum manual to theMid-Central Association of Schools and Collegesfor inclusion in our accreditation file. Our firstfive years under the educational charter will becompleted well before the next visit of theaccreditation team in the spring of 1997. The finalreport of our Program Monitoring and EvaluationCommittee will demonstrate the effor:.s of thehigh school staff in developing a more soundrationale for the educational program for ourjuniors and seniors.

ri P-1i .


Figure 5. Humanities Program for Juniors and Seniors

Hometown Public Schools - 1991-1996

YEAR STARTINGIN SEPTEMBER

THREEPERIOD TIME BLOCKSMORNING OR AFTERNOON

SOURCES OF MODULES /UNITSCHOSEN AS COMPARISON /CONTRASTTO SELECTED PERIODS INAMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURESTUDENTS TEACHERSI

1991First year

50 Juniors 1 English1 History

1st Semester: Asian Studies2nd Sem,: Western Civilization

1992Second Year

50 Juniors50 Seniors

1 English1 History1 Econ/Gov.1 Art

1st Semester: African Studies2nd Sem: Latin American Studies

1993Third Year

50 Juniors50 Seniors

Same as thesecond year

1st Semester: Asian Studies2nd Sem: Wester' Civilization

1994Fourth Year

100 Juniors*50 Seniors*

Add twoteachers*

1st Semester: African Studies2nd Sem: Latin American STudies

1995Fifth Year

100 Juniors*100 Seniors*

Add two moreteachers*

1st Semester: Asian Studies2nd Sem: Western Civilization

FINAL TWO YEARSIF PROGRAM ISTERMINATED

*Should the Program Monitoring and Evaluation Committee indicateat the end of the third year that it is not likely to recommendthat the Humanities Charter be renewed:

1994Fourth Year

50 Juniors5G Seniors

Same as1992 & 1993

1st Semester: African Studies2nd Sem: Latin American Studies

1995Fifth Year

No Juniors50 Seniors

Same as1991

1st Semester: Asian Studies2nd Sem: Western Civilization

%Each teacher would be 3/5 time.


rfI

59

This, then, is our request for a five-year charterfor a humanities program for high school juniorsand seniors. I will be glad to entertain anyquestions.

The school board was impressed by the amount ofwork that had been done by the Charter PlanningTeam work that had been done over a period offour years. They were pleased that the highschool was getting away from the present chaoticarray of electives for juniors and seniors. Theboard did express a concern that the teachersmay be a bit too ambitious in trying to coversomething like "Asian Studies" in one semester.Ms. Parker assured the board that "Asian _Studies" was simply an area of studies fromwhich highly selective units would be drawn. Amajor criterion for selection would be if a par-ticular unit could be comparatively related tosome era or chapter in American history.

There were no further questions. The hoard votedunanimously to grant a five-year charter for thehigh school humanities program.


Event 8.

Establishing study groups on longerschool year and new K-12 functions.

Scene.

It is now the spring of 1993. Dr. Wright is pleasedwith how well things are progressing under theintitial charters the primary education and thehumanities charters. Teachers on the charterteams as well as those not yet teaching undercharters sense that a new attitude and spiritemerges when teachers realize they have respon-sibility as well as control over what and how theyteach. "Education by Charter" is turning out to bemuch more than some gimmick dreamed up bythe superintendent to motivate teachers to workharder.

A total of twelve educational charters have nowbeen granted. Charters are now operational in allbuildings; several charters are functioning in twobuildings. Five more groups of teachers have beengiven charter planning funds. Dr. Wright expectsthat at least four of these groups will be grantedcharters to start in September, 1993.

It's becoming increasingly evident that somechanges and additions have to be made in thesuperintendent's K-12 staff functions. As present-ly structured, "Curriculum," "Personnel," "PupilPersonnel Services," and the "Business Office"are not able to provide teachers with the kind ofsupport they need to carry out their respon-sibilities under educational charters.

And there's another development that may help

the Hometown Public Schools move more quicklyin accomplishing two intertwined goals in the ten-year plan: having a longer school year for pupilsand making teaching a full year job. During thepast four years, problems within the nationaleconomy have worsened: competition with cnc.)-tries who have lower paid labor forces has inten-sified; robotics and other technology has furtherdecreased the number of manufacturing jobs; andthe national rate of unemployment has risento 12%.

Amerca's need for a more literate and morehighly trained labor force was an important issuedebated in the 1992 election campaign. The can-didate who subsequently won the election took astrong that America could no longerafford a part-time school year for its children. Inlate November, the person heading the newadministration's transition team for educationalaffairs announced that there would be a requestfor about $300,000 of planning money whichwould be given to twenty selected school districtswhich would be willing to develop models :or200+ day school years. Upon approval of plans,larger amounts of money would be made availableto those districts over a five-year period to helpthem to actually move to longer school years. It ishoped that these models, then, would bereplicated throughout the country. The nationalgoal being set was that all schools would be on a200+ day school year by the year 2000.


Dr. Wright decided to use $2,000 of $6,000allocated for K-12 function planning this year tosupport a two-day "Hometown EducationRetreat." The pupose of the retreat would be tostudy how to reorganize his staff functions and tosee if some progress could be made in resolvingthe many sensitive issues involved in lengtheningthe school year. Since nearly half of theteachers of Hometown were already workingthree or more weeks beyond the present schoolyear, Dr. Wright thought it just might be possibleto achieve the full work year for ta.-chers aswell as lengthen the school year for pupils.

Participants in the retreat included: all principals;those presently heading K-12 functions; severalmembers of the school board who had expressedinterest; the Executive Committee of the Home-town Teachers Association; chairpersons fromcharter teams that had been operating at least ayear; parents ---710 had been active on charterplanning or acivisory groups; and a number ofbusiness leaders. The principals had been giventhe responsibility of organizing the retreat.Manfred Johnson, the high school principal, wasdesignated as the person to facilitate the dis-cussions and activities of she retreat.

At the conclur'fng session on Thursday night (firstweek in April, 1993), Mr. Johnson summarizes therecommendations of the various discussiongroups formed to explore all the issues listed atthe start of the retreat the previous day.

This has been a busy two days for us. Rep-resentatives from all the discussion groups haddinner together this evening to see is there wasany "common sense" with regard to areas inwhich we needed to establish study groups.Others around this table can check me to see if Ihave captured the gist of everyone's thinking.

First of all, there are some things that wouldrelate to all of the study groups we would set up.

Applying for planning funds. There is a greatdeal of work to be done by each of the studygroups: considerable staff work will beinvolved; consultants to consult with; reports towrite and type and distribute, etc. This is notgoing to be done PS a volunteer effort. We willbe applying for the "200+ Day School YearPlanning Prfs'?,ct" funds. If successful, thiswould g:ve, _ $12,000 in addition to the $4,060we already have in our budget.

o Having a good mix of people on each studygroup. As you will hear, most of our study areaswill be identified rather simply by a role orviewpoint like "pupils", "teachers", "parents",etc. In each study group, we would like thesame kind of mix as we had in our discussiongroups these past two days. Oh anotherthcught that was expressed at dinner thisevening what a splendid opportunity we havehere to involve some of our high schoolstudents. We think their participation wouldenrich our deliberations as well as be a goodexperience for them.Identifying K-12 functions to support Fducationby Charter. It's been four years since Dr. Wrightintroduced us to Education by Charter. I canremember some of our early reservations, butit's interesting to note that there hasn't beenany suggestion or even a hint that we ought toabandon educational charters and return wwhat we had before. Given the fact thatEducation by Charter is working reasonably

82Educatiov by Charter

well, each study group needs to address thequestion:-"What-K-12-functions-orwhatkindsof services are needed to make Education byCharter even better?"Planning and implementing a 200+ day schoolyear for pupils and a full work year forteachers. Rather than set up a separate studygroup for these topics, we would like to haveeach study group designate one personpreferably somebody with a passion for playingaround with time blocks and calendars to bepart of a "200+ School Day Committee" whichwill try to create this longer school year for allof us to look at. I suggest that Dr. Wright andthe chairperson of the school board co-chairthis committee.Reporting to the community during AmericanEducation Week in early November. This willgive us about five or six months to work andanother month for preparing a printed reportfor the citizens of Hometown. This timingwould allow for including funds for reorganizedK-12 functions in the 19944995 budget. Thenew functions and services, then, could beginJuly 1, 1994. We would also know by that timewhether we would have a reasonable chance forthe operational funds for moving into thelonger .school year starting in 1995-1996.

Areas for study

There are a number of things each study groupwill have to do: to decide whether or not a K-12function is needed; to name the lune:on; to indi-cate if it is a staff function under the superinten-dent or if it is advisory in nature; to list the majorobjectives of the function; to examine the conse-quences for the function if a 200+ day school yearis adopted; and to estimate the annual budgetcost.


The "200+ Day School Year Committee" will becomposed`of one representative from each ,,tudygroup. Its mission will be to design the extendedschool year for pupils and the full work year forprofessional staff. The committee would also pro-pose a timetable and cost estimates for moving inthat direction.

Here then are the eight study areas:1. Program monitoring and evaluation. Under Dr.

Slesher's leadership, Program Monitoring andEvaluation (Stage 5 in the life of an educationalcharter) has already developed into an ongoingK-12 functio- . How well has the "inside-outside" concept worked? Has program mon-itoring and evaluation been a positive force ininsuring that charter teams meet their objec-tives? Are there any changes which could bemade to improve this function?

2. Fields of knowledge and mffor curriculumcategories. With few exceptions, educaticnalcharters are functioning within the traditionalcategories of school curriculum. Should we con-sider a different kind of "big picture" in light ofthe continuing break-up and reorganization ofthe disciplines at the university and researchlevels? How can we take advantage of the newways to both access and build data bases? Howcan we go beyond the mundane, over-generalized, pablum level of texts and materialsnow being provided by commercial publishers?Where do the classroom library, the school andcommunity libraries, and media centers fit intothe learning systems of the next century?

3. Pupils. Can we do more in shaping lessons toindividual learning styles? What ever happenedto P-. Wright's recommendation that everychil.. should have an individual educationalplan? Are the pupils in educational chartersdeveloping independence in learning and start-ing to acquire lifelong learning skills and

8

attitudes? How are the results of state-mandated tests being used? DG we have strongenough ties with human services and lawenforcement agencies?,Have special needspupils been adequately served undereducational charters:

4. Teachers and other professional staff. Do weneed something beyond our present "PersonnelDepartment?" If we move to an extendedschool year, how can we insure that sufficienttime is allowed in a full work year for careerdevelopment and inservice activities? Shouldwe publicize our success stories on how, undereducational charters, teachers are directly link-ing career building with curriculum and pro-gram needs? With teachers having been givenreal contra over instruction, can we not reducethe number of regulations about "conditions ofwork" now in the collective bargaining con-t-act? What are the pros and cons of the entireprofessional staff working the full year? Shouldteachers who want their summers off still havethis as an option?

5. Ethos of the individual school. Has staff moraleand school climate sufferul or been enhancedby virtue of more than half the staff beingteachers uncl:r educational charters? Is a newrole emerging for the principal? If so, what isit? Can the organizational and administrativeskills of the principals be used in any of the K-12 functions?

6. Parents and other citizens. Has there beengenuine and substantial participation byparents and other citizens on Charter PlanningTeams and charter Advisory Committees? Whyhaven't the Homete 'ublic Schools moved

more quickly toward individual plans for learn-ing for each child? What role should parentsplay in all this push for "independent learningprojects"? Are parents and others in the com-munity less likely to be considered "outsiders"by teachers on charter teams? Is the lifelonglearning concept applicable to adults? How canfamilies take vacations if the children are goingto school all of the time?

7. Town and area employers. During the past fouryears, the Hometown Public Schools and thelocal area Chamber of Commerce have beensuccessfu! in establishing a number ofpartnership programs. In a new kind of longerschool year, is there any way in which olderhigh school students could be released for workduring the fall? How would a longer school yearaffect vacation scheduling for workers and theirfamilie&? Cali we find more ways to provide at-risk students with supervised work experien-ces? How can we create a more even, long-termrelationship between schools and thecommunity?

8. Business Department. Having developed aworking multi-year, budgeting/accounting sys-tem as a financial base for educational charters,what more needs to be done? Should the busi-ness office be more of a development office likecolleges have and be more aggressive in findingadditional sources of revenue? Would it be costeffec live to go in with other schools in purchas-;ng supplies and equipment? How can thebuildings be cleaned and maintained if we haveschool all year?

Well, there you have it our summary of whatwe have been doing the past two days. Are thereany questions?


There were several questions one particularlydifficult one. Was it appropriate for the studygroup on personnel to get into anything having todo with the "conditions of work" in the collectivebargaining agreement? After some intense discu-sion, it was decided that it was not appropriate forthe study group to get into this. The negotiatingteams of the teachers association and the schoolboard were aware of what was happening withregard to reorganizing the school district andmoving toward a full work year. It would only benatural that they would take these developmentsinto account in future negotiating sessions. At theend of the discussion period, Mr. Johnson has afinal request of those participating in the retreat.

One other thing before we leave this evening.We need people to work on the::: eight studygroups. We hope chat many of you who havehelped work out this next step for our schools willbe willing to be involved with a study grow'. Andperhaps you can suggest others who are not herewho might be interested and would have a con-tribution to make.

Sufficient consultant and staff support will begiven to each group. We can assure you that youwill be given "thinking time" and, most impor-tantly, you will be helping shape the future ofof education in Hometown.


1

c.-0 0

_.]

66

8 6Education by Charter

Event 9.Recommendations for reorganizedK-12 functions and new "SeptupleSchool/Work Year."

Scene.

The study groups were organized during thesecond and third weeks of April, 1993. Mostgroups were able to have two or three meetingsbefore the end of school; but it was during thehalf-day sessions in late June when most of thework was done. The initial drafts of recommen-dations were completed by July 4.

These initial drafts were helpful to the represen-tatives designated by each study group to serveon the "200+ School Day Committee" which didits work in late August and early September. Asingle proposal for a "Septuple School/Work Year"was taken back to the eight study groups whicnreviewed it as well as used it to make adjustmentsin their own recommendations.

The final report was sent to the printers in earlyOctober. Dr. Wright scheduled its release to thepublic at the final event of "Hometown AmericanEducation Week" during the second week inNove:dber.

Over 800 people gathered in the ballroom of theHometown Sheraton for the Friday evening ban-quet: all employees of the school district, mem-bers of the school board, the entire Chamber ofCommerce, several hundred parents and othercitizens of the community, and the fifteen highschool students who worked on the study groups.

The report has been distributed. ManfredJohnson, high school principal, will be "walking"people through the various sections of the report.


8C

I feel very humble up here behind the podiumintroducing a blueprint for education that so manyof you out there in the audience had a part increating. More than 200 of you (not counting theemployees of the Hometown Public Schools) havebeen or are on charter planning teams and char-ter advisory committees. About 100 of us haveworked rather intensively together on studygroups since last April. And here's our report tothe community a report of our recent accom-plishments as well as our future vision:"ORGANIZING THE HOMETOWN PUBLICSCHOOLS FOR EDUCATION IN THE 21STCENTURY."

Let's walk through tl. together. Dr. Wright hasprovided us with a philosophic statement for theintroduction. In Chapter 1 you find the latest revi-sion of the ten-year plan. A history and detaileddescription of educational charters makes upChapter 2. Included in Chapter 2 is a directory ofall persons who a:e involved in operating chartersas well as a list of e-reryone on charter planningteams. There is also a listing of educational char-ters by schools and general subject areas.

We'll spend most of our time this evening goingover the material in the last three chapters. Theproposed reorganized K-12 functions are des-cribed in Chapter 3. Dr. Wright wrote Chapter 4on Communications and Responsibilities in whichhe has provided us with a new organizationalchart for the school district. He has a ratherunique plan for staffing these functions. Chapter 5contains what is probably the most interestingpart of the r. Art a description of a new kind ofschool year, the "Septuple School Year."

I will give a brief description of the reorganizedK-12 functions and services. Dr. Wright willexplain the new organizational A as well asprovide a plan for staffing the K-12 functions andservices. Ms. Marlene Moore, chairperson of theschool board, will go over the details of the pro-posed new school year.

Reorganized K-12 functions/services

Those of us on the different study groups wereamazed at the various combinations of K-12functions we could come up with once we wereable to break out of our old categories of "cur-riculum," "personnel," "pupil personnelservices," and the "business office."

For the ten-year period starting next fall, weare recommending nine K-12 functions/services.The first four are traditional staff functions,organized in much the same manner as are ourpresent functions. The next three are cooperativefunctions, each of which will be funded jointly bythe school board and another organization. Theeighth function, Program Monitoring and Evalua-tion (already in place), will be funded by theschool board and will continue to f auction in asemi-independent fashion. The ninth function is akind of hidden junction it doesn't even appearon the organizational chart. Perhaps "integrated"is a better word than hidden. This will be acollaborative-type function, with the initialleadership coming from the principals and thesuperintendent.

1. RESOURCES FOR EDUCATION. Among themajor responsibilities to be carried out by thestaff of this function are: multi-year programbudgeting; payroll and benefits; personnel filesand records; negotiations with employee groups;buildings and grounds maintenance; securing and

helping others to secure funds, tapping a varietyof sources; purchasing and monitoring expen-ditures; completing all state, federal, and otherfinancial reports; and publishing instructionalmaterials and curriculum guides as requested byteachers.

A complete word processing center as well as afranchise of "Speedy Copy and Print Shop (withThree Color Capability)" will be housed right inthe new administrative wing which is now beingadded to the middle school.

2. KNOWLEDGE AND CURRICULUM. It iswithin this function that we will continue tostruggle with the changes going on in the dis-ciplinary fields and see if we can narrow the gapbetween the frontiers of research and theclassrooni. We see no reason why today's pupilsshouid be educated on a knowledge base that is atleast twenty years old.

This was the study group of which I was amember. We did come up with an overall struc-ture for curriculum from the middle schoolthrough adult education. Note Figure 6 in thereport: "THE HEXAGON OF KNOWLEDGE FORPERSONS AGE 10 AND OLDER." Educationalcharters can be granted within one of these largecategories or across two oz more categories.

Under this function, teachers would receivehelp in planning and implementing curriculumright down to the daily lesson-plan level if this isneeded. The establishment and maintenance ofprofessional libraries and materials in each build-ing will be a responsibility of the staff of thisfunction.

3. MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER.Obviously this is the function which would pro-vide help for use of the computer, data bases,modums, etc. While this sounds like a goodmodern function for any school district to have,

Educatior by Charter

Figure 6, The Hexagon cf Knowledgefor ersons Age 10 and Older -

Curriculum Structure for theHometown Public Schools1995-2005

COMMUNICATIONSAND

LANGUAGES

ARTS MATHEMATICS,AND SCIENCE AND

HUMANITIES TECHNOLOGY

BUILDINGi.IFELONGLEARNINGSKILLS ANDATTITUDES

PHYSICAL SPORTSAND MENTAL AND THEHEALTH PERFORMING

MAINTENANCE ARTS

VOCATIONALEDUCATIONAND CAREER

PmvELPIPmENT


90

we almost tore ourselves apart trying to figure outjust where this fits into the school districtorganization.

Initially we had this combined with Function 2into "KMTC" standing for knowledge, media,technology, and communications. And when wesplit them apart, we ' idn't know what to do withschool libraries. Were libraries for students linkedclosely with "knowledge" or were they really"data bases?"

Marty of our problems were resolved whensomeone found an old issue (April, 1987) of TheSchool Administrator. In it Lewis Rhodc_s had anarticle entitled "Introducing Technology toSchools -- New Tools Make Cld Tasks Easy, NewOnes Exciting." Dr. Rhodes noted that during thelast half century we may have been using sometechnology but that this really didn't make verymuch difference. But this time the technologicalrevolution is a real revolution it's not a fad,it's here to stay, and it isn't going to go away.

As far as society is concerned, the technology revolutionis not a fad. Actually, we're in the first stage of an evolu-tion. This can be accelerated by what we learn and dotoday, but it can't be stopped.

The process of problem solving with technology must beseen as a continuing activity, a way to continue explor-ing, learning, applying lessons learned, and making newdiscoveries as your uses of technology continue toexpand ptitential limits. Support for this continuing pro-cess in the building means rebular opportunities to focuson problems, exchange thoughts about what's beinglearned to deal with them, and plan new strategies.Document this periodic reflection so that what is beinglearned can be shared with others as well as built on infuture cycles. This documentation can provide the sub-stance to feed a variety of networks among buildings anddistricts...

Through strategic processes like this one, technologycan: empower individuals increasingly frustrated by

their lack of control over their own job destinies, con-nect peers for problem-solving exchanges; provideaccess to information and other resources at the pointand time it's needed; and facilitate tradeoffs on the non-human variables in schooling to make better use of theunique attributes of human beings.

Once introduced in this role, technology is here to stay;and, more importantly, it will bring with it effectiveapplications to enhance student learning."

4. STUDENT LEARNING AND CAREERSERVICES. First of all, this will be the umbrellafor many programs and services now under thedirectors of pupil personnel and special educationservices: special education and Chapter I classes;speech, remedial reading, and psychological ser:vices; personal, vocational, and college counsel-ing; and assessments and testing.

Many of these programs and services have hada "deficit" connotation something had to bemissing or wrong or a student had to be sub-normal or abnormal before services would beavailable to the student. I think we need to turnthis around and place these traditional servicesin a larger, and more positive, context.

If we are now in the "Information Age," thenthis K-12 function can support teachers in fulfill-ing their responsibility of helping studentsacquire the attitudes and skills for lifelong learn-ing. All children not just those with specialneeds should have an "IEP," an IndivilualEducational Plan within which they and theirparents can participate in determining the objec-tives and means of students' education.

I would like to take a moment for a relatedaside. We have to be careful when we talk abouthow we become able to have students accept re-sponsibility for their owr learning. There's noautomatic triggering of student motivation simplyby giving teachers the responsibility and then say-ing to them, "We've given you responsibility for


and control over instruction; now it's up to you tohelp (make) students take responsiblity for andcontrol over their own learning."

Nor does setting up STUDENT LEARNINGAND CAREER SERVICES automatically guaran-tee that six months from now all or moststudents will become avid learners. But let megive you one example of a change that is a goodstart on solving the problem of student passivity.

During the past three years, teachers in a num-ber of charters have been field testing the "A-B-IReport Card." The field test has met with suchenthusiastic response by teachers, students, andparents that we are encouraging all renewals aswell as new charters to incorporate this feature.

What is the A-B-I report card and how does itwork to place responsibility on students? In ourpresent system, many able students are willing tosettle for a "C" because they do not want to putforth the effort to get a higher grade. The presentsystem has a disastrous impact on the at-risk(potential dropout) student who over a period ofyears, starting in elementary school, may receivea whole string of report cards with "D's" and "F's"being the predominate grades. The school does agocd job in labeling this student as a failure andbefore long the student becomes convinced thatthis is true.

In the A-B-I grading system, a teacher respondsonly when a student produces "A" or "B" levelwork. The response to failing or incomplete workis a wise balance between silence and an "I" forincomplete always providing an explanation tothe student of what needs to be done to achieve a"B" or an "A." A whole new set of behaviorscomes into play once the A-B-I report card systemis put into place different behaviors on the partof teachers as well as different behaviors bystudents and their parents. Once this changebecomes universally adopted, we think wehave made progress in changing students'traditionally passive attitude toward learning.

Now to get back to the K-12 staff functions.The first four of these resource support,curriculum planning, media and technology, andstudent learning and career services aretraditional staff functions in a direct line ofresponsibility from the school board to thesuperintendent to the principals.

The next threl K-12 functions wilt still interactwith and provide services to staff in educationalcharters; however, we are calling them "coopera-tive functions" as the staff of each is jointly fun-ded by the Hometown School Board and anotherorganization.

5. EDUCATORS CAREER DEVELOPMENTCENTER. Along with recognizing that teachersmust be responsible for and have control overinstruction, it only follows that the HometownTeachers Association has a responsibility for andshould share in the control over career develop-ment and inservice education activities of itsmembers. It also must be recognized that it is ofgreat importance to the school board and com-munity that these profession-building activities bedirectly connected to the curriculum and servicesneeds of the school district. Thus, the rationalefor 40% funding by the teachers association and60% funding by the school board. It will be theresponsibility of the staff of thecenter to helpprofessionals apply for state, federal, ane nrivatefunding to support workshops and other p -fessional activities.

The school board increased its contributionfrom 50% to 60% so that administrators andspecialists could be included in the group servedby the center.

It's interesting to note that the EDUCATORSCAREER DEVELOPMENT CENTER is the adultcounterpart to STUDENT LEARNING ANDCAREER SERVICES.


6. SCHOOL-BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS. Thisis only a temporary name for this function andreally doesn't represent what we see developingover the long run.

The schools of the county have been invited tobecome charter members of a new County Man-power Development Commission whose mainpurpose will be to tie more closely together thevocational programs of the schools with the pre-sent and future manpower needs of both thepublic and private sectors of the county. School-business partnerships will be encouraged; presenttrade advisory groups will be strengthened; andpublic and privi ,te financing will be sought.

The operating and overhead costs of the com-mission will be shared equally (25% each) by theschools, the %..h ambers of commerce, the laborunions, and the state.

7. CITIZENS EDUCATION COUNCIL. Iencourage you to read pages 115 to 120 in yourreport. Here you'll find a strongly worded state-ment by those who worked on the study group,Parents and Other Citizens.

This group did a detailed questionnaire/interview study of all parents who had par-ticipated on charter planning teams and charteradvisory committees during the past three years.

While the total number of parent participantsseemed to be impressive, 131 in all, their respon-ses as to whether or not they felt like genuineparticipants were less than enthusiastic. They feltlike there had been a lot of rhetoric about parentsfinally being given a real part in the educationalprocess but this simply hasn't happened, atleast not yet. Parents wondered about teacherswanting to work a full "professional year" when90% of the meetings of these groups were heldduring "school hours." Were not teachers awarethat in most families in the mid-1990's both

parents work, and, if they were willing to give uptheir precious evening time, why couldn'tteachers do the same?

And there's another "piece of rhetoric" thatparents wondered about the promise that eachchild, not just the handicapped child each childwould have an "IEP," an Individual EducationalPlan. This was to enable parents to participate insetting the goals and determining the methodsand strategies for their child's education. Progresson this promise has been moving at a snail's pace.

After summarizing the results of the question-naires and interviews, the study group then deter-mined that there were at least three other areasof responsibilities which could be placed with aK-12 parents-citizens function.

First of all, if the new longer school year forpupils is adopted, there are a whole host of ques-tions that this would raise for families:

How would family vacations be handled if theonly vacation weeks given working parentsoccurred when school was in session?Can guides he developed which would helpparents become effective teachers duringvacations?Could school credit be earned on vacation tripsif a project were developed and approved priorto the start of vacation?And how about summer camps? If all the coun-try's schools adopt a longer school year, won'twe be losing a valuable recreational andeducational resource if summer camps go outof business? Why not grant school credit forexperiences such as: Taking tennis or swim-ming lessons from a real "pro?" Losing weightin a controlled environment? Learning to use acomputer at summer camp? Summer campshave become highly specialized and often theexpertise of the uncertified teacher or coun-selor exceeds that of the certified teacher inschool.


This function could provide the forum for work-ing out many of the problems and frustrations offamilies as well as help families see the oppor-tunities which would open up with a longer schoolyear.

A second additional responsibility would be toestablish and maintain a computer-based com-munity resources data bank. We already have astart with our Hometown Volunteers/ResourcesCommittee which began last year. But with justmodest financing from the school board, thiscould become an even more used resource byteachers .s they plan and implement charters.

The third additional responsibility might be tobe in charge of adult education for the HometownPublic Schools. Adult educaton has never thrivedin Hometown and we have some truly richeducational facilities which are under utilizednights and Saturdays. Placing the responsiblity foradult education directly on the shoulders of thosewho might want to participate might just turnthis around.

Organizationally, parents feel like they've hadenough of the PTA's, the PTO's, and the PTS's.They want the structure of this function separatefrom the school district. They plan to form a non-profit corporation for parents and other citizenswho are interested in accomplishing these pur-poses. Tin name proposed: "CITIZENSEDUCATION COUNCIL, INC." Inasmuch as thecouncil will be performing services for teachers aswell as the community, the school board hastentatively agreed to fund 60% of the administra-tive and overhead costs. The council will raise theremaining 40% themselves. In addition, there willbe receipts coming in from adult educationclasses and other activities of the council.

8. PROGRAM MONITORING ANDEVALUATION. No one would have dreamed thatthis K-12 function would have been as effectiveand well ac,epted as it has been. We think thishas been due, in large measure, to Dr. RobertSlescher's ability to personify the "semi-independent" status necessary for this kind ofservice. His skill in being able to form monitoringand evaluation teams with in-depth expertisefrom many fields of endeavor, and from Home-town staff as well as staff from other schooldistricts this has been truly phenomenal.

Dr. Slescher has indicated that he wants to seethe ten-year plan through to its conclusion. Thismeans he will be with us another two years. Bythat time, we hope that technology will be suf-ficiently advanced that he will be able to provideus with a clone of himself to be responsible forthis crucial and critical function!

9, EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ANDCONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROFESSION. This,then, is the "hidden K-12 function." But it's onlyhidden in that it is not shown on the organiza-tional chart. We want to see this functionintegrated into, intertwined with, every charter,every K-12 function, and every service in theschool district.

Many of us here today were present at a meet-ing five years ago at which time Dr. Wright sharedhis views on how educational research needed tobe solidly based in the school district. (I believehe made the speech prior to his being employedas superintendent.) Well, now we have the oppor-tunity to see if we can do this.

We see at least four levels of educationalresearch/professional contributions which couldspring out of/or be fuzed into school district


needs. And activities at all four levels would belinking teachers' and administrators' long-termcareer plans with school district needs and prob-blems. The fourth level, in particular, fits in withour mission to help pupils become independent,lifelong learners.1. Doctoral and masters levels research focusing

on topics and situations which are in need ofscholarly study.

2. Classroom action research projects set up withresources provided to educational charters.These would be highly specific projects: "Let'stry this for three months and observe whathappens" kind of projects which would prob-ably be started and completed within oneschool year.

3. Contributions to the profession would includesuch activities as: writing for educational andsubject field journals; authoring instructionalmaterials which may be used in other schooldistricts as well as in Hometown; creatingvideo and multi-media presentations; and pre-paring and delivering an address presenta-tion at a state or national meeting.

4. Providing leadership and support for individualor small groups of students involved inresearch-type independent study projects.At all four levels, the products would hopefully

help solve or provide additional data about aschool district or curriculum problem and havesome usefulness outside the school district.

There are no plans to employ a director or setup an office for this function. Rathe , initially atleast, the superintendent and principals (as part oftheir responsi Ality for supporting and improvinginstruction) will provide the leadership. They willmeet with individual and small groups of teachersand other professionals. Products coming out ofthese efforts will be publicized within as well asoutside the school district.

Well, ..there are the nine new or reorganizedK-12 functions. Thank you for your patience. NowI'd like to turn the mike over to Dr. Wright whowill help us see how these functions can be tiedtogether in a new "wrap-around" organizz .onalchart of the Hometown Public Schools.


New Organizational Chart

Thank you, Manfred. Tying all this together intoan organizational chart didn't come easily. As we'corked through the spring and into the summer,it seemed like our study groups were going off intoo many directions I didn't see how anyonewould be able to capture our new structureon paper in a way that would make sense toany of us.

I started getting cold feet about Labor Day.There were only four weeks left before thedeadline for submitting the final copy of ourreport to the printer. And still, no visual concepthad surfaced at least not to me. So I decided toinvite the principals, the study group chairper-sons, and anyone else who had a passion fordrawing charts to my home for an evening to sim-ply "do it!"

With the help of several gallons of coffee, wefinally came up with the first draft of whatultimately became Figure 7, ORGANIZATIONALRELATIONSHIPS HOMETOWN PUBLICSCHOOLS. Let me point out the features of thisproposed organization.

1. Pupils and teachers via the vehicle ofeducational charters are at the center of thisorganizational chart rather than being at thebottom as is the case on most school districtorganizational charts. This is as it should be.Learning and teaching are why we're inbusiness we should be able to expressvisually what we want in reality.

2. The solid arrows indicate direct control as wellas a flow of resources from the school board,i.e., a solid arrow indicates that the schoolboard has direct control over teachers andother staff through charter agreements. Thesolid arrow also indicates that it funds theeducational programs and services of chartersdirectly.

3. Note also the solid arrows from the boardthrough the superintendent and principals tothe staff of the first four functions starting atthe upper right. These are the superintendent'sregular staff functions, organizationally similarto present K-12 functions.

4 The dotted arrows indicate cooperativerelationships between the school board andother organizations and partial funding of theseorganizations by the school board, theorganizations being the Hometown TeachersAssociation, the County Manpower Develop-ment Commission, and the Citizens EducationCouncil, Inc.

5. The solid arrow from the board to PROGRAMMONITORING AND EVALUATION indicatesfull funding of this function even though thestaff of this function operates in a semi-independent fashion.

6. The "sausage-shaped" symbols with dottedarrows indicate "providing services for" and"interacting with" teachers working ineducational charters. (One person said thissymbol looked much more like a lightedfirecracker than a sausage!)

7. Our hidden K-12 function, EDUCATHONALRESEARCH AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEPROFESSION, obviously does not appear onthe chart as we see this activity happening inany box or within any role on the wrap-aroundorganizational chart.

There's one other dimension we tried to showon the chart but it would have made it tooconfusing. (Perhaps we need a second chart.)Organizationally speaking, each of the K-12functions "sits on the boundary" between theschool district and institutions, agencies and otherentities in its environment. The K-12 functionsare windows to, and connections with, the outsideworld.

The K-12 functions perform this very necessaryrole of bringing into the school district intellec-tual, people, and money resources from the out-side, i.e., RESOURCES FOR EDUCATION is thefunnel for money from a number of sources aswell as being connected with the business worldand the printing and graphic arts industry;KNOWLEDGE AND CURRICULUM has deeproots in the discipline of epistemology; theSTUDENT LEARNING AND CAREER CENTERdraws on the many sub-fields of psychology,including the emerging psycho-neurosciences, etc.


4WRAP-AROUND"ORGANIZATIONAL CHART

PROGRAM MONITORING4

AND EVALUATION

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Figure 7. Organizational Relationships,Hometown Public Schools1995-2005

ICODE190 DIRECT AUTHOR I TY-- j COOPERATIVE RELATIONSHIP

6ME2)- SERV I tES TO CHARTERS

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CITIZENSEDUCATIONONotk10-ilb.

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HOMETOWNSCHOOL BOARD

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PUPILS AND TEACHERS

UNDER THREETOFIVEYEAR

EDUCATIONAL CHARTERS

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STUDENTLEARNING ANDCAREERSERVICES

SUPERINTENDENT

PRINCIPALS

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98

Plan for staffing K-12 functions

Let me close with our plan for staffing the K-12

functions. This will lead right into Ms. Moore'sproposal for the longer school year.

The longer school year for pupils will help usgo most of the way toward a full work year forteachers. Should teachers be expected to teachpupils 200, 210, perhaps 220 days a year? Some ofus might thrive on this but most teachers, I think,would want some other professional assignmentfor part of the time.

With the introduction of educational charters,teachers have assumed many professional level,non-teaching tasks, such as: doing staff work forthe charter team; creating text and referencematerials from original sources; taking coursesand workshops to keep up with a changing field;etc.

Using teachers to staff the K-12 functions willenable us to virtually multiply the number of highlevel, professional, non-classroom responsiblitiesteachers can assume. We will still need perma-nent secretaries and other support staff as we donow. And we will have an occasional need for thehigh level of expertise of persons who are not cer-tified as teachers such as a consultant psychiatristor a maintenance technician for our expandingcomputer systems. But with the exception ofthe persons in charge of the CITIZENSEDUCATIONAL COUNCIL and PROGRAMMONITORING AND EVALUATION, all adminis-trative and professional level responsibilities willbe filled by Hometown teachers.

What an exciting opportunity we have! Our 238teachers in Hometown are a very diverse groupwith an almost limitless variety of talents andskills. And I think we can fit this variety of talentsand skills into the qualifications of personsneeded to keep the K-12 functions alive andhealthy. There's a basic question here and I can

see some of you ready to ask it: How do we keepgood services coming from these functions withpeople rotating in and out of these positions all ofthe time?

Well, here's another place where we meshtogether teachers' long-term career plans with theongoing needs of the school district. And, ofcourse, we have to balance the pace of rotationthrough positions with the need for stability inproviding services.

Arbitrary limits need to be placed on the lengthof time a person can fill any non-teaching pro-fessional role: superintendent, ten years withno renewal; principal, seven years with theoption to reapply for a second seven-year termafter a year or more of classroom teaching;assistant principal, three years with norenewal; assistant superintendents, directorsand professional positions within functions,three to five years with no repeating in thesame position.Teachers must be duly accredited and/or other-wise qualified before they would be placed inany non-teaching leadership responsiblity.When necessary and within the designatedtime frame, a teacher might intern for a term orpart of a term under the teacher who would beleaving the position.In some instances, a person might teach part-time and hold a non-teaching position therest of the time.A teacher leaving a counseling, specialist, oradministrative position would simply rotateback into teaching. If possible, this would occurat the time a new charter was being planned oran existing charter was being renewed.

Our last K-12 director, Mr. Knowles who was avery able business manager for 35 years, retiredlast year. He has not been replaced. I think we


have a number of good teachers who have thequalifications for this position and would enjoythe change for three or four years. We can makethis work providing everyone is on the samesalary schedule. We would continue to grant stepsfor years of experience and stipends for advanceddegrees. In addition, people would be paid for theamount of time they worked during the year asyou will hear from Ms. Moore, this will vary con-siderably for some time to come. We need to worktoward a situation where a teacher can rotate intoan administrative position and back to teachingwith no loss of compensation. (The principalshave recommended that they be given bonuseseach year for "hazardous duty!")

Let me mention a serendipity in all this. Ateacher aspiring to be a full-time administratorusually has a great deal of difficulty moving fromthe ranks of teaching into administration. Havingthe opportunity to be an assistant principal forthree years or an assistant superintendent for fiveyears would give that person a strong advantagein applying for an administrative position inanother school district. It's not that we want tolose good people, but if a person has set as acareer goal that of becoming a permanentadministrator, we can help that person fulfill thatgoal and also achieve a healthy rate of attritionand replacement for the Hometown PublicSchools.

Well, I guess I got a bit off the organizationalchart! But our being able to provide exciting andchallenging non-classroom options for teachersas a part of their long-term career plans is animportant ingredient in our moving toward alonger school year for pupils and a full work yearfor teachers... So, Ms. Moore, tell us what this"Septuple School Calendar" is all about...


The "Septuple School Calendar"

Thank you, Dr. Wright, I'm the lucky one onthis panel as I can share with you the only truesurprise of the evening. As this was the last majortask completed working out a proposal for anew school year we decided against sending upany trial balloons and thought it would be betterand more appropriate co present our plan to thecommunity this evening.

Our "Longer School Year Study Group"cametogether after all the other study groups com-pleted their work. The group included a chairper-son or representative from each study group andany other member of any study group who wasparticularly intrigued with working on this mostdifficult problem.

Considerations in planning new school year

We started off with this basic premise: this newschool year had to be an American school year,grounded in and formed out of the dynamics ofAmerican culture at the turn of a new century. Itsimply would not work to just adapt a Britishschool year or a Japanese school year or a Russianschool year.

First of all, we didn't think Hometown familieswould want to send their children to school onSaturday. This is one way many countries are ableto achieve their longer school year. In fact, in ourstudy of the problem, we learned that a number ofcountries of eastern Europe (including a repub-lic of the USSR, Latvia) are discontinuing

school nn Saturday as the workplace adoptsa five-day work week. This results in theiractually shortening their school years! Theirrationale for this is that no school on Saturdaymeans many more hours of family time. Thisincrease in time for families to be together willbring more stability for families and this benefitto society will more than offset any loss ineducation.

Our present school year has for its rationale theneed for farm families to have their children freeto work during planting, growing, and harvestingseasons. This is no longer a viable rationale asfewer than 3% of Americans now live on farms.

What then is the rationale for a new longerAmerican school year? After only a short discus-sion, we agreed on what seems very obvious to usnow: Americans love holidays and the longweekends which frequently go along withholidays! Why not use holidays for beginning,ending, and/or breakin,g points for the varioussegments of the school year?

We also wanted to do something about the longstretches of school and vacation times we had inour prese -t year. The fall semester isn't badwith numerous breaks for Columbus Day,Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Christmas, NewYears Day, and Martin Luther King Day. But thestretch of time after that seems intolerably long.And we tend to grind ourselves down by earlyMay and we all kind of, psychologically at least,throw in the towel and look for things to start

_afresh again in September.


I 0 2,

And have you ever noticed how children starthanging around school buildings about the secondweek in August? They want to know who theirnew teachers are going to be and what their newrooms look like. Many (not all) by then are tiredof the long summer vacation. They have doneeverything there is to do and they're ready for thenew school year to begin. (Have to be careful notto generalize here!)

The parents in our group were adament indoing away with "Curriculum Days," "Parent-Teacher Conference Days," and any other form of"Release Day" or "Release Half Day." Every timeschool closes for these types of activities, familiesby the hundreds have to scurry around tomake some kind of temporary arrangement forchildcare or turn their children into "latchkeykids" for the day.

Parents did concede, however, that they wouldhave to make childcare accommodations for snowdays and other emergency conditions. And on arelated point, none of us thought it made muchsense to add on school days in June should thenumber of emergency days exceed the limit setby the state.

Along with devising the new school year, weknew we would have to come up with a differentcredit system for the high school if the Car-negie Unit did not fit our use of time in thenew school year.

And finally, we wanted a truly significant

increase in the number of days school would be insession just adding five or ten days would notdo. We wanted a new school year with more than200 days of class, possibly 210 or 220 days ofclass.

With these considerations in mind, we set outon our task. We were especially interested infiguring out a school year which was built aroundthe base 10. But base 10 didn't take us anywhere:we were trying to get away from our present90-day semesters; 80-day terms wouldn't give usenough days; and 100-day school terms didn'tseem to fit anywhere.

Usefulness of Base 7

Just when we seemed to be real stuck, our hon-ors math student, Ricardo Baldez (he had beenthe student member on the Pupil Study Group),suggested that we try 7 instead of 10 as a base.He had taken the problem home with him andhad actually developed a rough plan using sevendays instead of ten as the base factor.

Ricardo showed us a diagram of his plan. Andthen we tested it out with the most difficult kindof year a year in which July 4 was on aThursday and Christmas and New Years Day fellon Wednesdays. The year 1996-1997 was sucha year. If Ricardo's Base 7 plan fit 1.996-1997,then it could be easily adjusted to fit any year.

Sure enough, it worked and we saw that it wasnot necessary that all terms during the year be of


1.0 3

the same length; however, the lengths of terms aswell as the parts of each of the terms are all divis-ible by seven. (See Figure 8d.)

July Term. 21 days long, with possible useof 7- and 14-day blocks of time.August, October, January, and March Terms.Each 42 days long, with possible use of 7-,14-, 21-, 28-, and 35-day blocks of time.May Term. 28 days long, with possible use of 7-,14-, and 21-day blocks of time.We suggested that this be called the "Valdez

Model," but Ricardo thought it would be moreimportant to emphasize Base 7 and call it the"Septuple School Calendar."

There are a number of other fits that we didnot initially set out to achieve:

Except for occasionally ending the May Termon July 1 or July 2, the school year and thefiscal year coincide.As noted, the August and October Terms andthe January and March Terms combine intonearly the equivalent of present semesters andif added together, come close to being a presenttotal school year.The double-term combinations also coincidewith the fall and winter terms of all the collegesand universities in the area. This would pro-vide us with a more efficient timeframe withinwhich to grant "half-year" sabbaticals.Excess snow days (or other emergency days),could be made up at the end of the October andJanuary terms rather than in June.

Analysis of the use of weekdays

In Figure 9 are the results of our analysis ofhow all the weekdays between July 1, 1996 andJune 30, 1997 would be used under the SeptupleSchool Calendar. There are 217 days on which


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Figure 3. Septuple School Calendar 1996-1997 School Year*

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Hometown Public Schools

JULY TERM - 21 DAYS

Starts Last dayW, July 101

1

W, Aug. 7

AuousT TERmLzvAYg.Starts hiannEAK Last dayW, Aug.14

I

F, Oct.11i 1

OCTOBER TERM - 42 DAYS

MAY ORK8A. .kirR Last dayTHANK5GVGStarts urTERANN TN

I

WREAK F, Dec.20M, Oct.21

JANUARY TERM - 42 DAYS

Starts DAYM, Jan.6

BREAKPREHIDENT5DAY BREAK Last day

Th,March 6

MARCH TERM - 42 DAYS

Starts

M, March 171

MIDTERM LONGWK END BREAK

I t

Last dayW, May 14

MAY TERM - 28 DAYSMEmORtAL

Starts DAY WREAKW, May 21

I

LONGWK EN° Last dayMID -'JUNE T,July

1

1

105

* Each term is precededby two days for planning

time for teachers andother staff.

classes could be in session; however, fewstudents would attend school for every one ofthose 217 days. For many students, there wouldbe many hours of non-classroom small group andindividual study projects. In addition, schoolcredit would be given for activities such as:supervised work experiences; educationalexperiences in recreational and summer campprograms; and education travel projects under-taken during family time.

The contract year for teachers. would increasefrom 186 to 229 days. And, again, not all teacherswould teach 217 days (two days of planning tim.:precede each of the six terms). Note also thatteachers would have the equivalent of 22 days ofvacation time. This amount exceeds four weeksand is a substantially greater number of days thanmost of the rest of us have after we've worked tenor fifteen years in business or industry. I'm surethere would be ways to negotiate tradeoffs andleave without pay for teachers who wanted longeror different periods of time for vacation.

Working toward a full year for teachers

But wait, don't expect this 229-day work yearfor teachers yet. As of now, we don't have thefunding; however, we do stand a good chance tobe designated as one of the twenty school districtsin the country to pilot new formats for a longerschool year. If we're successful here, we wouldhave considerable financial support for five years.

Some of our veteran teachers who are close toretirement may still want their summers entirelyfree. That's fine this will also help us make thetransition. And we're not sure the July Termwould materialize right away. This means wecould go to an interim step of 206 work days formost teachers. The 229-day school year wouldform the base for the school year for teachers whomight be doing staff work for educational chartersand for the principals and the superintendent.

1 ti CEducation by Charter

Figure 9. Analysis of 261 Weekdays - Fiscal/School Year

Starting July 1, 1996 and Ending June 30, 1997

NUMBER OF WEEKDAYS FROM PRE-TERM niLANNING TO START OF NEXT TERM

SCHOOLTERM

PRE-TERMPLANNING

CLASSES INSESSION

NATIONALHOLIDAYS

TEACHERSNOT WORKING

PREVIOUSMAY

0 1*

ENDS JULY 1

1

JULY 43

JULY 2,3,5

JULY 2

JULN ,9

21

JULY 10-AUG.70 2

AUG.8,9

AUGUST 2

AUG.12,13

42

AUG.14- OCT.11

2

SEPT.2

2

OCT.15,I6

OC""OBER 2

OCT.17,1842

OCT.2I-DEC.20

4

NOV.I1 28,

DEC.25JAN.!

7NOV .29

.23,24,26,27,30,31

JANUARY 2

JAN.2,3

42

JAI -MARCH 6

2

JAN.20FEB.17

4

MARCH 7,10,11 12

MARCH 2

MARCH 13,1442

MARCH 17-MAY 140 3

APRIL 14MAY 15,16

MAY 2

MAY 19,20

27**

MAY 21-JULY 1

1

MAY 26

1

JUNE 16

TOTALS 12 217 10 22

G'RAND TOTAL = 261 WEEKDAYS

* Offsets May, 1997 tern ending on July 1, 1997

** May Term is actually 2Ei days long,27 of which are in this fiscal/school year.

Figure 10. Septuple Credit System

(210 Contact Hours = 1.0 "S" Unit)

Determining graduation credits

The real beauty of Base 7 came through whenwe saw how it became a base for the "SeptupleCredit System." (See Figure 10 in the report.)Notice how multiples of 7 can be translated backinto decimals when connected with various num-bers of contact hours, all the contact hours beingdivisible by 7.

Some of us argued for a higher number of"S Units" for graduation; others felt that thiswould lay too heavy a burden on averagestudents. After all, with most charters now usingthe A-B-I Report Card, only work of "B" qualityor higher would be given credit.

Variety of course/credit combinations

There are many ways in which this time/creditsystem can be used in planning the timeframework for courses and workshops. Some ofthe combinations are spelled out in Figure 11. Notall of these combinations would be used rightaway. At the heart of most high school students'school year would be five or six courses a dayduring the double terms starting in August andJanuary. There would be considerable variety inthe different combinations which would be offeredduring May Term.

As I indicated at the outset, this was the lastpart of the report completed and this is yourfirst chance to find out about it. We encourage youto study the plan carefully. We expect that therewill be a great deal of discussion about the Septu-ple School Calendar. Start talking about it in the45-minute discussion period which Mr. Johnson isgoing to tell you about. I appreciate the attentionyou have given to hearing about something veryimportant to all the people of our community.

CONTACTHOURS

`'S/'

UNITS

21 .1

42 .2

63 .3

84 .4

105 .5

126 .6

147 .7

168 .8

189 .9

210 1.0

CONTACTHOURS

'''S''

UNITS

252 1.2

294 1.4

336 1.6

37P 1.8

420 2.0

462 2.2

504 2.4

546 2.6

588 2.8

630 3.0

Notes: 1. Full school year for a secondarystudent: Five one-hour classesfor 210 days.

2. High school graduation require-ment:

210 day school yearx 5 one-hour classesx 4 years

= -.T2T6 hours

-4.210 hours20 "S" Units

3."S"Units for approved independentstudy projects and nonHschoollearning projects determined byabove formula plus an adjustmentfor homework time.

1 0 C

Figure 11. "S" Units of Credit for Various Length CoursesDuring Terms of Different Length

SCHOOLTERM

COURSE OR COURSES

HOURSPER DAY

NUMBEROF DAYS

TOTALHOURS

'Sif

UNITS

July Term 6 7 42 .2

21 Days 6 14 84 .4

3 21 63 .3

Any 1 21 21 .1

of the 1 42 42 .2

42-Day 2 42 84 .4

Terms 3 42 126 .6

5 42 210 1.0

Two1 84 P4 .4

ConSecutive 2 84 168 .842-Day 3 84 252 1.2Terms 5 84 420 2.0

Four 1 168 168 .8Consecutive 2 168 336 1.642-Day 3 168 504 2.4Terms 5 168 840 4.0

May Term 3 7 21 .1

28 Days 6 7 42 .23 14 42 .26 14 84 .41.5 28 42 .2

3 28 84 .4

4.5 28 126 .6


Thank you, Ms. Moore, and thank you,Dr. Wright. Before I tell you how we are going toorganize ourselves for the last event of the eve-ning, let me explain the sequence of eventsafter tonight.

First of all, take your report home with you.Read it carefully. Many, many hours of workby many people have gone into this venture.The Hometown Chronicle will reprint the reportin its entirety one section at a time over thenext six weeks. The editor will be setting asidetwo full pages for "Letters to the Editor" eachweek. We encourage each of you to write to theChronicle as well as to Ms. Moire directly.

Our steering committee will read and study allof your responses, including the immediate feed-back you give us tonight. We will use these inmaking revisions and developing policy state-ments for the Hometown School Board toconsider. The school board will be schedulingmeetings at each school during the month ofFebruary to obtain the views of the community onthe policy statements. Action will be taken on theproposed policies at the March meeting of theboard.

Now, as to the conclusion of our evening. We'regoing to open the two large conference rooms oneither sic'° of the ballroom. I've asked some 80persons who have been in the study groups toscatter themselves around this huge area. You cantell who they are each of them will have a signon a stick wnich reads, "Small Group Secretary."They will have notepaper and pencil in hand forthe eight to ten people who will gather aroundeach of them to form a discussion group. We willnot reconvene again as one group. The secretarieswill be responsible for giving the steering commit-tee unsummarized lists of comments and recom-mendations... Thank you for coming out thisevening I will indicate when the 45 minutes areover; by my watch that should be about 10:15....

Most people who had come for the presentationsstayed for the 45-minute feedback session.

There was discussion about most of the main topicsin the report; however, people were much moreintense when it came around to talking about thelonger school year. This was the one topic whichtouched virtually everyone in the community inone way or another.

At the conclusion of the 45-minute period,Mr. Johnson rang an old-fashioned hand schoolbell. Even though many shades of opinion had beenexpressed, Mr. Johnson could sense that peoplehad an optimistic, positive feeling about the eveningas they left. They realized that Hometown had someimportant issues to face and that the report andpresentations had addressed these issues in awell ,thought-out and forceful manner.


Event 10.Superintendent Wright reminisces aboutthe past ten years and starts thinking abouthis future.

Scene.

It's a chilly Wednesday evening in mid-November,1998. Bill Wright is at home stretching out in hisfavorite lounge chair in front of the fireplace inthe den. He's thinking over what has happened inthe Hometown Public Schools since he took overas superintendent in July of 1989.

It has been five years since the community ban-quet at the Sheraton where the final plans forreorganizing the school district were unveiled andthe Septuple School Calendar was introduced.This seAmed to have been the pivotal event of histime in Hometown.

Early in January, 1994, the school board wasnotified that the Hometown Public Schools hadbeen designated as one of the twenty school dis-tricts to pilot test longer school years. This meantthat the Septuple School Year had an excellentchance of materializing in Hometown.

Bill remembered his struggle with the grantofficer to change the "shape" of the grant. Theplan was to give each school district decreasingamounts each year over the five-year period:$500,000, $350,000, $250,000, $150,000, and$100,000. He made three trips to Washf:;gton toplead his case for a "more bell-shaped curve" dis-tribution of funds: $150,000, $300,000, $450,000,$300,000, and $150,000. He argued persuasivelythat this would allow Hometown to do a numberof things: expand curriculum in a more measured

and meaningful way; develop strategies to attractstudents into classes and workshops during theMay and July terms; expand the resource base forindependent study projects and other means forpupils to study and learn in non-classroommodes; and implement a local tax-supportedbonus plan to encourage twenty-three teachers toretire during the first three years of the grant.

The Office of Education finally bought hisarguments in fact, they were so persuaded thatthey encouraged six other pilot districts to acceptthe same bell-shaped curve pattern of funding.

And now, in the fall of 1998, it was decision timefor Bill Wright. The ten years he himself had setas the limit that a superintendent should remainin one school district was fast coming to an end.Thoughts of the future kept mixing in with thereminiscences of the past. . . .Let's listen in onBill's monologue to himself. . . .

Superintendents should have the right to talk tothemselves. We spend so much of our time talkingto, at, and through other people. And the rest ofthe time we're on the receiving end of otherpeople's talk! Anyway, it's kind of relaxing to talkto yourself and really know just about every-


thing there is to know about the person you'retalking to!

I have to admit that I had my doubts back therein 1989 as to whether or not what I was proposingreally could be explained to a school staff and aschool board. And if they understood it, wouldthey buy it?

The initial responses to my invitation to par-ticipate in planning educational charters was mod-est to say the least. But why should they trustme and more importantly, was the idea thatteachers would be in charge of instruction forreal? Did I have something up my sleeve andwould the school board back me up at crunch timeif a group of teachers fell flat on their faces?

Well, thank goodness, that never happened. Butthe most discouraging thing to me was that therewere so many teachers in Hometown who wantedno part in curriculum planning and makingdecisions about things which were crucial toteaching. And this was a bit ironic in that theHometown Teachers Association had demandedfor years that teachers have more say on instruc-tional matters.

Fortunately, there were a number of bravesouls who took up the challenge. Eventually thebalance was tipped when more and more teachersdecided to follow their lead in planning andimplementing educational charters.

I don't think the longer school year would havebeen possible had not teachers already been ableto develop some good long-range planning skillsthrough their involvement with charters. Withouthaving had this kind of responsibility andexperience, teachers would have had a great dealof difficulty dealing with questions like: If weexpand the school year from 180 to 210 days (anincrease of one sixth), how do we "increase"curriculum? Do we hold content to what we arebarely able to cover now and teach this moreintensively? Do we introduce more subjects or

units? How do we organize the short-termworkshops and courses for the May and Julyterms? Should we go for more process rather thanmore content? It was the teachers' ability todevelop creative responses to these kinds of ques-tions which put some real substance into ourrequest to be designated as one of the twentypilot school districts.

A number of people have asked me, "Bill, didyou have all this worked out before you came toHometown?" as if I had some kind of secret battleplan in the bottom desk drawer which I could turnto each week and see what my next move wasgoing to be!

I guess I can say to myself, at least, it wasn'tlike that at all. I did come in with a strong mis-sionary zeal that teachers had to be given (or evenforced to be made to take) responsibility forinstruction and that educational charters mightjust be the vehicle to make this happen.

But once educational charters took hold, otherthings no longer seemed to fit. From this I sawthe necessity of restructuring the K-12 functions.The fact that the longer school year was a plank inthe platform of the winning political party in 1992gave us some impetus for going all the way increating a new organization for the Hometownschools.

I would never have guessed the amount ofenergy created when teachers realized that theycould conceptualize and carry out an interestingand varied five-to-ten-year career plan whichincluded: classroom teaching; planning andcurriculum development activities; actually creat-ing instructional materials which they could useand which might be of use in other school dis-tricts; and serving a two or three-year stint as anadministrator or specialist. And this kind ofenvironment helped them to see that classroomteaching was the paramount activity of the schooldistrict always at the very center of things.


They could leave teaching for a period of time andalways come back to the classroom without anyloss of pay or status.

And now, what about myself? I've really goneout on a limb by espousing that ten years is themaximum length of time a person should besuperintendent of the same school district.Hometown has been a challenging place to workand our family really enjoys living here and ourchildren are just now realizing the excitement ofrevitalized classes and schools. Four of the fivemembers of the school board have let me knowthat they are ready to offer me another five yearcontract.

But perhaps the point of view of the fifth personon the school board is more important to me.When Ms. Moore decided not to seek anotherterm, a Ms. Blackburn won out over a fieldof five candidates in a campaign in which sheemphasized, "Too many things have happened inthe Hometown schools in the past few years. It'stime to slow down and consolidate all the gainswe have made." I think you can guess what shemeant by "consolidate" and "gains."

Well, I'm not without opportunities. I'm one offive finalists for the position of superintendent forRiver City (population 125,000). The proposedsalary of $105,000 is rather attractive when I com-pare it to what I'm making now. I purposely helddown my own salary in order to achieve a singlesalary schedule for teachers, specialists, andadministrators.

I have already been offered the position ofchairperson of the Department of EducationalAdministration and Leadership at StateUniversity. There would be no increase in payhere, but it would give me a chance to do somewriting and research on school districtorganization.

And I'm attracted to a position which has justopened up in the U.S. Office of Education, that of

heading the federal effort to help states imple-ment the best features of the new, longer schoolyears piloted by the twenty school districts. Idon't think this would be a politically vulnerableposition. Could any administration back awayfrom the present national commitment to move allpublic education to a 210+ day school year? If Idid a reasonably good job with this, I don't think Iwould be replaced if there were a change inadministration. Or would I? I might just be intosome wishful thinking here!

I've never been strong on security for myself.I'm much too restless to let "holding on to a job"dominate any decision about the future. Fourchoices, not bad for an adminstrator who has justcelebrated his 45th birthday...Maybe I shouldheed the advice I gave my teachers in our careerplanning seminars: "The next step is importantbic the step after the next step is crucial!"

Where will today's decision at 45 years of ageleave me at the end of the next five or ten years?Got to think and plan long range, you know....

Bill started to doze. The monologue changed fromcoherent talk to muttering to himself and dream-ing about what has been and what is to be. . .beingsatisfied about what he had accomplished butfeeling a bit unsure as to what future path tofollow.. .


3

We build houses,and then they build us.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Summary and Other Considerations95 Meeting the twelve goals of reorganization

97 Other strategies for reorganizing a school district

97 Cost of reorganizing a school district

98 Reorganizing the school district as well as schools

99 Relationship to other proposed reforms

99 The real essence of organization

93

94

'7


Summary and Other Considerations

We leave Dr. Wright dozing and dreaming infront of the slowly dying fire...

To summarize, we'll examine the extent towhich the twelve goals of school districtreorganization have been accomplished (or havethe possibility of being accomplished) within thenew organization of the Hometown PublicSchools. Then we'll conclude with a num-ber of ideas related to reorganizing :,:-hootdistricts.

Meeting the twelve goals of reorganization

Let's admit here that we're dealing with astacked deck. The author developed the twelvegoals which a school board and educationalstaff should be able to accomplish within theframework of a reorganized school district.He then wrote the "case study" of how oneDr. Wright, within a ten-year period, provided theleadership for totally reorganizing the HometownPublic Schools. It would be strange, indeed, ifthere were little or no relationship between thefeatures of the new Hometown Public Schools andthe goals for reorganizing the American schooldistrict.

With your forbearance then, here are somecomments on how certain features of the neworganization help the Hometown Public Schoolsaccomplish the goals of reorganization. (SeePage 18 for the initial wording of the goals forreorganization.) Where there are strong connec-tions between or among features and goals, two orthree goals are considered togs. lier.

Goal .1. Teachers are given responsibility for andcontrol over instruction through the mechanismcf e4ucational charters. Educational chartersallow groups of teachers to receive direct fundingfrom the school board for planning andimplementing plans for instruction. All nine of theK-12 functions support teachers in their efforts tocarry: out the provisions of their educationalcharters.

Goal 2. If teachers are given control over teaching,it follows that teachers must accept as their firstoi;',..ity helping pupils take responsibility for theirlearning and behavior. This also implies thatteachers must make sure that the manner inwhich pupils accept these responsibilities happensin such a way that pupils develop skills and buildattitudes to become lifelong learners. Two K-12functions in particular were established to supportstudents in these efforts: STUDENT LEARNINGAND CAREER SERVICES and CITIZENSEDUCATION COUNCIL. A yet to be achievedgoal of the Hometown Public Schools is thedevelopment and use of individual educationalplans for all students.

Goals 3, 4, and 5. Within a long 2r school year andover a period of years, Hometown teachers, withintheir areas of interest and fields of qualification,are given opportunities to take on varied, non -teaching, professional-level responsibilities. To dothis, goals of teachers' long-term career plans arelinked with curriculum, program, and servicesneeds of the school district. 'lb support this, theschool board and the Hometown Teachers


Association cooperatively operate and jointly fundthe EDUCATORS CAREER DEVELOPMENTCENTER.

Goal 6. With RESOURCES FOR EDUCATION,Dr. Wright installed multi-year, computer-based,program budgeting/accounting as the fiscal sys-tem for the school district. This allows for plan-ning and operating beyond the constraints andmind-set of the single fiscal/school year.

Goal 7. Education by Charter encourages andallows principals to do whit principals in "effec-tive schools" are already doing:- creating andmaintaining a safe, positive learning environmentwithin the school; supporting teachers in.carryingout their responsibilities for teaching; and, onoccasion, being visible models of "good teacher"and "good learner."

Goal 8. To avoid the situation where teachers oradministrators have control over their own mon-itoring and evaluation, the school boardestablished and funds a PROGRAM MONITOR-ING AND EVALUATION function which is direc-ted by an able person from outside the schooldistrict. The composition of individual monitoringand evaluation teams is carefully balanced as torole and interest.

Goals 9 and 10. Using the services of theRESOURCES FOR EDUCATION and theKNOWLEDGE AND CURRICULUM functionsand the MEDIA AND TECHNONLOGY CENTER,Hometown teachers are tapping in closer andcloser to the cutting edge of new knowledge. Goneis the over-reliance on pablum-like, commer-cially published textbooks, references, and dittomasters. Using the services of "Speedy Copy andPrint Shop (Three Color Capability)," a franchiselocated in the superintendent's administrative

wing, teachers are now writing and producingabout 75% of the instructional materials used intheir classes. By 1999, with technical assistanceand training programs of the MEDIA ANDTECHNOLOGY CENTER, there will be extensiveuse of computers, data bases, and various com-binations of media.

Goal 11. Under Bill Wright's leadership, theHometown Public Schools made a major effort tomove "educational research" from higher educa-tion to the school district level where it would be"right next to" and "woven into" the very fabric oflearning, teaching and service providing. In addi-tion to participating in one of four levels ofresearch, teachers are encouraged to write pro-fessional books and articles and to be presentersat state and national meetings. Responsibility forsupporting and coordinating EDUCATIONALRESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL CONTRI-IUTIONS was assumed initially by the superin-.endent and the principals.

Goal 12. All K-12 functions are considered to be"sitting on the boundary" between the school dis-trict and its environment. To mix a fewmetaphors, the functions serve both as "windows"to the outside world as well as "funnels" throughwhich ideas and resources come into the schooldistrict. In particular, the cooperative funding ofthe CITIZENS EDUCATION COUNCIL, INC. andthe County Manpower Development Councilshould strengthen ties between education andbusiness, labor, parents, and other citizens.

A skeptic might ask, "So...the twelve goals arenow being accomplished within the HometownPublic Schools. How do we know that things havereally changed? How do we know that the neworganization is any different from the old one?


Very simply, all the major roles in the school dis-trict have changed. The nature of the relation-ships and the interaction among the persons inthe major positions are significantly different by1999 from what they were in 1989.

Other strategies for reorganizing aschool district

Though proposed as a general list of goalswhich could be realized under a new structure ofschool district, the above stated twelve goals,obviously, are not the only combination of goalswhich could be accomplished through reorganiza-tion. And, certainly, Education by Charter with itssupporting K-12 functions and service-orientedadministrative roles is not the only model to con-sider if school district reorganization iscontemplated.

If we were to turn all the schools in a schooldistrict into "communities of scholars" as pro-posed by Roland Barth (see page 7), there wouldbe dramatic changes in the major roles within theschool district. Not only would the organization ofthe school district be changed if we did this, butwe would probably have to change the organiza-tion of the school district in order to changeschools into communities of scholars from whatthey are now

Carl Marburger would build a new schooldistrict organization by making individualschools "autonomous."28 (All of Roland Barth'sschools would probably be "autononous," but notall of Marburger's schools would necessarilybe "communities of learners!")

A most intriguing new model of the schooldistrict is proposed in a recent publication of theAssociation for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment (ASCD). The title indicates some-thing of the tenor and spirit of this model, Produc-

tive School Systems for a Nonrational World.Among the basic premises of the nonrationalmodel of a school district are:

There are multiple, sometimes competing sets of goalsthat attempt to provide direction for us. The districtgoals are somewhat ambiguous and genetal in nature.The goals change as conditions change. Organiza-tional goals are arrived at through bargaining andcompromise...

Having access to information, support, and resources isthe basis for power to make things happen. Power tomake things happen is located throughout the organiza-tion...

The decision-making process accommodates various for-ces shaping eventual decisions (e.g., external pressuresand persistence of people in their points of view)...

The external environment maintains an active level ofinvolvement in organizational affairs...The externalenvironment demands a piece of the action at virtuallyevery point in the decision-making process.

There is a somewhat fuzzy picture of best instructionalmethods to achieve organizational goals. There is a mul-tiple array of effective practices to improve learning.School board policymaking bears very little directrelationship to teaching and learning in the classroom.n

The title of the chapter from which the abovequotation was taken poses an interesting non-rationality all its own: "Is the Nonrational ModelMore Reasonable?"

Education by Charter is but one of numerousoptions which school boards and educators canconsider if they feel there is a substantial need forchanging how their school district is organizedand how it functions.

Cost of reorganizing a school district

Would reorganizing a school district cost tax-payers more money than they are now spending


1 I 5

to support the present school district organiza-tion? The answer to this question: generally yes.

Yes, by a relatively small amount, if during theinitial years of reorganization, teachers werepaid stipends for planning charters and prepar-ing to teach under charters.Yes, by a relatively small amount, if, instead ofthe school district purchasing commercialinstructional materials, teachers created andthe school district published most of theinstructional materials used in classrooms.Yes, by at least 11% if the work year forteachers was increased from 186 to 206 days.Yes, by at least 23% if the work ? it forteachers increased from 186 to 229 days.Yes, by a small amount, for maintaining andrepairing facilities should the school year belengthened. (Many school districts are findingit economical to use commercial cleaning ser-vices which function during evenings andweekends. This option might become evenmore attractive should the long summer vaca-tion disappear.)No, by a substantial amount, if teachers, beingpaid on the single, standard salary schedulefilled most of the administrative, staff, andspecialist positions in the school district.Yes, by a significant amount, if the number ofadministrative, staff, and specialist positionsare increased.As is obvious, the major increase in costs would

occur if the school year for pupils and the workyear for teachers are increased significantly. Inas-much as a number of wider societal goals wouldbe accomplished by lengthening the school year, itis most appropriate that the increased cost fordoing this be borne each year by the state and/orfederal governments.

Reorganizing the school district as well asschools

We have strong evidence that the individualschool is the unit on which to focus if we wantteachers to become better teachers and pupils tobecome more effective learners. And we alsoknow that the school principal is the key figure insetting the tone and creating the climate withinwhich positive change occurs.

Why focus on the school district if "schoolimprovement" inevitably does and must happenin individual schools? Given the times and cir-cumstances of the late 1980's, there are at leastfour reasons for focusing on the school district aswell as the individual school:1. The various calls for educational reform center

on components of the whole school system notjust on individual schools.

2. The factors underlying the need for educationalreform are communitywide, national, and eveninternational in scope.

3. The problems faced by education are systemicin nature, crossing all age levels of schooling aswell as crossing the borders between schoolsand family and family and community.

4. The kinds of solutions needed to solve thecurrent major problems are not individualschool-level solutions.

We certainly should take advantage of what weknow about improving education in individualschools. And we should continue our efforts toextend the vision and upgrade the skills of prin-cipals. But if American education is going to takethat quantum leap in quality needed for living inthe next century, structural changes will needto be made at organizational levels above theindividual school.


Relationship to other proposed reforms

There are numerous components of America'svast "educational system": the status level societygives to education and teaching; recruitment intothe profession (which is in competition for talentwith other occupations); teacher, administrator,and specialist preparation and credentialing;levels of financing and compensation; length ofwork year; etc. Often these components seem dis-connected and isolated from one another. Butwhen viewed over a period of two or threedecades, these components interrelate with oneanother, and, as components of the total system,may function harmoniously or at cross purposeswith one another.

As indicated earlier, reorganizing the schooldistrict may help make some of the other pro-posed reforms possible. Giving teachers controlover instruction, providing them with meaningfuland varied career experiences within the schoolyear and over a period of years, making teachinga full-year job at a professional level of com-pensation these changes in school districts(if widespread) could go far in motivating the pre-sent teaching staff as well as help make teaching amore attractive option for talented young personswho are at the point of choosing a professionalpreparation program.

And the reverse is equally true. Restructuringteacher preparation programs, improving cer-tification and licensing requirements, providing alarger and more stable financial base for educa-tion, tailoring youth and adult education to bemore responsive to the manpower needs of anever-changing job market these kinds ofreforms and improvements will provide positivereinforcement for school boards and staffs seek-ing to improve education through restructuringschol districts.

There is a temptation to think that the best way

to upgrade American public education would be toimplement the key reforms through some kind of"national master plan." Even if this were possible,such a national master plan would have littlesolid substance or sharp direction to itonce it had been gromtd through the Washingtonlobbying and legislatice processes. Given the factthat major decision-making power is in the handsof thousands of local school boards given thefact that these boards must function within theframework of 50 different sets of state laws andregulations and given the fact of variable sup-port and a continually shifting mandate from thefederal government total educational reformwill probably proceed along a ragged front and ina rather unpredictable manner during the re-nain-der of th' .:entury.

The real essence of organization

Our main focus has been on the concept oforganization. What, then, is the real essence of"organization?"

We call "organization" by a number of names:"it"; "those people"; "they"; "the establishment."Sometimes we don't like "it." "Those people"should do such and such because we think that'swhat "they" ought to do. And we often "railagainst the establishment" when things don't goour way.

Often we try to capture organization on paper.Dr. Wright and his work group spent a number ofhours trying to construct an "organizational chart"to show the relationships among persons in dif-ferent positions in the school district. When wewrite job descriptions, we give titles to what peo-ple do and list their responsibilities.

But organization is really much more than this.Through our sensory systems, we receive vir-tually thousands of stimuli within a five-minute

Restruduring School Districts

464

period of time. It is our capacity to sift throughthese many stimuli, accept some and reject othersand then categorize those accepted into ourmental framework that enables us to functionin our daily lives.

In education (as well as in other fields), wehave made a "field" out of organization we callit "educational administration" or "educationalleadership." The notion here is that there's somekind of magic which one can learn in graduateschool which will enable him or her to "adminis-ter," to "lead," and/or to "organize" otherswho will then do the work. The author isinclined in the other direction. The capacity toorganize is something that all of us have musthave just in order to live each day. And giventhe variety of interests and personalities within ateaching staff (with some specialized training andintern experience), all administrative andspecialist positions can, for designated periods oftime, be filled by teachers.

Organization gives us boundaries which provideparameters for freedom and restraint. Within anorganization, other people's as well as our ownexpectations "tell us" what we must do, what wecan do, what we must not do, and what we mayavoid doing.

And the boundaries within an organizationdetermine territories and ownership rights andprivileges. The main rationale for Education byCharter involves placing the ownership of instruc-tion with teachers and the ownership of learningwith pupils.

A teacher who psychologically "owns" thefunction of instructions will have a mind-setsomething like this: "This is my classroom.These are my desks and my chairs and mybooks and my learning materials which I willuse to teach my pupils what they need tolearn..."

And the teacher must be willing for the pupilsto "own" the other end of the teaching-learning process. If this happens, the pupils'attitude toward school will be something likethis: "I look forward to going to school eachday. My teacher likes me and does a lot tohelp me. School means a lot to me. I am learn-ing a lot that makes sense to me. It's impor-tant to me to be here so that I can be a part ofwhat goes on in school..."

Dr. Wright and his work group struggled to cap-ture the new organization of the Hometownschools on paper. But the important thing aboutorganization is that organization is in our headswe carry "it" around with us as we go throughour day.

In 1985, the parents of Barrington, RhodeIsland decided they wanted to build a children'splayground in back of the town hall. They securedthe services of Robert S. Leathers, a nationallyknown architect-consultant, who assists com-munities in building playgrounds to fit theirneeds.

Mr. Leathers has many ideas in his head aboutthe different kinds of swings and slides and polesand steps and tunnels and caves and towers fromwhich selections can be made to design and con-struct one playground. Parents, too, have ideasin their heads about the kinds of equipmentthey want to see incorporated into a pro-posed playground.

After several evenings of intense discussion,Mr. Leathers started to get a sense of the ethosof Barrington and some of the priorities of theparents. He took all these ideas and was able todevelop a design (an "organization in his head")for a children's playground for Barrington,Rhode Island.

Then with materials supplied by businesses o;the community, the parents, under the supervi-


sion of the architect, actually constructed theplayground translating what was in his headinto the desired forms of wood, steel, rubber,bolts, and sand.

And what about three-year-old Michael? On hisfirst visit to the playground, he sees a ratherawesome conglomeration of boards and polesand metal sitting on top of piles of sand that hehas trouble walking in! But, with mother in hand,he starts exploring. He has fun on the "wobblywalk" and, after some hesitation, he tries the longslide. He gets enough courage to leave his motherand ventures up into the higher spaces near thetower. Here he tumbles down a few high stepsand has to be rescued.

Gradually, Michael starts to build thisplayground in his head. On succeeding visits hewill go right to the wobbly walk and the slide. Heavoids the higher spaces where he got hurt. Afterhis third visit, "his" playground, his organizationof the playground is firmly imbedded in his con-sciousness. He has set up his boundaries. Heknows where he can go in the complicated struc-ture and have fun; he knows the places he wantsto avoid; the Robert S. Leathers playground isnow in his head.

It's never a question of no organization or doingaway with organization. Our challenge in to buildand maintain organizations in which people, overa continuing period of time, can fulfill the missionof the organization and accomplish its purposes.Can we in education build and maintain a schooldistrict organization within which teachers ownthe function of instruction and, through theirefforts. pupils learn what they need to know and,in the process, acquire the attitudes and skills tobecome lifelong learners? Education by Charterwithin a ten-year plan is one way this might beaccomplished.


References

1. National Commission on Excellence in Educa-tion, A Nation at Risk: the Imperative forEducational Reform (as reprinted by theAmerican Association of School Adminis-trators), 1983.

2. Carnegie Forum on Education and theEconomy, the Report of the Task Force onTeaching as a Profession, A Nation Prepared:Teachers for the 21st Century, May, 1986.

3. National Governor's Association, Center forPolicy Research and Analysis, Time forResults: The Governors' 1991 Report onEducation, 1986.

4. Idea initially introduced in John Dewey;"Democracy in Education," The ElementarySchool Teacher, December, 1903, pp. 195-198.The article was subsequently revised and re-printed in Progressiv,. Education, Vol. VIII, No. 3,pp. 216-218 and in Education Today, editedby Joseph Ratner, Putnam and Sons, NewYork, 1940, pp. 62-73.

5. A Nation at Risk, p. 11.6. A Nation Prepared, pp. 25, 55, and 56.7. Denis P. Doyle, "Teacher Choice: Does it Have

a Future?" paper prepared for the Task Forceon Teaching as a Profession, Carnegie Forumon Education and the Economy, March, 1986,pp. 15 and 16.

8. Time for Results, p. 38.

.12.._ (4:

9. Time for Results, p. 56.10. A Nation at Risk, p. 11.

11. A Nation Prepared, p. 61 (paragraph dividedinto shorter sub-paragraphs to emphasizetrain of thought).

12. Time for Results, pp. 38, 58, and 59.13. Roland S. Barth, "Effective School

Leadership," Supporting Work, Task Force onLeadership and Management, Time forResults: The Governors' 1991 Report onEducation, August, 1986, pp. 80 and 81.

14. The Institute for Educational Leadership,School Boards - Strengthening Grass RootsLeadership, Washington, D.C., November,1986, p. i.

15. School Boards - Strengthening Grass RootsLeadership, pp. 51-55.

16. Time for Results, pp. 68 and 69.17. John Dewey, "Democracy in Education," The

Elementary School Teacher, 1903, pp.198-199.18. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, The Harvard

Classics, Vol. 36, pp. 21, 22. (Divided into sub-paragraphs to assist the reader.)

19. Webster's Third New International Dictionaryof the English Language Unabridged, G. C.Merriam Company, Springfield,Massachusetts, 1971, pp. 1589, 1590.

20. A reference for this section: Ronald J.Fitzgerald, Guidelines for Negotiating TeamsInterested in Facilitating Improvement inEducational Programs, Doctoral Dissertation,University of Massachusetts, Amherst, July1977.

21. Webster's III, p. 378.22. Liwelyn Powys, Henry Hudson, Harper

Brothers, New York, 1928, pp. 77-78.23. Webster's III, p. 378.24. Quotation from Martha Barton in article by

Ginger Harvill, "Teaching children how tolearn," Christian Science Monitor, February 3,1986, p. 27.

25. Lewis A. Rhodes, "Introducing Technology toSchools New Tools Make Old Tasks Easy,New Ones Exciting," The School Adminis-trator, April, 1987, pp. 10 and 11.

26. Carl L. Marburger, One School at a Time -School Based Management, a Process forChange, the National Committee for Citizensin Education, Columbia, Maryland, 1985.

27. Jerry L. Patterson, Stewart C. Parker, andJackson V. Parker, Productive SchoolSystems for a Nonrational World, Associationfor Supervision and Curriculum Development,Alexandria, Virginia, 1984, pp. 40 and 41.

4/ 0t ti

About the Author

Ray Big Ide has always had a strong interest in"the way things are organized" and "how thingswork or don't work within an organization."

As the junior high school principal in EastLansing, Michigan, he implemented a form ofschool organization in which double-periodclasses in English-Social Studies served a numberof functions: instruction; homeroom; groupguidance class; the local unit of student govern-ment; the.means for organizing school sportsteams; and the channel for communicating withparents.

Dr.'Budde served as a faculty member at theUniversity of Massachusetts during the late1960's when the School of Education, under theleadership of:Dean Dwight Allen, was completelyreorganiied. What a priceless inservice educationexperience. in "restructuring" this was for a per-son who was teaching educational administration!

The concept of Educationty Charter was firstintroduced in 1974to the Systems Education Sec-tion of the annuril meeting of the Society forGeneral Systems 'Research. The title of the pre-sentation as subsequently published in the pro-ceedings of the meeting was: "Education byCharter Key to a New Model of School Dis-trict.".In this book, Budde extends the concept toinclude many of the recommendations made bycurrent major studies.

Education by Charter is one proposal forreorganizing local school districts in a substan-tially new and different way. Budde maintainsthat unless school district restructuring takesplace, the school improvement movement of. the1980's to upgrade AMerican public education willprobably fail.

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