Report of the Working Group on Governance

When Americans grow dissatisfied with public schools, they often blame the way they are governed. Current policy talk about restructuring, choice and accountability for reaching standards is a recent episode in a long tradition of governance reforms going back a century and a half. Governance reforms occupy a special place in the spectrum of planned changes in education, for governance is intimately involved with the how and why as well as the what of public schooling.^[8]

Over the past century and a half, a handful of major shifts have occurred in education governance in the United States. Although state governments involved themselves, by way of incentives, local communities enjoyed control throughout most of the 19^th century. This configuration was followed by industrialization’s imposing corporate models on schools, with the purpose of focusing education largely on producing particular kinds of workers and citizens. As part of the same phenomenon, experts replaced laypersons in an education system that was becoming more urban. Subsequently, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka^[9] spurred a major change in policy that emphasized students’ rights to receive education. This change fueled the creation of numerous programs to remove identified impediments to education delivery. Then as now, those critical of the state of the system “argued that existing institutional arrangements or configurations of control were both the objects of and obstacles to change.”^[10] A few decades later, America’s schools began to be transformed into institutions that increase the nation’s ability to compete internationally. “The new ideology's manifesto became [in the mid-1980s] A Nation at Risk, which predicted in hyperbolic terms the demise of the United States as an international industrial leader if it did not improve its public education system.”^[11]

Schools must deal with the social challenges presented by a shifting population and the technical challenges of educating an increasingly diverse group of students for a much more demanding set of requirements in the 21st century. In addition, they have to face the economic challenges of accomplishing this without a large infusion of new funds.^[12]

With respect to public education in California, members of the Governance Working Group faced the challenge of devising a reorganization proposal for a system currently being torn in two directions under an ideology that stresses performance outcomes. On one hand, education policymakers and local community members favor local control, while on the other, the state is ultimately responsible for the delivery of education. Marrying these two priorities within the overarching task of improving performance to enable California to better compete with other states and the rest of the world is a goal, however ambitious, that is not out of reach; achieving it would appear to require streamlining authority in a system in which necessary functions are performed within a structure that promotes those functions.

K-12 Education: State-level Governance

Education has a paramount position in state government, equal to that of national defense in the federal government—and even more so in California than in most other states.

A disinterested analyst could easily conclude, from a brief review of California’s constitution, that operation of a public school system is the primary purpose of California’s state government: The public schools are accorded unshared first priority for state expenditure, appropriations for the public schools are alone among all major categories of state expenditure in requiring only a simple majority for passage, and a more recent group of provisions (“Proposition 98”) sets forth a unique and elaborate mechanism for determining a required, substantial minimum amount of state funding for the public schools in each succeeding fiscal year.^[13]

Structural Change

The current structure of state-level governance in California is complex (see Table 1), and the assignment of functions is unclear and ineffective. California’s existing structure of state-level governance of K-12 public education has been in place in essentially its current form for nearly a century.^[14] For the first 70 years of that period, at least, California’s K-12 school system was commonly considered to be one of the finest in the United States.^[15] However, when a poorly designed system nevertheless functions passably well, the fact that it does so is testimony to the perseverance and good will of those who must make it work, not proof that its design is a wise choice.^[16]

Historical experience in the private sector may be relevant to public education. Public schools have faced similar challenges, in some cases in comparable proportions, to those faced in the private sector, and those challenges have resulted in review and re-establishment of function that have been followed by massive restructuring and changes in governance.^[17] Private-sector experience has demonstrated that performance gains are limited when traditional systems are simply improved.^[18] But structural change, however needed, is often difficult to convince voters to support.

[C]onstitutional amendments necessary to make the office of Superintendent appointive have actually been put before the voters only three times in total—just twice since World War II, with the most recent instance being more than thirty years ago. And of the two post-war proposals, only the first one, in an election held more than forty years ago, presented the matter as a stand-alone option—specifically, to have the Superintendent be appointed by the State Board, with the approval of the Senate.
It is at least possible that the more direct alternative—to have the Superintendent be appointed by the Governor (with Senate approval), a choice which has never been put on the ballot—could yet meet with the voters’ approbation. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that, as one result of term limits, there is likely little prospect of forging broad consensus among legislators in support of eliminating one of the few offices that offer them a state-level elective future following the forced end of their legislative service. More profoundly, it seems probable that the voters have a strong and abiding conception of the Superintendent of Public Instruction as their directly elected representative and spokesperson with regard to a matter of unique importance among state government’s responsibilities—the public schools. ^[19]

(See note 20.^[20])

K-12 Education: Intermediate-level Governance

County Offices of Education

The current county-level governance structure consists of county boards and county superintendents, which function in some capacities as ‘intermediate’ between state and local entities.

County boards of education and county superintendents have distinct powers and duties specified by statute.^[21] Much of what the superintendent does is the result of constantly evolving arrangements between his or her office and the local schools districts in the county. As district needs change, the role of the superintendent is to respond with leadership, service, and support. Working cooperatively, county boards and superintendents make it possible for students to receive services directly and indirectly through the assistance the superintendent provides to local districts. By adopting the budget for the superintendent’s office, the county board makes possible a total level of fiscal support for the services that districts and their students require.

The county superintendent and the county board of education have separate duties and responsibilities. This is true whether the superintendent is (as in most counties) separately elected or is (in a few counties) appointed by the board. The interaction between the board and the superintendent is entirely distinct from the relationship of a school district governing board and its employed superintendent. The county superintendent works directly with the school districts in the county to provide support and guidance for their operations. Policy determinations inherent in that relationship are made by the superintendent and the local school boards. The county board of education does not have a role in determining the policies of local school districts.

A wide variety of practices and policies have developed in the various counties to enable the county board and county superintendent to work cooperatively. In those counties where both are duly elected, each is directly accountable to the electorate. Open communication between superintendent and board and mutual sharing of information facilitate the accomplishment of their respective functions.^[22]

K-12 Education: District-level Governance

District and School Size and Structure

In recent decades two basic trends have emerged across the nation with respect to the size of districts: (1) combining or consolidating school districts with small enrollments, usually in rural areas; and (2) breaking up school districts with large populations (usually large urban districts), into smaller administrative units.^[23]

Across the nation, the reasons for district consolidation are typically to address (1) inequalities in financing, (2) problems with management, oversight, and/or financial expertise, and (3) economies of scale. Consolidation is usually carried out by state boards of education, special committees, or legislation.^[24] To these reasons the group added the goal of promoting cohesiveness in educational planning and delivery. Deconsolidation is sought when a district’s size impedes the delivery of education.

In California, 31 percent of all school districts have an average daily attendance of less than 500.^[25] About one-fifth are between 5,000 and 15,000 average daily attendance, and Los Angeles Unified School District had almost 700,000 average daily attendance during the 1998-99 school year.^[26]

Districts that are considerably smaller or larger than an optimal size, or are organized to serve only a portion of the full K-12 grade span, are frequently unable to provide an articulated curriculum, coordinated services, and an accountable structure from kindergarten through high school graduation. Districts that are within the optimal range of size have demonstrated the best ability to maintain individual schools that are within the optimal range of school size. Avoidance of over-large school populations has been credited with fostering better attendance rates, lower drop-out rates, and fewer discipline problems, while consolidation of very small schools permits curricular enrichment, more extra-curricular activities, and operational economies of scale.

During this century, the size of schools has grown tremendously, particularly in urban areas. Nationwide since World War II, the number of schools declined 70%, while average size grew fivefold. More than one in four secondary schools nationwide enrolls over 1,000 students, and enrollments of 2,000 and 3,000 are not uncommon.

The thinking behind large schools was that bigger meant more extracurricular opportunities, a more diverse curriculum and more resources for students as a result of economies of scale. Intuitively, this makes sense; a growing body of research and public opinion, however, indicates this approach is misguided and that, when it comes to school size, smaller is actually better.

Research has shown that students from smaller schools have better attendance rates and that when students move from large schools to smaller ones their attendance improves. Smaller schools also have lower dropout rates and fewer discipline problems....

While there is no agreement about what school size is ideal, the consensus of researchers is that no school should serve more than 1,000 students and that elementary schools should not exceed 300 to 400 students. There is also a general acknowledgment that the huge 2,000-, 3,000- and 4,000-student schools now in use are much too large.^[27]

Local School Boards

Local school boards are an integral part of the history of American public education. Across the nation, there are about 15,000 local school boards and 95,000 local school board members, 96 percent elected by their communities.^[28] California has approximately 1000 local school boards, with varying membership sizes.

It is a fundamental obligation of local school boards to...provide the crucial link between public values and professional expertise.

Historically, local school boards, as lay governors of the school system, believed their role was not to substitute their own views on matters of pedagogy for those of professional educators. Rather, they perceived their role to be supportive in nature, approving the budget and legal documents, dealing with constituents, receiving reports, campaigning for bond issues and providing “cover” on politically sensitive issues. While those are legitimate functions and should continue, the challenges of raising student achievement in the 21st century suggest a more meaningful and dynamic governance role for local school boards in setting education policy. It is a role that does not cross into the implementation of education content or pedagogy, but rather provides leadership to school systems as they establish and strive for high levels of student performance.^[29]

Postsecondary Education

The term governance has a particular meaning when applied to the authority and responsibility of governing public boards of colleges and universities. There is a strong historical and legal tradition in American postsecondary education of institutional autonomy—a high degree of freedom from external intervention and control. All states assign responsibility for governing public colleges and universities to one or more boards most often composed of a majority of lay citizens representing the public interest. The names of these boards vary, but "board of trustees" and "board of regents" are the most common. The responsibilities of these boards are similar to those of boards of directors for nonprofit corporations. Public institution governing boards were modeled after the lay boards of private colleges and universities. Private college boards usually govern a single institution. In contrast, public institution boards most often govern several public institutions. In fact, 65% of the students in American public postsecondary education attend institutions whose governing boards cover multiple campuses.^[30]

Even though at the beginning of the post-war era two of California’s three segments of postsecondary education—the state colleges and junior colleges (as they were then called)—shared the same state-level governance entity, the State Board of Education, all three of the segments developed essentially independently. With the adoption of the Master Plan for Education in 1960, the segments expanded to cover all populated areas of the state. Each of the three was assigned a separate mission, and considerable differentiation among those missions continued in modern times. Partially, as a result of increased population mobility, and partially because of state policy priorities, student transfer both within and particularly among the three segments increased materially with the passage of time. By the early 1970s it had become obvious that, if for no other reason than to accommodate that transfer phenomenon, there was a much greater need for a structural means of coordination among the three segments.

Several recurrent concerns have been identified as initiating the trajectory to restructure a state’s postsecondary education governance system (a number of which led to California’s original Master Plan for Education for Higher Education in 1960): (1) actual or perceived duplication of high-cost graduate and professional programs; (2) conflicts between the aspirations of institutions, often under separate governing boards, in the same geographic area; (3) legislative reaction to lobbying by individual campuses; (4) frustrations with barriers to student transfer; (5) proposals to close, merge, or change the missions of particular colleges or universities; (6) inadequate coordination among institutions offering one- and two-year vocational, technical, occupational, and transfer programs; (7) concerns about an existing state board’s effectiveness; and (8) a proposal for a “superboard” to bring all of public postsecondary education under one roof.^[31]

California Community Colleges

Nearly half of all U.S. college students are enrolled in community colleges. These institutions provide easy access, tailored training programs, and a reasonably priced education for the first two years of postsecondary coursework. Rapidly increasing demands, however, also are creating big challenges for community colleges and policymakers.^[32]

California’s Community Colleges are the point of universal access—they have the charge of providing every willing high school graduate, and any other adult resident who can benefit from instruction, with vocational education, remedial education, academic education leading to the associate degree, and/or preparation to transfer to a baccalaureate degree-granting institution. The 109 community college campuses, organized in 72 districts with 435 locally elected trustees, are located such as to ensure a commute of not more than 30 minutes from virtually any home in the state.^[33]

In 1999, total enrollment in California Community Colleges was 1,401,000, compared to 178,400 in the University of California, 358,900 in the California State University, and 213,000 in California Independent Institutions.^[34]

The transfer function is one of the most important educational opportunities afforded by the community colleges. In the year 99-00, California Community Colleges transferred 47,706 students to the California State University, and 10,827 to the University of California.^[35]

California Postsecondary Education Commission

Evidently, one of the most elusive goals of postsecondary education throughout the U.S. is coordination of the separate elements of each state’s system—perhaps because the means of facilitating coordination must evolve in parallel with the needs for organization and cooperation. Many states have responded to the progress of postsecondary education with reformation of their governance systems in pursuit of improved coordination to realize their developing goals.

Established in 1974 by state law as California's planning and coordinating body for postsecondary education under the provisions of the Master Plan for Higher Education, CPEC was intended to have a unique role in integrating fiscal, programmatic, and policy analysis about California's entire system of postsecondary education. Nine of its members represent the general public, five represent the major systems of California education (the California Community Colleges, the California State University, the University of California, the independent colleges and universities, and the State Board of Education), and two are student representatives.^[36]

Every state currently uses one or another of four configurations of state-level governance to foster coordination.^[37] Only three states have advisory coordinating boards, which resemble regulatory coordinating boards in their liaison role. The advisory coordinating board (the structure of CPEC) is extremely limited in power, with the sole ability to provide advice to the Legislature, the Governor, and postsecondary education boards.

Generally, California postsecondary education suffers from the inefficiencies that result from separating the tasks of governance and coordination, as well as the frequent inability of the different boards to work together. An illustration of the limitations of advisory coordinating boards is CPEC’s struggle to discharge its assignment to collect data from the University of California and California State University systems, which are not subject to any penalties for failure to provide that data. There are no clear, specific guidelines for the requesting and providing of data, especially with respect to students, and no enforcement mechanisms or consequences for noncompliance.

K-16 Education

Through the latter part of the 19th century, the nation’s education system consisted primarily of basic instruction in the three R’s, limited to white children, coupled with a handful of private, church-sponsored colleges that trained male clergy and statesmen. Since then, the nation has responded to succeeding waves of social and economic movements by continuously expanding educational opportunities until the gaps were filled with junior high schools, comprehensive senior high schools, low-cost community colleges, teacher colleges turned comprehensive state colleges and research universities. Now, ongoing advances in technology and telecommunications are spurring a new wave of learning options that can be delivered directly to anyone, any time.^[38]

A cohesive education system from pre-school through university is becoming more popular for many reasons, continuously coordinated services and an accountable structure among them. Creating a more integrated, seamless education system involves grappling with a host of complex issues, including standards, testing, teacher education, college admissions policies, governance, funding streams, and institutional turf issues, to name just a few.^[39]

• Expanding access to early learning for children ages 3 to 5, and improving their readiness for kindergarten.
• Smoothing student transitions from one level of learning to the next.
• Closing the achievement gap.
• Upgrading teacher education and professional development.
• Strengthening relationships between families and schools.
• Creating a wider range of learning experiences and opportunities for students in the final two years of high school.
• Improving college readiness and college success.^[41]

Coordination

Everywhere the attempts of different branches and phases of the educational enterprise to solve their special problems in isolation are met by the stubborn fact of...interdependence. ... And this problem is insoluble till education is understood as a unified process. — John Dewey, 1936

It is imperative that coordination be fostered between postsecondary education segments as well as between K-12 education and postsecondary education at large.

Historically, America’s systems of K-12 education and postsecondary education have operated independently of one another, with each having its own governance system and politics, its own goals and objectives, and its own institutional culture. Indeed, in some cases, K-12 and postsecondary education have even operated at cross purposes....

[There are] several reasons for concern. One is the large number of students who enter postsecondary education requiring some form of remediation before taking college-level courses and the corresponding large numbers who drop out without receiving a degree. (Twenty-seven percent of freshmen in four-year colleges and 44 percent of freshmen in community colleges do not return for their sophomore year). Another reason is increased corporate sector demands for greater accountability to ensure that graduates of both K-12 and postsecondary systems have the necessary knowledge and skills to succeed in the workplace....^[42]

While performance levels for college entrance may vary with the type of institution, higher education public institutions and all high schools have an obligation to align their standards and to publicly state their required performance levels at each institution. State policy leaders can create a statewide P-16 council composed of representatives of secondary and higher education, as well as representatives of the business community, and assign this council the responsibility for articulating high school graduation standards that are aligned with the entrance requirements of public colleges and universities.^[43]

The lack of communication among education levels means that students have not had clear expectations of what they should know and be able to do in preparation for the next higher level of learning. Recent implementation of standards, coupled with new assessment and accountability policies, help to clarify what is expected within a given level. Across levels, however, there is neither a clear understanding of what is expected nor an alignment of curriculum and assessments. A P-16 system pushes these issues to the forefront, forcing resolution of confusing messages, misaligned curricula and conflicting assessments. The result is clearer expectations among students, parents and educators, aligned approaches to academics and unimpeded pathways to the next level of learning.^[44]

Data Collection

Sound policymaking in the context of large educational systems depends on the collection of uniform, unbiased data relevant to the issues at hand.

A reliable gut feeling goes a long way: School leaders have always had an uncanny knack for sensing which students are headed for trouble, which curriculum programs work well, and how best to improve student achievement. But in today's complex, modern school systems, many educators are looking for ways to augment their instincts with solid data— and to back up their hunches with hard facts....

Too often, the school district's own data is not accessible in a useful form to the people who need it the most. For starters, the information is typically entered and stored on many different computer systems, each serving its own purpose and using its own format. Quite often, lack of consistency makes it extremely difficult to correlate data by drawing on information from several databases. What's more, the level of technical difficulty involved usually makes it impractical for administrators to perform their own interactive queries on the data; instead, they must wait for infrequent reports from the data processing department. The end result is that school districts have become data-rich but knowledge-poor. Many questions that school districts could -- and should -- be asking go unanswered, such as: What is the relationship between attendance and literacy? What is the connection between teacher training and student test scores? What characteristics are shared by students who drop out, and what attributes are common to those who succeed? Why are some teachers more effective than others, and how can the district use that information to help other teachers improve? Which programs are the most cost-effective? What is the relationship between early childhood education and later academic success?^[45]