Upload
jeffrey-silva
View
11
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Jeffrey Silva
A027B
SDCS Case Analysis
3/31/2015
1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of San Diego City Schools’ (SDCS) strategy for
reallocating and realigning resources to the Blueprint for Student Success?
The primary strength of SDCS’s Blueprint for Student Success in a Standards-based
System lies in the unified, district-wide educational vision that resulted from a centrally imposed
budgetary process. Whereas prior budgeting had allowed school principals great discretion over
fund usage, the Blueprint shifted virtually all resource allocation decision-making to district offices
by restricting school-level spending to only include expenditures that were district-approved.
Similar to Honan’s assertion that an “explicit connection between strategies, resources, and
results” (2011, p. 142) is crucial to improving student achievement, the new top-down budgetary
approach provided SDCS with a coherent improvement strategy – one centered on advancing
instructional quality – that starkly contrasted with past, disjointed improvement efforts. In practice,
SDCS’s newly shared educational vision manifested in three ways: a common curricular
framework run by school-based “peer coaches”, a formalized professional development strategy
(i.e. the establishment of the Institute of Learning and the Educational Leadership Development
Academy, two entities responsible for principal and instructional leadership training and
development), and the realignment of Title I resources toward the lowest-performing schools.
Unfortunately, the consolidation of decision-making at the district level also proved to be
the source of the Blueprint’s greatest weakness. In contrast with Shim and Siegel’s
recommendation that “Budgets should be participatory to encourage teamwork” (1997, p. 140) the
Blueprint confiscated decision rights from those who previously shared in the governance of
SDSC’s yearly budgets. Along with principals, three school advisory committees – composed of
parents, teachers, staff, students, and principals – that California law and local agreements require
SDCS to collaborate with in resource allocation policies vociferously protested the loss of their
decision rights, even to the point of one advisory committee’s (the District Advisory Council for
Compensatory Education) filing a uniform complaint with the California Department of
Education. The damaged morale among these stakeholders was further realized in such forms as
lack of teacher respect for peer coaches, many principals’ early retirements, and parents’
dissatisfaction in the district’s mass dismissals of teacher assistants. Here, the district failed to
follow Young’s advice to balance the qualitative measure of stakeholder satisfaction with its drive
to maximize the more quantitative measure of instructional quality “in conscious and sensible
ways” (2004, p.198).
The emergence of California’s budget crisis in 2004 brought another weakness of the
Blueprint to light. Although the Blueprint was intended to be flexible through its annual
modification of resource allocation based on program effectiveness, organizational capacity, and
the availability of restricted funds and private grants, for programs to effect long-lasting
improvement, they must be sustainable, something not feasible under the current configuration of
the Blueprint. For example, given the district’s increased reliance on peer coaches to provide
ongoing school-based support after external consultant expenditures were reduced, a contingency
plan such as that recommended by Shim and Siegel (1997, p. 141) could have aided in helping to
account for the loss of $36 million in revenue between SY03 and SY04 (from $108 million in
SY03 to $72 million in SY04) that resulted in the decrease of peer coach salary funding by 16%
and thus provided real increased flexibility to the Blueprint’s year-to-year budgeting.
2. Would you grant more control and flexibility over resources to SDCS principals? Why or why
not?
I would reinstate principal control of resource allocation for the same reason that Young
argues: “if managers are to commit themselves to achieving the strategic and financial aspects of
the budget, they must have some degree of participation in setting the budget targets” (2008, p.
166). The district’s objective, to improve instructional quality, has been made explicit, and it is
reasonable to assume that principals share in this objective since 80% to 90% of current principals
have been hired under Alan Bersin’s tenure and have presumably been trained at the district’s
Institute for Learning or its Educational Leadership Development Academy. Now that the vast
majority of principals are on board with the collective district goal, responsibility for its attainment
should be returned to principals and local advisory committees for four reasons.
First, further legal challenges by advisory committees to the legality of strict central control
of resource allocation policies can be avoided. This is especially salient since the waivers that
exempt peer coaches from the Title I comparability provision granted to SDCS by the U.S.
Department of Education expire in SY06.
Next, since uncertainty exists over continued board support for Bersin’s superintendence
as a result of upcoming board elections, it is important for both Bersin to concede to popular
demand for the return of local control over spending in order for SDCS to maintain stability in
leadership while driving towards improved instructional quality. Bersin must not allow what
Weikert, Chen, and Sermier declared “shortsightedness on the part of local government officials”
(2013, p. 22) to derail the long-term objective of instructional improvement.
Third, return of resource allocation control to the school level will also go a long way to
restoring principal, teacher, and parent morale as well as fostering communication across the
district, what Proctor labels “constructive motivation of staff” (2004, p. 22). Young furthers this
notion when he states that participatory budgeting “can help managers at all levels to anticipate
potential problems. This communication aspect of the budgeting process is perhaps one of its most
important benefits” (2008, p. 166).
Finally, building on Young’s idea that participatory budgeting assists in anticipating
problems, control over spending should be placed again in local hands since they are located in
closer proximity to the unique challenges that individual schools face. Their detailed knowledge
of these challenges, combined with the district’s knowledge of research-supported interventions
and system-wide reaction to interventions, allows all parties greater ability to collaborate
effectively in formulating strategies that will maximize each school’s potential to push toward the
collective goal of instructional improvement.
3. What are the implications of your response to question #2 regarding SDCS district strategy
and organization?
The primary issue in returning resource allocation control to principals is whether they
want it now that difficult decisions need to be made. Intimidated by the prospect of being held
responsible for balancing a $98 million deficit in SY05, principals may feel indignant out of the
belief that the district may be trying to set them up as “fall guys”. In order to address this very real
possibility, SDCS must not forget that “it is essential for managers be [sic] held accountable for
items they can control and not for those outside of their control” (Young, 2008, p. 166). The
California budget shortfall clearly does not fall within the control of school principals and local
advisory groups. It cannot be expected that they can sustain all of the district’s previous programs.
However, what does fall under their control is the alignment of what programs they do decide to
continue funding to the district’s objective. For instance, if a school’s principal and advisory
committees decide to dismiss peer coaches in order to reduce expenses, it is their responsibility to
find more cost effective alternatives. One possible solution could be to work with the district to
ensure that mandatory and voluntary professional development days substitute for the supports
that peer coaches currently provide, namely those of dissemination of research-based instructional
practices and the maintenance of common curricular frameworks.
Related to fair accountability is the concern that principals are not currently capable of
once again handling the responsibility of effective resource allocation. SDCS’s Chief
Administrative Officer Lou Smith explains, “One consequence of telling our… principals to just
focus on instruction over the past six years is that they haven’t been trained to think strategically
about budgets and operations” (Honan et al., 2004, p.15). Fortunately, SDCS has the infrastructure
to train principals with these skills, the Institute of Learning and the Educational Leadership
Development Academy. Adding strategic financial planning to the training at these centers should
be a top priority for SDCS as it moves back to budgetary decentralization, for until principals are
given the capacity to handle these problems, they cannot be expected to perform satisfactorily. It
is therefore preferable to return budgetary control to principals and local advisory committees
gradually instead of immediately. However, any timetable should take three aforementioned events
into account: the November 2004 board elections, Bersin’s 2006 contract termination, and the
SY06 expiration of SDCS’s peer coach exemption from the Title I comparability requirement. It
would be best if the shift to local control be well on its way by the board elections to assist in
persuading new board members to retain Bersin until the end of his contract. The shift should be
completed by 2006 in order to give Bersin the best chance at renewing his contract, thus
maintaining leadership stability, and for SDCS to avoid any further challenge to the legitimacy of
its use of Title I grants to fund peer coach school-based supports.