Schools boards change their focus to improving student achievement
Schools boards are changing their focus from the day-to-day minutiae of running a school district to concentrate on their larger goal of improving student achievement. A number of Wisconsin school boards are using a method known as policy governance, under which the board develops a set of expectations and then holds its administrators accountable to achieve those goals and report on progress. The Kettle Moraine School Board has hired a consultant to aid it in the transition to policy governance. Parking lot projects, personnel decisions, and reviewing individual checks, could be in the past for the board. According to Sue Kutz, president of the Racine Unified School Board, which implemented policy governance this year, the method results in a more focused board that has more objective criteria for evaluating its superintendent. Monthly monitoring reports and a review of the board's goals are used to evaluate the superintendent's performance, she says, rather than a subjective evaluation that focuses on "the last great fiasco that happened." She also notes boards are spared the details and decision making on issues for which they have little expertise.
According to LuAnn Bird, a governance consultant with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, the decision by Kettle Moraine and Racine to implement policy governance comes at a time when school boards throughout the state are looking at whether they can make changes to affect student achievement. "What's changing is I think there's been confusion about to what degree should the board be discussing and talking about the learning process," she says. "Boards have an opportunity—more of an opportunity now, in my opinion—to look at student achievement and to target goals and resources to improving that. And I think that's what's changed. I think the public is demanding that schools change to meet the needs of kids." Kettle Moraine Superintendent Patricia Deklotz believes the board’s decision is a natural outgrowth of the accountability demanded by the No Child Left Behind Act and other measures. "I think as the federal and state expectations of accountability and student achievement have increased, boards reflectively ask, ‘What do we do to support reaching these achievement goals?’" she explains. "And so it's a natural outgrowth of that examination. Many districts have implemented improvement models for their buildings and their districts. And this is a next step."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Amy Hetzner
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: NSBA’s "Key Work of School Boards" provides a framework for focusing the work of the school board on student achievement. Another resource, "Becoming a Better Board Member," is available from the NSBA Bookstore. See the links below.]
[Key Work of School Boards information page]
[Becoming a Better Board Member information]