Children Achieving: Guidance for School Improvement in a Decentralizing System: How Much, What Kind, and From Where?

Examines the process of decentralization during the 1996-97 school year across the Philadelphia School District as part of the Children Achieving Challenge. Principal research questions include: 1) How is Children Achieving strengthening schools’ capacity to make and carry out informed decisions that lead to schoolwide standards-based instructional reform? 2) How are the new structures at various levels of the system working? 3) In the context of a decentralizing system, how is the district resolving questions about what kind of guidance to provide schools? The authors provide an overview of the new school system in terms of administration, demographics, and performance statistics. The report also describes the current state of affairs across schools regarding issues such as school-based decision making, local school councils, and small learning communities. School clusters, developed around comprehensive high schools, have helped to achieve many of the decentralization goals outlined by Children Achieving but still need much improvement. Additionally, the Central Office of the District needs to reexamine its role in a decentralized school system. The report gives recommendations to help the District fully adapt to decentralization as part of a successful reform plan. Small learning communities are discussed in this report on pages 22-27. Also, the Children Achieving Theory of Change used clusters–constituted by a comprehensive neighborhood high school and its feeder middle and elementary schools. ‘Clusters are a key structural support in the Children Achieving theory of how to improve schools and student achievement’ (30). The report discusses how cluster staff viewed their roles (e.g. as brokers or as direct agents of change) (see pp.48-53). ‘During 1995-96 the Children Achieving Challenge focused on leadership development and changing the culture of the central office. Challenge staff said they also focused on curriculum and instruction during 1996-97’ (65). ‘The Children Achieving Challenge established seven Work Groups, each made up of school district personnel from the central office, clusters, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and, in some cses, schools and representatives from critical partners including Philadelphia Education Fund, universities, and city agencies’ (66).