“I never believed, I confess, that they would have attacked
the king’s troops.”
Lord Percy, British brigade commander in Boston, 1774
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
and to provide new Guards for their future security.” From The
Declaration of Independence, 1776
“When in the course
of human events…”
July 4 looks different this year, to a school person. More and more schools declare their independence
from the central office, and some districts—unlike England 242 years ago—seem
willing to let go.
July 4 looks different after reading
Reinventing America’s Schools by David
Osborne (published late in 2017 – see box). Chapter one, about the transformation of New
Orleans schools post-Katrina, is titled, “The Revolution.” Osborne’s chapters
on Denver, Washington, D.C., and other cities makes the case for a dramatic
change in how school districts operate. Autonomy might be Osborne’s most
frequently used word.[i]
Osborne says that the
school systems created in the 1900’s “had a dramatic impact on this country,
helping us build the most powerful, innovative economy on earth,” but they no
longer work. “In the 21st century the emergence of a new
model—decentralized, competitive, customer-driven, mission-driven, and
performance based, with steering separated from rowing—could have an equally
profound effect. … We are already seeing the impact in New Orleans, D.C., and
Denver” (p. 296).
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July 4 looks
different after attending the forum this spring, “Schools as the Units of
Change,” put on by the Gates Family Foundation.[ii] The event, held at the Denver Museum of
Nature and Science, featured former and current Denver superintendents Michael
Bennet and Tom Boasberg, as well as many other district and school leaders.[iii] The title of the forum hints at an outlook similar
to Osborne’s theme: over the past 50
years power accrued
to the central office in large school districts, weakening the authority of principals
and their school community. Bureaucracy,
hierarchies, and inefficiency followed. If
not exactly tyrannical, top-down structures became oppressive, and resistance
grew. Time for a change, or else…
We have rediscovered the obvious: teaching and learning
takes place in school buildings, and principals and teachers—not the central
office—are the key players in determining how well a school serves its students. In relearning that schools are truly “the units
of change,” we see why they must take control. For 25 years charter schools—having declared
independence from day one—have shown us what is possible. Now more schools seek similar powers over hiring,
the budget, designing the curriculum, etc.
July 4 looks different because, due to what some call the “revolutionary”
reforms put in place under Superintendents Bennet and Boasberg, DPS no longer
“controls” over half of its schools, not as it once did. According to Chalkbeat Colorado, in 2017-18 DPS had “104 traditional district-run schools and 117 charter and innovation
schools… Fifty-nine of the 117 are charter schools and 58 are innovation
schools, which are run by DPS but are exempt from certain district and state
rules.”[iv]
Is this the beginning of the end of the old
model, when a large urban district presumed to have “local control” over its
schools? Will DPS go further in “loosening
the reins” and ensuring principals and schools regain the capacity to govern
themselves?
As the 2017-18 school year
came an end, A Plus Colorado produced its latest Start with the Facts series – “Denver Public Schools at
Crossroads.” The data on student and
school performance made it clear that the district will fall well short of
meeting the goals set in its 2020 Plan.
As the Denver community develops a plan for 2025, a central question
is how DPS continues to rethink the balance of power between the district and
its 200 schools. Where should the locus of control be?
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Beyond
Denver, this July 4, we wonder if this conversation around who is in control – the district or the school?—is spreading. Are these ideas having any impact on low-performing districts in Colorado like Adams 14, Aurora, and Pueblo 60? And
if not, why not? Osborne’s hope, I
believe, is that success in a few districts like Denver might pave the way for
other school boards to choose a similar approach—what he calls the 21st century
model—for a district-school relationship.
It could reconcile the current tensions—and avoid the need for the colonies—… oops, for the schools … to fight for their independence.
“By the rude bridge that arched
the flood/ Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled …”[v]
Finally, July
4 looks different because I just read Lexington
and Concord – subtitled “The Battle Heard Round the World,” by
George C. Daughan.*[vi] And two
weeks ago I visited Concord and walked up Monument Street to the North Bridge. A school person can draw many parallels. Do they suggest a Revolution is imminent?
Call this
light-hearted or absurd – I am Paul Revere, on my horse, sending a “cry of alarm/ To every Middlesex village
and farm.”[vii]
I make a connection here that, if it will not lead to any fireworks, might at
least spark a knowing smile.
Chapter 2 - General Thomas Gage and George
III
1774 - At this time,
the king did not imagine the need to send troops against rebellious elements. “The king and ministry were intent on
subduing Massachusetts with words, not guns… The king was apparently counting
on the timidity of patriots like Samuel Adams, John Hancock, … and their
cohorts. He never believed that colonials
would stand up to a professional army and navy… King George and his
parliamentary allies consistently maintained that their American subjects were sure
to shrink before the mighty British colossus” (23).
Do
schools ever speak about their “rights,” their belief that they not “subjects”
of the district?
Do you
ever sense that districts underestimate the courage of schools, of their principals and teachers, to challenge
and resist top-down directives from the central office? That when pushed enough, school leaders will fight
back—and assert their right to control what takes place in their buildings?
*AV #181 OWES A GREAT DEBT TO GEORGE
C. DAUGHAN’S BOOK. For an in depth
look at the events leading up to and including the fighting in Lexington and Concord,
I highly recommend Lexington and
Concord – The Battle Heard Round the World, New York: W.W. Norton Co.,
2018. For more, see Mark G. Spencer’s review in The Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2018: https://www.wsj.com/articles/lexington-and-concord-review-the-first-round-of-a-long-fight-1524091338.
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Chapter 3 – Benjamin
Franklin Excoriated
In 1774 Ben Franklin
was not “promoting independence.” According to Daughan, “he was doing just the
opposite, searching for ways to reconcile the colonies with Britain.” As the
British government discussed “how best to punish Boston and Massachusetts for
the Tea Party,” Franklin sought “to warn the British of the misguided course
they were on … As far as Franklin was
concerned, an aroused king and ministry were rushing to produce legislation
better suited to smite an enemy than a thriving colony” (28-29).
For ages schools have complained that “help”
from the central office often feels more like micromanagement and mistrust. Do
districts appreciate the frustration from school people, furious that “someone
who has not been in the classroom in years walks in to tell us what we ought to
be doing”?
Chapter 4 – Britain
Closes the Port of Boston
March 1774 –
The king imposed the Coercive Acts, later known in America as “the Intolerable
Acts,” Daughan writes, “for intolerable they were to all the colonies, not just
Massachusetts.” In Parliament, Lord North made it obvious that coming down hard
was meant as a message to other colonies.
“Boston has not only to answer for its own violence,” he said, “but for
having incited other places to tumults.”
Daughan continues: “North’s remarks were
well received by an audience that was irritated with the effrontery not only of
a colony standing up to the mother country over a question of tax policy, but
of a city whose prosperity was an indicator of something far more ominous: the
economic potential of, not just Boston, but of all seaports …. It certainly
must have crossed many minds in London that the time had come to regain control
over the original thirteen colonies, to rein them in…” (31-32).
Daughan emphasizes
how little the king and Parliament understood “the political temperament of Massachusetts”
(33). This “blindness” and “hubris” is a
reason for “the king’s determination to work his will on Massachusetts” (33),
for his ministers being so “anxious to clamp down on Massachusetts, [expecting]
it to be done without bloodshed and at minimal cost…” (34).
Several school leaders
are outspoken in their frustration with the central office. What if that number grows? What if most school communities see their
potential—their chance to determine their own fate—restricted by directives
from on high? Would they rise up and …
Chapter 5 - Declaring
War on Massachusetts
May 1774 – The king signed “A
Bill for Better Regulating the Government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay
in New England.” “A more accurate description,”
Daughan writes, “would have been: ‘A bill to radically alter Massachusetts society
for the purpose of dominating it.’” It “allowed the king and Parliament to rule
the province directly. This had never
been done before to any other colony…. What it did not do was intimidate the
colonists. Instead, it alerted them to a great menace that required united
action to oppose” (36-37).
Edmund
Burke, one of the few British statesmen to oppose these new restrictions, was
prophetic:
“Reflect how you are to govern a people,
who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no
revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience…” (39).
William Pitt
also protested:
“… the mode which has been pursued to
bring them back to a sense of their duty to their parent state (ss) so diametrically
opposed to the fundamental principle of sound policy that individuals,
possessed of common understanding, must be astonished the such proceedings”
(39).
Some district leaders—like
Burke and Pitt?—sense the resentment when decisions are made that punish
independent thinking and the longing for more autonomy. Are their voices heard? Or are they dismissed
as “too sympathetic” to the principals and schools seen as the whiners, the dissenters—the
rebels?
Chapter 6 – Support for Boston Broadens
April 1775 –
“The king’s belief that the city would quietly submit to the port bill had been
from the start a dangerous illusion… the unrestrained attack on Massachusetts
left the other provinces feeling as if they had no other choice. Just the way
Parliament’s aristocrats spoke about ‘their colonies’ was sobering” (47).
Possessive pronouns matter. Whose school (whose country) is it? Our choice of words says much about both ownership
and responsibility. Is it “their school”
(belonging to the district) or is it “our school”? Who is in charge? Charters are “semi-autonomous”[viii]—so
they know. But for most—innovation schools, among others—when testing the
limits of how far they can go, there are no clear answers.
Chapter 7 - Defiance Escalates
“Resistance was building… The resolution of Boston’s
patriots, their determination and courage, had grown, as had their support from
the rest of Massachusetts and the other colonies. The king had failed to instill the fear he
had been counting on to cow the provincials” (50).
When we speak of “fear”
and “intimidation” in the context of K-12 education, we used to think of the
district vs. the teachers’ union, or of the administration vs. teachers. Those words now apply when we discuss
control. It cannot help a school leader to
operate out of fear, to be uncertain of the limits of his or her authority. And
yet this seems inevitable in large districts.
Doubt leading to paralysis … or defiance.
On the other hand, perhaps
fear diminishes as one school (a Massachusetts) stands up to the powers that be
and says: we won’t be cowed. This is our
school. And after one school becomes 13
schools becomes ….
Daughan argues that in 1774 Sam Adams was in the minority in
seeing independence as the ultimate goal. Others “were more than willing to
remain in the empire if the king would compromise and allow Massachusetts to
resume the self-government she had enjoyed prior to the present troubles” (55).
At present the majority of schools and
principals wish to remain in their district.
And yet there are the “Sam Adams” out there too. Their ultimate goal is independence—if not a revolution,
a fundamental shift in where true authority lies. Charters were the first “to separate” themselves
from “the mother country.” Innovation
schools, with “charter-lite” waivers, followed. Is this the new normal? Where most schools and principal will be eager,
even desperate, for greater freedom, and greater control?
Chapter 8 – A Deepening
Crisis
Summer 1774 – Two words come to mind as one reads Daughan’s
account of how the king, Parliament, and even British generals in Massachusetts
viewed the colonists: arrogance and contempt.
Daughan writes of Lord Percy (who in April 1775 led his troops to
Lexington and witnessed just how badly he misread the fighting spirit of the
minutemen): “Like his fellow officers, he thought colonials were cowards…. He
wrote a friend, ‘Surely the people of Boston are not mad enough to think of opposing
us’” (64). “The people here are a set
of sly, artful, hypocritical rascals, cruel and cowards. I must own I cannot
but despise them completely” (65).
District folks seldom come across as
arrogant. They do not reside 3,000 miles away. Nevertheless, the distance can
feel huge—even if just “across town.” The
nature of the district-school structure says: “we know more, we have more
authority, more clout.” It leads to behavior that feels disrespectful, even
rude.
Chapter 9 - The
Counties Strike Back
August 1774 – Daughan makes a telling point in contrasting the
leadership in England with that in counties across Massachusetts. “In Britain around four hundred families dominated the political
landscape.” Perhaps this was one reason
why Parliament’s new law prevented town meetings, apparently an anathema to the
British: “The leveling tendencies of these gatherings were particularly
odious. The notion that government
should be in the hands of ordinary people was an alien concept” (67-68).
I would not say this of DPS, but I would of
most of Colorado’s larger school districts: For them the notion that true authority
should be in the hands of principals, teachers, and the school community is an
alien concept. The district office is
the hub, everything spins around it. No longer a valid idea or structure – is
it?
Revolution – inevitable?
Lexington and Concord only takes us through the spring of 1775. We
witness the bloodshed in chapters 31-33: “A Massacre at Lexington,” “The Road
to Concord,” and “The Concord Fight.” We
know where the story goes from there, and yet we wonder: was the American Revolution
inevitable? What if the British and King
George III had not been so proud, so blind? What if the there had been less contempt, and more respect? What if
self-government by the colonists had not been seen as such a threat—but as a
reasonable step forward?
Happy Independence
Day!
[i] From Index of Reinventing
America’s Schools, New York: Bloomsbury,
2017.
autonomy, 12, 218-220, 225-226, 238-243
and accountability for
performance, 187, 241
Boston schools,
218-219, 323-326
charter-lite schools,
1467-150, 183-185, 295, 322-330
Denver schools, 145, 147-150, 167, 175-178, 181-183,
187-189
Denver charter vs. innovation schools, 179-181
giving schools control
over internal services, 186-187, 284-285
Indianapolis schools,
199, 203-210
Los Angeles schools,
219, 326-328
Memphis schools,
213-214, 323
New Orleans schools,
61-63
New York City schools,
330
Springfield, MA
schools, 219-220
Washington, D.C.
schools, 129-131
[ii]
The Gates Family Foundation, as this former program officer there (1990-1996)
knows, encouraged similar ideas almost 30 years ago. Is there a lesson here about sowing seeds
(1989) and being both patient and persistent in order to see what might bear
fruit (2018)?
Among the
recommendations from the Keystone Conference, September 1989, put on by the Gates Family Foundation:
"Self-Governing
Schools. … Colorado needs to move at once to empower
those principals who have accepted the responsibility for the education of
their students, with the authority they need to achieve the goals set by the
district, state, and federal government. Such schools should have … broad
powers in determining how they spend money, structure the curriculum, and
conduct the day-to-day operations of the school. It is expected that many
self-governing schools will have active parental advisory bodies or governing
boards."
By the rude bridge that arched the
flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers
stood
[vi] Daughan, George
C., Lexington and Concord – The Battle
Heard Round the World, New York: W.W. Norton Co., 2018.
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