Local Politics and Portfolio Management Models: National Reform Ideas and Local Control

Abstract

Amid the growth of charter schools, autonomous schools, and private management organizations, an increasing number of urban districts are moving toward a portfolio management model (PMM). In a PMM, the district central office oversees schools that operate under a variety of governance models. The expansion of PMMs raises questions about local control, as new national and local organizations become increasingly central players in the design and delivery of public education and educational systems. Looking across 10 distinct localities, this paper explores the variations in the role of local, state, and national actors in the initiation of PMMs and the provision of education within them. We find that the relationship between PMM reforms and issues of local control is a complicated one mediated by local contexts, including local civic and provider capacity, available resources, and issues of governance.

Notes

As of July 2012 http://www.crpe.org/research/portfolio/tools/snapshot?type=0&comparator=57&comparing[]=19

http://www.thenation.com/blog/164122/big-money-bad-media-secret-agendas-welcome-americas-wildest-school-board-race#

Personal interview, 2/25/14

“Managed Performance Empowerment (MPE) Theory of Action. The empowerment theory provided greater autonomy, through site-based management, to high-performing and consistently improving schools, particularly in the areas of budgeting, school accountability planning, program development, and curriculum development and implementation. For schools that were not significantly improving or at/near academic achievement goal standards, leadership teams at these schools have been subject to greater interventions from supervisors and central office staff, or have been subject to the district's redesign/repurposing policy.” http://www.hartfordschools.org/index.php/about-us/model-portfolio-district (Retrieved March 3, 2014)

http://www.hartfordschools.org/files/FUTUREGUIDE_FINAL_2B_smaller.pdf

http://articles.courant.com/2014–04–21/news/hc-hartford-new-superintendent-20140421_1_deputy-superintendent-next-school-superintendent-search-committee

James A. Peyser, a partner with NewSchools Venture Fund, put it this way in 2007, in a Boston Globe op-ed in which he outlined ways Boston might learn from New Orleans’ successes: “For decades, reformers have been pushing to change urban public education, but have been stymied by the entrenched bureaucracies and special interests that run the schools and control the money. In New Orleans, many of these barriers have been swept away, leaving space for a new system of schools unlike any other in the United States” (Peyser, 2007).