“External” Organizations and the Politics of Urban Educational Leadership: The Case of New Small Autonomous Schools Initiatives

Abstract

Members of organizations traditionally outside public school systems have begun to take on central, and in some cases internal, leadership roles and responsibilities in the implementation of ambitious educational improvement initiatives. How are these arrangements playing out in practice? This article explores that question with a 3-year qualitative investigation of the participation of two such organizations—a school reform support organization and a consortium of foundations—in the implementation of new small autonomous schools initiatives in Oakland (California) and Chicago. Using Malen's politics of implementation framework, this article reveals how external organizations influenced the implementation of district initiatives with significant consequences for both the reform strategy and their own ability to sustain their involvement in implementation over time. The article concludes with implications for the research and practice of educational leadership.

This research was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the University of Maryland General Research Board, and the Oakland Cross-City Campaign for Urban School Reform Committee. I thank Dorothy Shipps, Steve Jubb, Sue Sporte, Paul Goren, and two anonymous reviews for helpful comments on previous drafts of this article. The author is solely responsible for this article's content.

Notes

¹ I conducted field work between 2000–03 in OUSD and 2003–06 in CPS. For an elaboration of the research design and methods, see Honig (2009).

² These claims relate to findings up until 2003 in OUSD and 2006 in CPS. They do not necessarily reflect the current state of implementation in these districts.

³ A review of meeting minutes from the study period suggests that the mayor's office was a limited participant in CHSRI—not appearing on the meeting attendance list in 2002 or after February 2003. In January 2005, they were dropped from the attendance list as someone whose absence was noted.

⁴ The document “Update of CPS and CHSRI RFP Process,” dated May 17, 2004, provides an historical overview of the CPS/CHSRI RFP process. This document specifies that voting members of the initiative board have included the CPS chief executive and academic officers, the president of the Chicago School Board, the mayor's office (with two votes), and the Chicago Teachers Union, in addition to local funders and the Gates Foundation.