School-Based Management and Arts Education: Lessons from Chicago

Abstract

School-based management, or local school control, is an organizational school reform effort aimed at decentralizing school decision-making that has become prevalent in districts throughout the United States. Using the groundbreaking Chicago system of local school control as an exemplar, this article outlines the implications of such reform efforts for arts education, especially in a time of increasing centralization at the level of federal education policy. Following a brief examination of Chicago's path to school-based management and its impact on the district's arts programs, this article describes both the challenges and the opportunities that such reforms may provide for arts education.

Keywords:

• arts policy
• music education
• school reform
• site-based management

Notes

1. For more information on the effective schools literature, see Edmonds (1979); Edmonds and Frederiksen (1979); Mortimore and Sammons (1987); and Purkey and Smith (1983).

2. See Kozol (1991) for a description of Chicago's funding inequities.

3. Bryk and Schneider (2002) describe the profundity of this mistrust in Chicago, citing a lack of relational trust between teachers and students, teachers and other teachers, teachers and parents, and teachers and principals.

4. Shipps, Kahne, and Smylie (1999) have criticized both the 1988 and 1995 reforms because “educators did not play a major role in developing or promoting either reform” (537).

5. Principal tenure was removed as part of the legislation.

6. The two goals that pertain to the arts are as follows: “Assuring that students are encouraged in exploring potential interests in fields such as journalism, drama, art, and music,” and “Assuring that students are provided the means to express themselves creatively and to respond to the artistic expression of others through the visual arts, music, drama, and dance.” See Hess (1991, 106–07) for a complete list of the original goals of reform.

7. Indeed, the Music Educators National Conference recommends at least 90 minutes of arts instruction a week solely for elementary instruction in general music (Music Educators National Conference 1994).