ECS Report Tackles K-12 Governance

By Jessica Sandham

States and districts could create more successful schools by changing who makes the rules, a national panel asserts in a report being released this week by the Education Commission of the States.

In an executive summary made available to Education Week last week, the report's authors outline two distinct approaches to school governance that state lawmakers could tap to make changes in unsuccessful schools and districts. Both emphasize decentralizing authority to the school level, giving more options to parents, and allowing taxpayer dollars to follow students to the publicly funded schools of their choice.

But the models are distinguishable by one critical difference: The first lays out a governance structure in which schools would still be operated directly by public districts, while the second envisions districts in which individual schools are run almost exclusively by independent entities under contract...