Easing Rules Over Schools Gains Favor

State, district leaders debate when to grant autonomy.

Massachusetts' recent decision to offer charterlike freedom to four of its lowest-performing schools has renewed debate about the role autonomy plays in school improvement: Should it be earned through good performance, or given as a vital tool for improvement? Is it risky to extend it to struggling schools?

Interest in the issue is keen. The New York City and Chicago school districts are engaged in high-profile experiments with giving schools autonomy. Both the governor of Nevada and a coalition of groups in Connecticut are proposing legislation to give principals more authority to decide the pathways to better student achievement.

Experience has shown that state takeovers don’t often help ailing schools, policy experts say, and that cutting a beleaguered school loose to “do its own thing” doesn’t often deliver good results either. So, school leaders are experimenting with combinations of regulation and independence based on a school’s performance, approaches some refer...