Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota will lead a delegation of 13 education policymakers from his state on a visit to the Edmonton, Alberta, public schools next month to learn about the Canadian district’s use of site-based school management.
In announcing the trip, the first-term Republican governor said many Minnesota districts already have shifted decisionmaking to their schools from their central offices, but he wanted to compare what was being done in his state with the 81,000-student Edmonton district.
Since the 1980s, Edmonton has become a popular destination for U.S. education officials interested in decentralization and public school choice.
Several big-city districts have, for example, borrowed Edmonton’s “weighted student” funding system, which seeks to achieve greater resource equity by giving money to schools on a per-pupil basis. (“‘Weighted’ Funding of Schools Gains Favor,” Nov. 3, 2004.)
