Trustees not authors of reform

School Watch by Katherine Wagner
The Maple Ridge - Pitt Meadows Times, March 26, 2010

A cabinet minister proposes a provincial government transparency task force. The premier holds an open vote in the legislature on the idea. MLAs reject the task force on the grounds “they already share enough information with the public.” Legislative reporters write about it. The public doesn’t react and MLAs take this as a sign they made the right decision.

Sound implausible? Substitute your elected school trustees, and the above scenario played out in Maple Ridge last month.

Last year the same board of trustees endorsed the creation of an “advocacy” committee to promote support for public schools. Similar trustee-led groups have formed across the province, all demanding increased provincial funding.

Ironically, insufficient transparency is a significant barrier to widespread support for trustee demands for increased funding. At the same time, trustees have little to say about increased accountability for student learning, choosing instead to support efforts to remove standardized testing from our schools.

It is rare, if not impossible, for an organization to accurately judge its own level of transparency but that is exactly what local trustees did when they voted down an external task force. The consequence of this attitude — one that is shared by many trustees across the province — may be greater than they realize.

District Parent Advisory Council co-chair Michelle Neale doesn’t mince words.

“At the end of the day, who is responsible for ensuring Boards of Education and trustees are doing their jobs and spending our money effectively? We are. The public is. Are trustees minimizing their own and administration expenses so as much money as possible is directed to the actual teaching of our children? I don’t know and we need that information to support and help them do the best for our children. In order to engage the community, public education needs to be continuously communicating in a way people can really understand rather than just being asked to believe whatever is told to them. The information may be there but we shouldn’t always have to go through hoops asking questions and attending long meetings to understand why decisions are made and how the money school districts get right now is spent.”

Neale also worries there is not enough equity in programming, including access for every child to sports, fine arts and music — areas she feels are equal in importance to academics. “There should be detailed information easily available so parents can see exactly how and why decisions by Boards of Education and administrators are made.”

For a specific example of the logical application of greater transparency, local trustees didn’t need to look any further than its own draft goals. Conveniently located under “Board of Education” on the district website we learn “the Board is committed to working together to achieve excellence in honour of all students in school district 42 by; overseeing the provision of quality programming and initiatives to improve student engagement and success; improving relationships with Partners and Public to enhance operating principles and procedures to improve student learning; and aligning planning, processes, policies and procedures to improve efficiency and effectiveness to enhance student success.”

How will the Board of Education know if it has achieved these laudable, but fuzzy, motherhood statements? They don’t say. They also don’t mention whether they achieved existing goals — such as “improve literacy and numeracy.”

For the goals to be meaningful, the public requires concrete benchmarks describing the current level of efficiency and learning.

Another example: Parents interested in information about specific schools may or may not discover the school has a growth plan approved by the School Planning Council. If the parent knows to ask the question and if they know who to ask, likely they will eventually receive the information. However, “ifs” doesn’t equal transparency, even “if” the information is public.

All this is about to change.

Two core values, embraced by the B.C. Liberals when they were first elected in 2002, are being revived. February’s provincial throne speech states a “new emphasis will be placed on parent involvement” and “school choice.”

Government is promising “new forms of schooling will be developed” to provide greater “choice and diversity” along with “smarter approaches…allow(ing) more resources to be focused on students’ learning needs while less is spent on administrative costs.”

Charter-like legislation is a strong possibility. Charters empower organizations and groups of individuals to establish and self-govern public schools. Charter school legislation would effectively by-pass district administration and boards of education through direct accountability to either the education ministry or a designated chartering agency such as a university.

Another possibility is site-based governance, with each school or cluster of schools run by a community “school board.” In this scenario, the role of existing Boards of Education is focused on ensuring equity while providing some district level services the schools can opt in or out of as needed.

Change is necessary to break the logjam that is public education. Trustees appear unwilling or unable to take charge, therefore they will be the targets, not the authors, of reform.

Note: I have written an addendum to this post Definition of public education “transparency”