School districts have opportunity to build their dream house
Karen Baroody and Melissa Galvez of Teaching Resource Strategies
Karen Baroody and Melissa Galvez of Pedagogy Resource Strategies
Earlier this year Superintendent Devin Vodicka of Vista Unified School District in Southern California gathered his leadership squad to revise their Local Control Accountability Plan.
To inspire the team, he used the metaphor of a house. He compared his district's upkeep correct after the 2008 recession to a tempest-dilapidated cabin. It had been ravaged, but it also gave the district an opportunity to rebuild better – to "dream big and call up differently." The new dream business firm could expect many different ways, he said, but the important thing is that it be built deliberately and on a strong foundation.
With the announcement of the new state budget earlier this month, California districts can look forrad to new resource to help build that dream house. The upkeep agreement increases funding for the Local Control Funding Formula by $half-dozen.1 billion, bringing the total very close to "total funding" that was expected to accept 8 years to come in. The question is, with the influx of new funds, will schoolhouse districts rebuild their houses the way they were, or volition they seize this opportunity to dream big?
Last year, The Pedagogy Trust – West did a detailed analysis of 40 LCAPs and a shorter review of 100 more. They ended that "In full general, districts offer only modest innovation in the start year," noting that nigh districts "are shoring upwardly rising staffing costs, restoring programs and personnel cut during the Keen Recession…and adding one or two new programs for high-needs students." The Legislative Analyst's Function and the Public Policy Institute of California likewise raised concerns about how well the proposed action items aligned with goals.
This is understandable. California districts are nonetheless reeling from years of severe cuts, and under LCFF, had to learn to practice unprecedented planning authority in a relatively short period of time, and in accordance with irresolute state guidelines. Districts are preparing to submit their beginning annual LCAP Update, and those may reflect exciting, productive changes.
Simply "modest innovation" volition not solve California'southward chronic education problems. How tin can district leaders use the prospect of new dollars to truly transform their systems and schools—and ensure that every new and old dollar is doing the most to help all students? This will hateful taking a hard look at the style they currently allocate resources – including people, time, and money – and considering what they tin practice instead, not just in improver. Information technology means considering structural costs that might be controlled by more than 1 central office department, like teacher compensation, hiring and staffing policies, and how students and teachers utilise their time during the school day. If the proverbial budget house is drafty, it means being willing to tear down and rebuild a room more effectively, rather than but patching the holes in the slats.
For example, if elementary reading is a trouble area, a typical district might upkeep for extra professional development or a new literacy programme. But a strategic district will consider systemic changes that improve instruction for the long term. This might mean reorganizing school schedules to ensure struggling students get more time in reading or to provide enough collaborative planning time for instructor teams led by good coaches. Or it could consider policies to attract and retain excellent teachers, such as hiring earlier and more strategically, or increasing compensation for teachers who take on leadership and responsibilities. These strategies can be tailored to most clearly support high-need students, but they too help all students succeed.
Adjusting these fundamental structures is likely to provide a greater return on investment (ROI) than merely adding new programs to what's already in that location. Many people associate ROI with cold and calculating businessmen tallying profits. Merely it's simply about improving the impact of limited resources – in this case, impact defined equally student learning, parent involvement, or any of the other priority areas laid out in the Local Control Funding Formula. Districts can estimate the ROI of different strategies past looking at their own data, national studies, or the feel of peer districts. It's not necessary to calculate an exact number that summarizes the ROI of a particular strategy – even labeling dissimilar options as likely "depression," "medium" and "high" ROI is plenty.
Nosotros call this organization-strategy return-on-investment thinking. It's about starting with fundamental student needs and request non "Which plan is better?" but "What resource will meet this need?"
Vista'south superintendent Vodicka says that arrangement-strategy render-on-investment is a "fabulous concept" and the "wave of the future," just notes that, in his feel, it is challenging to implement it immediately. For starters, districts' data systems are oftentimes not integrated with each other, making it difficult to rails the impact of a particular strategy. In Vista Unified, they are working to brand their data systems "talk to each other" so that one day, the district can meliorate measure and monitor progress. And he cautions that there are at least some crucial upkeep cuts that but demand to exist refilled.
But if organization-strategy return-on-investment sounds daunting, it doesn't take to be. At Education Resources Strategies nosotros have adult a series of tools and resources that can help California districts apply a system-strategy render on investment arroyo to their strategic planning. The two almost of import aspects of this approach are stepping back and looking beyond the normal solutions to consider shifts in central resources apply, and using data – however incomplete – to prioritize investments by their likely impact. It is, after all, what the proposed LCFF evaluation rubric calls for: not "continuing historical practices" but "selecting [investments] based on testify of effectiveness." It's non nigh rebuilding the kitchen or calculation a wing, merely remodeling the edifice for the 21st century.
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Karen Baroody is director and Melissa Galvez is a writer at Educational activity Resources Strategies, a national nonprofit that partners with districts and states to analyze how districts use their resource and design new strategies aimed at increasing pupil success.
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