Paul Hill, The Progressive Policy Institute
January 2003
The Progressive Policy Institute's 21st Century Schools Project (with financial assistance from the Broad Foundation) last week issued this 19-pager by Paul Hill of the University of Washington. After an insightful exegesis of why typical public-school governance arrangements do not foster educational quality, he urges the development of "performance-focused" school boards. These, Hill contends, would escape three ubiquitous "traps" (accumulated entitlements, opaqueness, false certainty) and rework the board's mission around three core precepts of education governance: vest decision making as near to the child as possible, make everything hinge on performance, and limit the board's own powers. Pie in the sky? It's famously difficult to get political bodies to reduce their own roles, and public education's innumerable vested interests all work against the recasting that Hill urges. But it makes good sense on paper. Have a look at http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=110&subsecid=181&contentid=251238.
