Is it time for urban school superintendents to move from being Reformers to Relinquishers? Yes, is the compelling case that Neerav Kingsland makes today over at Straight Up. Kingsland, chief strategy officer for New Schools for New Orleans, writes that reform-minded superintendents should embrace the lessons from New Orleans, a key one being that the academic achievement gains made in the Big Easy have not come from traditional reforms and tweaks to the system. Rather, the changes in New Orleans are the result of virtually replacing the traditional, centralized, bureaucratic system of one-size-fits-all command and control with a system of independent high-performing charter schools all held accountable by the center for their academic performance.
In other words, Kingsland reasons, superintendents should rid themselves of the notion that “current opinions on curriculum, teacher evaluation, technology, or anything else will be the foundation for dramatic gains in student achievement.”
Kingsland’s argument is a powerful one because it is based not on philosophy or concepts, but on real academic gains made in a city that for decades had some of the lowest performing schools in the country. “In the next five years,” Kingsland writes, “New Orleans will likely be the first urban city in the country (that I know of) to surpass its state average.” The Louisiana Legislative Auditor backed up such optimism when it reported in 2011 that New Orleans “is making progress toward improving student performance based on multiple measures of accountability reported by LDOE [the Louisiana Department of Education].”
The future, insists Kingsland, belongs to the “Relinquishers” and not to traditional system reformers. I’d argue this isn’t a lesson unique to New Orleans, although it’s a true path breaker. Similar lessons are emerging in places like Denver; Washington, DC; New York City; Albany; Indianapolis; and even in Cleveland, where reform is being driven one school at a time.
