| 
|
By Karen Rouse
Denver Post, September 09, 2004 — House
Majority Leader Keith King on Wednesday pitched a radical idea for
improving student achievement in Colorado: Take the power over school
budgets and staffing away from superintendents and school boards
and put it in the hands of principals.
Right now, principals have no control over teachers'
salaries, the cost of textbooks or how to meet the needs of struggling
students, because they must follow rules laid out by a central office,
said King, R-Colorado Springs.
"They would control all this under this plan," he said.
That plan is based on a book by William Ouchi, author of "Making
Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education
They Need." Ouchi spoke Wednesday before a group of educators
at a Denver luncheon.
King said he has already created a draft of legislation that would
restructure schools as described in Ouchi's book - and similar to
schools in Seattle, Houston and Edmonton, Alberta - that he said
will be introduced next year.
Under the plan, rather than the state providing funding to a district
based on its number of children, the funding would follow children
to whatever schools they attend. Children who are considered at-risk,
high-poverty, disabled or non-English speakers, or have other special
needs, would receive additional funding, Ouchi said.
Superintendents would be responsible for hiring and coaching principals
and holding them accountable for meeting goals for student achievement.
Principals, meanwhile, would control the entire budget at their
schools, as well as the curriculum, King said.
Ouchi said principals currently have the burden of being held accountable
for how students perform but not the authority to control their
budgets or staff.
Elaine Gantz Berman, a member of the Denver Public Schools board
of education, said the biggest complaint principals have is not
having control over staff.
She said the board would like to give more flexibility to principals
in schools that are academically successful.
However, she noted that not all principals may want to operate as
entrepreneurs and that any free rein a principal could get would
be limited by unions, as well as state and federal regulations.
View
a scan of the article in PDF.
Download a free version of Adobe
Acrobat Reader. |
