Portfolio District Reform Meets School Turnaround: Early Findings From the Los Angeles Public School Choice Initiative

• In Event: Central Office-School Relationships in Support of School Improvement: Reconceptualizing the Problem and What’s Promising

Abstract

The Los Angeles Unified School District, like most districts facing mounting accountability pressures, is experimenting with new strategies to turn around low-performing schools and is focusing in part on how changing relationships between the central office and schools might fuel school improvement. Specifically, in 2009, the district implemented the Public School Choice Initiative (PSC), in which teams of internal and external stakeholders compete for opportunities to turn around the lowest performing schools and operate newly built schools throughout the district. Applicant teams select from a variety of governance models, which vary in the level of the school’s autonomy from district and/or union policies. The new players, roles, and levels of autonomy granted in this reform provide an important opportunity to understand district-school dynamics, as does its scope-- including up to 200 low-performing schools and 50 new campuses. This paper examines early implementation of this reform and the relationship between initiative leaders (central office administrators, district partners) and school-level stakeholders in the process of implementation.

The conceptual framework for this study builds on the reform’s theory of change, which predicts that rigorous screening of school plans, competition among diverse applicant teams, autonomy over operational aspects of the school, accountability, community and parent involvement, and capacity-building will bolster innovative models of school governance and instruction and improve student outcomes. This theory of change is deeply grounded in theories of competition and autonomy (e.g., Chubb & Moe, 1990; Hill, Pierce & Guthrie, 1997). The paper draws on results from the first year of a three-year mixed methods study, with particular focus on the second cohort of schools in 2010-2011 (PSC 2.0). Data sources include interviews with district and partner organization leaders (n=19); surveys of all PSC 2.0 participating teams (n=36; response rate of 80%); five case studies of PSC 2.0 schools (21 interviews with applicant team members, 10 parent focus groups, observations of 27 meetings); additional meeting observations (n=28); and documents.

Overall we find that the various mechanisms of change are not playing out as coherently and effectively as leaders anticipated. Misalignments among the various levers of change appeared to strain district-school relations which in turn are frustrating implementation. Most notably, the competitive process—and politics that ensued—hindered the equitable delivery of support to all applicant teams. Reform leaders struggled with ensuring high levels of understanding of and support for the reform, gaining a sufficient supply of applicants, and meaningfully engaging parents and community members. However, some aspects of the early implementation of PSC were a success. For instance, PSC leaders scaffolded the plan development process with an array of supports from multiple organizations and attracted diverse stakeholder participation within teams.

This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of district-school relations as well as popular district reform strategies and the underlying challenges inherent in implementation. The results will help inform future design and implementation of portfolio district and turnaround reforms, as well as other research on district reform.

Authors

• Julie A. Marsh, University of Southern California

• Katharine Omenn Strunk, University of Southern California

• Susan C. Bush, University of Southern California