Understanding Regional Educational Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Omaha, Minneapolis, and Rochester’s Interdistrict Arrangements

• In Event: Investigating the Potential of Regional Interdistrict Collaboration to Address Inequality and Isolation in Education

Abstract

Objectives
This first paper consists of a comparative analysis of the three regional inter-district collaborative programs. The paper situates each plan’s governance structure within the literature on regional policy and politics (see Reynolds, 2003), and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of each plan’s particular governance structure in light of that literature. The paper then evaluates how each plan’s governance structure shapes decisions about program design, funding, and implementation.

Theoretical Framework
This paper draws upon literature within the field of political science that centers on regional policy and politics (see M. Orfield, 2002; powell, 2000; Reynolds, 2003; Weir, 2000). While this literature has primarily been applied to other policy domains (such as transportation, housing, and land use), this literature provides helpful insights into the implementation of these inter-district agreements between school districts.
Based upon this literature, we argue that each of the three plans represents a type of “new regionalist” policy design, in which localities work together (voluntarily or through state mandate) to address some aspect of regional inequality (in this case, school segregation and resource inequality) (Reynolds, 2003). Minneapolis and Rochester fall under the category of “joint service agreements,” in which localities work together to jointly provide local services. Omaha’s agreement is more far-reaching in that it entails the creation of an additional special-purpose government (Reynolds, 2003).
In the second part of this paper, we apply the research literature on new regionalist structures to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each. We then examine how the structure of each of the arrangements has shaped the scope and structure of the programs that are offered in each metro area.

Methods and Data Sources
This paper consists of a cross-case analysis of the three plans within the study, drawing from 70 interviews across the three sites. We also draw upon notes taken at governance meetings, meeting minutes, newspaper accounts, and demographic and student enrollment data. We first engaged in within and then cross-case analysis of the findings, triangulating our emerging themes with multiple sources of evidence (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

Findings and Significance
Each of the new regionalist approaches exemplified by the three collaboratives have, we find, resulted in relatively limited progress towards their purported regional equity goals. While the more far-reaching and formalized “single purpose government” in Omaha has relatively broader powers in terms of both resource-sharing and student transfers, the nature of the political compromises that were forged to enact the agreement have threatened to undermine its progress. The relatively “weaker” joint services agreements in Rochester and Minneapolis, with clearer goals at the outset, suffer from limited power and authority and thus are relatively small in scale. In each case, however, we found that despite relatively weak progress towards broader equity goals, there have been significant “intangible” benefits as localities engage in conversation with each other over substantive, equity-related issues. In this way, these agreements provide “an intangible boost to the reduction of barriers between communities and an enhancement of a sense of true regional community” (Reynolds, 2003, p. 137).

Authors

• Jennifer Jellison Holme, The University of Texas - Austin

• Kara S. Finnigan, University of Rochester

• Myron Willard Orfield, University of Minnesota

• Thomas Luce, Institute on Race and Poverty - The University of Minnesota

• Sarah Diem, University of Missouri