The literature on district reform efforts is relatively silent about the roles and participation of other stakeholder groups in reform planning and implementation.
Togneri and Anderson (2003) highlight positive relations and collaboration between school boards and superintendents, and between teacher unions and district officials, in some of the districts they studied, but not all. Several studies mention the pivotal role of business and civic leaders in pressuring and mobilizing the initiation of serious reforms, however, the presence and participation of these external stakeholders tends to be less well documented during the actual implementation of reform plans over time. The role of parents in district-wide reform is understudied and not well understood.
New approaches to board-district and in district-school relations. The role of the school board in school reform gets mixed reviews. Where school board members are factionalized and embroiled in the conflict amongst themselves and with the superintendent, and where school boards have a history of involvement in decision making about routine administration of the school district (often described as “micromanagement”), and where the members are strongly vested in representing particular constituencies in the district, the portrait of the role of the board in reform is negative.
Togneri and Anderson (2003) associate more successful districts with school boards that have moved towards a policy governance role that emphasizes policy development, goal and standards setting, strategic planning, and frequent monitoring of system/school progress in relation to district plans, priorities, and accountability systems. Boards functioning in this mode hold the superintendent responsible for routine administration of the system, for implementation of system plans, and for reporting on progress, but avoid direct involvement in managing the school system. They debate issues, but once decisions are taken they speak with a common voice in support of those decisions.
Stability in board membership and constructive long-term relations with the district
administration are also characteristic of these boards. In two of the districts studied by Togneri and Anderson (2003) the boards sought formal training for their members in policy governance models of operation. School boards are often among the key instigators for reform, and are instrumental in getting reform superintendents into place.
Most analysts of the contemporary role of school districts in education reform comment on the dynamic tension between district-wide goals and focuses for reform and the need for educators at the school-level to assess the particular learning needs of students and teachers in each school, and to plan and organize in ways that fit their specific contexts (Marsh, 2002; Massell & Goertz, 2002; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2002; Togneri & Anderson, 2003). More successful district-wide reform initiatives, such as the NYC District #2 (Elmore and Burney, 1997), decentralize considerable authority to schools to define student learning needs and to structure the use of professional development resources. The catch is that schools are allowed to do this in ways that do not fragment the coherence of overall reform efforts across the district. Further research is needed to clarify the district policy and strategy dynamics that enable this combination of bottom up and top-down reform as an ongoing feature of district-supported reform. It is evident, however, that the presence of standards to which all are committed, district mandated focuses for reform (e.g., literacy), school-level accountability mechanisms, and the alignment of access to district resources to the district reform agendas strongly influence, without completely controlling, reform plans and actions of educators at the school level.