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Julie Smyth
National Post
Friday, September 12, 2003
Edmonton has one of the most decentralized
and effectively managed public school systems in North America,
according to a new book that praises the city's educators for leading
a "revolution."
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CREDIT: Gregory Southam, CanWest
News Service
Edmonton school children Megan Corbett, Todd Moser, Levi Stamp
and Baillie Gladue read during a Grade 2 class. A study by
a U.S. professor of 223 schools in six cities has found Edmonton
schools offer parents accountability and choice.
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William Ouchi, author of Making Schools Work, studied
223 schools in six cities and found Edmonton is the best run in
terms of offering parents accountability and choice. Mr. Ouchi,
a professor of management at the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), argues that poor management and lack of accountability are
at the heart of problems in education, not class size, teacher training
or funding.
Mr. Ouchi looked at the three largest and most centralized
districts in the United States (New York, Los Angeles and Chicago),
the largest Catholic districts in America in those same cities,
three school districts he deemed to be successful (Edmonton, Seattle
and Houston), and six independent schools (one in each of the six
cities).
He found that in Edmonton, 65% of school board money
goes directly to the classroom — the highest of all the cities
he compared.
In New York, for example, only 53% goes to the classroom.
He also ranked the districts on the amount of per-school money that
is directly controlled by principals — Edmonton, at 92%, came
out ahead of the American cities studied and significantly ahead
of New York (6%) and Los Angeles (7%). In many districts, he points
out, the money is given to schools but most of it is controlled
by central office or union contracts, rather than principals.
In Edmonton, schools decide how to spend money on
everything from psychologists to snow removal crews. Principals
also have discretion to allocate classroom resources as needed.
In some schools, for example, class sizes have been reduced and
extra teachers added in younger grades to improve reading skills
at the expense of slightly larger classes in the older grades.
Mr. Ouchi argues that Edmonton's
system best meets what he outlines as the "seven keys to success"
— entrepreneurial principals, school-controlled budgets, accountability,
decentralization, a strong focus on student achievement, school
choice and a community approach, meaning there is a consistent set
of beliefs among school staff about how to meet students' needs
and use available resources.
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