ERIC Identifier: ED309556
Publication Date: 1989-00-00
Author: Bowers, Bruce C.
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on
Educational Management Eugene OR.
State-Enforced Accountability of Local School Districts. ERIC
Digest Series Number EA 36.
Over the past thirty years the tradition of "local control" in American
public education has been buffeted by increasing pressure from state and federal
authorities in such areas as school desegregation, school finance, and education
for the handicapped. The major trend has been to hold school districts
accountable for overcoming the local forces that impede equal educational
opportunity for all school-aged children. More recently, state authorities have
also begun to focus on the overall quality of education being provided by local
districts. A perusal of developments taking place in several states suggests
that a state-imposed "accountability system" is gradually taking shape.
WHAT FORM DOES THIS ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM TAKE?
authorities are wielding both the carrot and the stick in their efforts to make
local districts more responsive to the educational needs of students. That is,
they have established both an incentive system to reward high-performing
districts and a system of sanctions to be applied to districts with a record of
repeated low performance. To accomplish this, a majority of states are now
collecting from local districts a formidable array of statistics on student
performance, including, at the very least, student achievement test scores,
minimum competency scores, or both.
WHAT INCENTIVES ARE BEING AWARDED TO DISTRICTS WITH HIGH PERFORMANCE LEVELS?
Incentives are generally of two types: financial and "deregulatory." For example, in fall 1988, Texas Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby
unveiled a plan to provide state financial incentives to districts that improve
student performance on test scores (Mathis 1988). On a larger scale, Michigan
Governor James Blanchard has proposed to provide $500 million in incentive funds
to districts that raise their students' scores on the state's assessment test
On the other hand, incentives of a "deregulatory" nature have been proposed
by South Carolina's Governor Caroll Campbell, Jr., who recently announced a
proposal to exempt nearly one-fourth of the state's 1,100 districts from
virtually all state regulations, based on those districts' student test scores
WHAT PROBLEMS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH REWARDS FOR DISTRICT
As Chris Pipho (1987), director of the Education Commission of
the States Clearinghouse, states, "turning the media spotlight on a host of
outcome variables without alerting everyone concerned to the differences at the
starting gate will undoubtedly cause some problems at the local level." If
performance indicators are used indiscriminately, without taking into account,
for example, the socioeconomic differences among the districts, then the lower
performing districts will also, for the most part, be the poorer districts. Such
eventualities could give rise to an entire new round of equity/finance-related
A harbinger of this possible direction was seen in New York City school
officials' reaction to New York State's release, in 1985, of its first
school-by-school indicators. They claimed the assessment was unfair because, of
the 600 schools identified as "most in need of improvement," 417 were in New
York City's poorest sections (Hooper 1985). South Carolina has taken this
potential problem into account in its proposed "deregulation" legislation by
establishing comparable socioeconomic groupings before isolating the high
WHAT SANCTIONS ARE BEING PROPOSED FOR DISTRICTS WITH LOW PERFORMANCE LEVELS?
Traditionally the major "weapon" used by states to
"punish" a school district that fails to meet state standards has been to
decertify the district until it complies with established standards. This has
historically been an issue primarily with small, rural districts, and the
solution has often been to merge the noncomplying district with a neighboring
Recently, however, a much more radical approach is being implemented in
states where grave concerns about some of its larger districts have been raised.
In these states, sanctions include a close monitoring of the low-performing
district and, if performance does not improve, an eventual placement of that
district into "receivership" by the state on a charge of "academic bankruptcy."
WHICH STATES ARE CURRENTLY IMPLEMENTING "ACADEMIC BANKRUPTCY"
To date six states (Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, South
Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia) have passed legislation that includes, as a
last resort, the possibility of a state takeover of "academically bankrupt" districts. Of these, only New Jersey and Kentucky have attempted an actual
In May 1988, New Jersey Education Commissioner Saul Cooperman began
proceedings to take control of the Jersey City public schools, "describing the
district as 'bleak' and rife with patronage, cronyism and fiscal misdealings"
(Jennings 1988). The Jersey City Board of Education responded by spending over
$1.4 million in a court battle to overturn the decision. On July 26, 1989,
Administrative Law Judge Ken Springer recommended that the takeover be allowed
to proceed. If this recommendation is upheld by the State Board of Education
(seen as a formality by most observers), Jersey City could become the first
major urban school system in the nation to come under full state control.
According to Melodye Bush of the Education Commission of the States, "the New
Jersey effort is being watched as a test by educators across the country"
The only other state takeover effort to date was launched in January 1989 by
the Kentucky State Board for Elementary and Secondary Education against the
Floyd and Whitley County school districts. Both districts suffered from major
deficiencies in student attendance, test scores, and financial stability,
according to state officials (Cropper 1989).
WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF A STATE TAKEOVER OF A
New Jersey and Kentucky have adopted very similar approaches to
assuming state control of a district. A complete takeover is implemented only
after the district has been monitored for at least a year and, in addition,
given technical assistance if deficiencies remain after the monitoring phase. In
New Jersey, for example, the plan includes the removal of the current
superintendent, the board of education, and other key administrators and the
appointing of a state district superintendent who will have authority over the
district for at least five years (New Jersey State Department of Education
Such legislation, if fully implemented, as is the case in the Jersey City
district, clearly eradicates all vestiges of local control. Proponents of "state
takeover" legislation suggest, however, that the fundamental issue is not that
of local control but of quality education. Cooperman (1988) summarized it this
way: "Takeover does not threaten responsible local control of schools. It is
reserved for extreme cases in which a district has reached a state of decay that
is analogous to the failure of a bankrupt business....We must assure that the
'thorough and efficient' schools provision of our state constitution is met. And
the best way to achieve lasting improvement in a deficient school district is to
establish responsible local control."
Brinckman, Jonathan "State Wins Control in City
School Fight." THE HUDSON DISPATCH (Hudson, NJ) July 27, 1989: 1.
Cooperman, Saul "Intervention in Deficient School Districts: Reestablishing
Effective Local Control." Paper presented to the annual meeting of the American
Association of School Administrators, Orlando, Florida, March 5, 1989. 10 pages.
Cropper, Carol M. "Kentucky Seizes Control of Floyd, Whitley Schools." THE
COURIER-JOURNAL (Louisville, KY) January 12, 1989: 1.
Ficklen, Ellen. "Governors to School Boards: We'll Regulate Less If You'll Do
More." AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 173,11 (November 1986): 31-32. EJ 343 788.
Flax, Ellen. "Panel in Texas Unveils School-Spending Plan." EDUCATION WEEK
VIII,6 (October 12, 1988): 9.
Hooper, Susan. "In New York, State 'Indicators' Provoke Anger, Reform Plan in
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Jennings, Lisa. "New Jersey Judge's Ruling Clears Path for State to Take Over
School District." EDUCATION WEEK VIII, 40 (August 2, 1989): 6.
Jennings, Lisa. "New Jersey Moves to Take Control of School District."
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Teaching, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, August 18-21, 1987. ED 288
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VIII, 6 (October 12, 1988): 13.
Mirga, Tom. "Blanchard Vows Veto If Pre-School Bill Fails." EDUCATION WEEK
VII, 18 (January 27, 1988): 9.
New Jersey State Department of Education. "New Jersey's Plan to Intervene in
Deficient School Districts." Division of County and Regional Services, Trenton,
New Jersey, 1986. ED 274 103.
Pipho, Chris. "Education Indicators--The Accountability Tool of the 80's."
EDUCATION WEEK VI, 18 (June 28, 1987): 22.