Local Control as Resistance PDF Download

Author: Danielle Hall
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Languages : en
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Book Description
Local control is a defining feature of school governance in the U.S., and is typified by democratically elected school boards. Local control has been undermined by consolidation reforms, however, centralizing governance under professional superintendents. Yet local control not only persists, but is assertively protected by communities, particularly in rural regions of the country. This dissertation examines how school boards enact local control today. Using a three article format, I examine who has control, how local control is enacted, and what the limits are to local autonomy. The study contributes to the fields of district governance, local control, and intergovernmental policy implementation. In the first article, I address the contradiction of how communities perceive locally controlled school boards versus policymakers and educational researchers. Using a case study, I investigate three district school boards in Vermont, which are part of a regional supervisory union overseen by a superintendent and a central school board. Employing the theory of policy co-construction, I investigate how the district boards subvert statutes delegating governance, what accounts for variations in their adaptations, and how they affect board-superintendent relations. I find the central board and superintendent have limited authority, enabling district boards to negotiate greater autonomy. Boards' autonomy varies by their community capacity to take on additional responsibilities. Board-superintendent relationships, ranging from collaborative to contentious, also varied by community and board capacity. I explain how local capacity influences board autonomy and board-superintendent relations in locally controlled districts, which I illustrate in a typology. In the second article, I build on my findings from Chapter 2 of empowered, autonomous school boards in Vermont to examine the relationship between schools and communities in locally controlled districts. Using a socio-cultural perspective, I assert that communities and schools are sites of mutually influential interaction. However, schools have strong institutional norms, necessitating deliberate practices to influence the technical core of instruction. To analyze effective democratic practices of boards, I use two exemplary case studies where locally controlled boards ensure alignment between community values and educational practices. Both boards use the school budget process as the primary mechanism of local control. The boards develop community trust by maintaining transparent communication and providing opportunities for community participation. The study identifies strategies boards in more restrictive settings can employ to strengthen democratic participation. In the third article, I examine how local districts interpret and implement external policies, specifically No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability mandates. While researchers know there is significant variability of state-level enactment of assessments mandates, less is known about local district interpretation and implementation. Using a case study of three locally controlled districts, I investigate how district leaders implement and interpret assessment mandates. I use policy co-construction and sense-making to interpret leaders' decisions. I find districts had to comply with implementation, a clear limit to local control. Yet implementation was influenced by local capacity and will, creating variability of assessment procedures. District leaders' interpreted high-stakes testing as a hortatory tool that protects local control, both within the district, and from external state oversight. These findings contribute to accountability research by explaining how local leaders make sense of accountability reforms can subvert their intended value, as local districts use them as a hortatory tool to promote local values and needs. The dissertation explains why and how centralization of board governance is resisted by communities, and what steps practitioners, researchers, and policymakers can take to ensure communities retain democratic voice in their school governance. The study concludes with an agenda for continuing research on locally controlled school boards.