Governing Public Schools: The Role of Formal Authority In School Improvement

Passage of the Chicago School Reform Act by the Illinois legislature in 1988 has brought sustained attention to the central features of the reform: the creation of elected councils for each of the 550 schools with the power to hire and fire the principal, to contribute to and approve the principal's School Improvement Plan, and to evaluate the school's progress in achieving the objectives of reform. Overlooked by evaluators are a great many other changes in Chicago's school code that have a direct bearing on school operations. Formal authority in all domains of school administration and for all actors appears to be far more detailed and elaborate in 1994 than it was in 1985. A preliminary assessment of these changes suggests that Chicago public schools are probably becoming less, not more, governable; the job of principal is probably harder, rather than easier, to perform in a focused, goal-oriented way; and the leverage of local communities over the quality of teaching and learning in the schools has not obviously been enhanced in any predictable sense.