Texas is spending millions to bring the "portfolio model" to its schools. The strategy has led to teacher strikes in other states.
The approach is intended to quickly cut down on the number of low-performing schools in the state. So far, Texas has seen mixed results.
Texas is encouraging its school districts to drastically change how they manage their campuses — an effort to quickly cut down the number that are low-performing.
It is spending more than $20 million a year in state and federal dollars on districts and outside consultants working to give individual schools more freedom from state and local regulations, with mixed results: Some schools are performing better in state ratings; others are continuing to struggle.
The controversial national approach is especially unpopular with teacher groups, and has led to strikes in cities like Denver and Los Angeles.
In a traditional school district, an elected school board chooses a superintendent, who runs a central office responsible for budgeting, hiring and curriculum for a set of schools. Under the new approach, leaders at individual campuses have much more power and flexibility to make their own decisions, and are released from some of the constraints of state and local regulations — much like publicly funded, privately managed charter schools are. The elected school board and central office determine which schools open where, but play a much smaller role in managing them.
“The idea is to hold schools accountable but give them more control… so they can influence the policies you’re holding them accountable for,” said Beth Schueler, a University of Virginia professor who has studied similar efforts in Massachusetts.
A system of great schools
Some call this a “portfolio model;” the same way an investor holds a portfolio of stocks, a school district manages a collection of autonomous schools, each offering innovative programs and opportunities that meet parent and student needs. If the schools don’t show returns — by way of higher student test scores and state ratings — the district can bring in nonprofits or charter companies to run them, or just shut them down.
It’s a vision for public education that’s sweeping the country, backed by big-time philanthropists such as the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which have all heavily invested in encouraging school districts to adopt the approach. Advocates see the work as a middle path between traditional district governance and a state takeover.
Texas is “trying to re-make how school districts approach the work of school improvement,” said Ashley Jochim, who has been studying Texas’ efforts for the Seattle-based Center on Reinventing Public Education, whose founder first coined the phrase “portfolio model” more than 15 years ago. “There are no other states doing this as explicitly or deliberately as Texas that I’m aware of.”
Texas calls its portfolio approach the “System of Great Schools,” a network of school districts that want help changing how they manage their schools. The network includes 14 school districts serving more than 400,000 kids, including rural ones like Longview and urban ones like San Antonio and Fort Worth. They are each matched with outside consultants who have done similar work in other states.
Other school districts can apply for grant money to redesign their schools even if they don't join the network.
Their biggest critics are teachers’ unions and associations, who argue that running a school system like a business results in fewer protections for teachers, accelerated closures of under-resourced schools in low-income neighborhoods, and a heightened focus on standardized tests, all to the detriment of students.
They say taking power away from elected school boards disenfranchises low-income black and Hispanic parents, whose children are overrepresented in the state’s lowest-rated schools. They contend the approach effectively privatizes public education and incentivizes new charter schools, which then compete with traditional public schools for money and students.
“Instead of having a great school system, we’ll have a system of great schools,” said Patty Quinzi, legislative counsel at Texas AFT, a state teachers’ union. “We’re going to pick and choose what kind of schools to keep and charter-ize and close the rest of public schools.”
Debate over charter involvement
The El Paso Independent School District, until recently a member of the System of CONTINUE READING: Texas is bringing the "portfolio model" to its schools | The Texas Tribune
