School district mission statements are full of laudable phrases: ”academic excellence and equity,” “personalized to each learner,” “culturally responsive,” and “prepared for the 21st century.”
But making these a reality has proven difficult, especially for larger districts. The key question is: how?
We advance policies that provide one important answer to that question: providing autonomy for school communities to drive equitable, student-centered change.
Why it matters
Most districts do not represent a single, uniform community. While a district may hold common values and vision, at the school level each community has unique assets and needs. School designs must be responsive to each community.
Change must be driven by those who live it every day—students, families, and educators at the school level. True change hinges on their shared sense of purpose, agency, and ownership. Districts’ role is to support school learning communities in achieving their goals.
What’s next
We’re currently ramping up our work within this policy priority, including:
- Building relationships with district, school, and community leaders interested in shifting autonomy to school communities as drivers of change.
- Exploring, with these leaders, future needs for state and district policy, building on the groundwork that’s been laid (see below).
Over the last several years we’ve learned a lot about arrangements for schools and districts that shift autonomy and power to school communities, such as Empowerment Zones, PROSE in NYC, Pilot Schools, and more.
Historically, our policy work in this area has included the following.
- Minnesota Site Governed Schools Law (MN Stat. 123B.045)
- Minneapolis Public Schools Policy 6100: Autonomous Schools
- MPS Community Partnership Schools Union/District MOU
- Teacher-Governed Schools Grant Program (MN Laws)
- District-Authorized Autonomous Charter Schools (MN Stat. 125E.05)
Related work
- Building School Capacity. Our national program, Teacher-Powered Schools, builds capacity among school teams to use their autonomy to improve student learning, design and lead their collaborative leadership models, and share power with their community.
- Flexibility from State Laws. Even autonomous schools still hit state policy barriers that trip up their shifts to more equitable, student-centered learning. See more about our work to clear these barriers in our Student-Centered Learning Designs issue area.