CITY SCHOOLS NEED NEW VISION AT TOP.

Byline: Eli Broad 

URBAN public school systems have failed us. They have become a tired government monopoly. Reform movements over the past two decades have produced little in the way of results.

There is much at risk. Our nation is going through a change from an industrial to an information society, an even more significant transition than our change from an agrarian to an industrial society.

In the future, people will either be educated knowledge workers, fully employed and earning $20 to $50 per hour, or they will be service workers, with relatively high unemployment and wages of $6 to $12 per hour.

Our democracy's foundation was built on a strong middle class. With manufacturing jobs leaving the country, we will lose a good portion of our middle class unless education in kindergarten through 12th grade fulfills its obligation.

Public vouchers are not the answer. Competition in the form of charter schools and private scholarships will be somewhat helpful for a small percentage of students, but more than 90 percent of our children will continue to be educated in public schools.

We can no longer toy timidly with the status quo and expect radically different results. Recognizing this, our family has recently created a new foundation that will work for dramatic improvement of governance and management in large urban school districts - from the school board to the superintendent to the principal:

1. Recruit more outsiders into key leadership posts. While education differs in many ways from business and simple parallels are not always useful, recent changes among American businesses provide a useful mirror for the challenge facing public education in this country.

Major companies like IBM, Eastman Kodak, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and AT&T have all sought new vision and new ways of doing business through hiring outsiders as CEOs. So it is in our schools. New leaders, new ideas, new levers must be found to shake up the system.

2. Reward performance. Our school system must move from being process-oriented to being achievement-oriented. It must demand the best from its students, teachers and administrators alike. Teachers deserve to be paid more, but only if there are measurable improvements in results.

3. Cut the red tape and create an entrepreneurial environment. Good principals, who are the key to high-performing schools, are saddled with district, state and federal regulations and arcane work rules in collective bargaining agreements that prevent them from running their schools effectively and being accountable for the results.

4. Privatize more nonteaching services. School districts should take advantage of the skills available in the private sector for certain functions, such as site acquisition and design and construction of new schools. The private sector can get the job done faster, more efficiently and at a lower cost to taxpayers.

Other bold initiatives that The Broad Foundation is researching include:

Supporting the work of superintendents with proven track records.

Designing training programs for aspiring and current superintendents.

Funding new principal leadership programs.

Working with progressive union leaders to improve labor-management relations so that labor becomes part of the solution.

We have spent considerable time with business leaders, elected officials, education leaders from across the country and the innovators in the handful of urban school districts that have begun to produce indisputable gains in student achievement. As a result, we are convinced that improvements in governance and management and a new compact between labor and management will produce results.

There are no silver bullets. It took several decades to get us into this mess; it will take some time to get us out of it. The school districts that succeed will be those that are willing to try creative new solutions.