Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of EducationVolume 102, Issue 1 p. 155-176 Governing Learning at the Community Level: Rethinking and Projecting LUVERN L. CUNNINGHAM, LUVERN L. CUNNINGHAM Luvern L. Cunningham is Professor Emeritus at Ohio State University.Search for more papers by this author LUVERN L. CUNNINGHAM, LUVERN L. CUNNINGHAM Luvern L. Cunningham is Professor Emeritus at Ohio State University.Search for more papers by this author First published: 04 April 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7984.2003.tb00021.xAboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume102, Issue1April 2003Pages 155-176 RelatedInformation

This study investigated differences in patterns of governance policies, practices, and attitudes between higher and lower performing urban Ohio school districts. Public domain data included official district records, state documents, and newspaper articles. Case studies of four districts found that districts were similar on the DeRolph v. State of Ohio funding lawsuit, levies dominating recent major events, and in handling of IDEA requirements. All districts used a committee structure as an organizing mechanism. There were some differences in contractual issues and level and distribution of human resources for operation, though they were not identifiable on the basis of performance level. The first noticeable difference related to community economics. Lower performing districts had lower median family incomes and more families living in poverty than did higher performing districts. Board members as governance leaders in lower performing districts focused more on personal issues than those in higher performing districts. In lower performing districts, critics emphasized past failures (versus future orientation and higher expectations in higher, performing districts). Lower performing districts had multiple, separate, long-range plans. Higher performing districts had fewer, but somewhat related, plans. Higher performing districts based decisions on data and sought community involvement in planning more than lower performing districts. Strong, consistent leadership was more evident in higher performing districts. (Contains 34 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Characteristics of Higher and Lower Performing Urban School Districts in Ohio: Furthering the Development of Criteria Useful in Evaluating Urban School Governance Louis Trenta Luvern Cunningham Sharon Kruse The University of Akron Susan Printy, Michigan State University Philip Griswold, East Stroudsburg University Diana Hunn, University of Dayton Frank Aquila, Cleveland State University Supported by a grant from The Dewitt Wallace Funds BEST COPY AVAILABLE April 2003 2 1 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

This study explored how the governance leadership of Ohio's urban school districts views and deals with major governance issues related to student achievement. Five sets of issues were chosen as the focus of the research: (1) the recruitment, selection, retention, and evaluation of Ohio urban superintendents of schools and school district treasurers; (2) recruitment, selection, assignment, and evaluation of teachers, principals, and other professionals in urban systems; (3) school board effectiveness; (4) escalating competition for planning time and resources as it drains district capacities for governing and managing urban districts; and (5) technology, egovernment, and institutional oversight. Researchers conducted a set of focus groups in three areas of the state, additional focus groups of administrators, and a conference on governance and student achievement attended by representatives of nine urban school districts. Findings from these focus groups and conferences are grouped according to the set of issues. Representatives of the urban districts that examined these issues found that they had much in common, and they expressed the belief that they would benefit from united, or at least mutually supporting, actions. Findings show that it is difficult to focus on the governance of learning projects when so many other factors, many of them easier to discuss, are believed to contribute to learning. Governance in urban education is becoming more, rather than less, difficult, and deserves greater attention that it usually receives. An appendix lists the issues in each set discussed. (Contains 16 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

In this chapter I argue for substantial change in the structure and management of local governments, including school districts. I also call for reconsideration of the philosophy, leadership, and management of local-level institutions that affect the lives of children and youth in particular. I propose that the focus of local government be fixed on well-being, acknowledging education as primary to the quality of life for Americans of all ages. Over the next generation or two, communities need to phase out local school districts, local school boards, and local school superintendents in favor of new jurisdictions and authorities through a carefully developed a n d statutorily approved reconstituting process centered on the notion of well-being. A reconstituted local government for well-being would govern such areas as mental health, physical health, public safety, preschool and nursery school education, adult education, libraries, museums, child day care, adult day s'are, ~[-12 schooling, job retraining, employment counseling and placement, literacy, communi ty development, and provisions for the homeless. Today these public services are the responsibility of a melange of agencies with little or no policy coordination or continuity of service for individuals over time; Note the language here. The process is reconstituting, not reorganizing. New jurisdictions will be governed by elected commissions. A broad range of new, as well as tradffional, professions and professionals would provide public service. Federal and state policy eventually would be adjusted to correspon d to reconstituted local well-being governance systems." The call for reconstituting local government around well-being and education rests on several arguments:

The National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) has often focused on issues of leadership and administration throughout its nearly ninety-year history of producing yearbooks on educational issues confronting the nation. Explicit reference to administrators first appears in 1908 in the title of the Seventh Yearbook, Part I, The Relation of Superintendents and Principals to the Training and Professional Improvement of Their Teachers. Five years later, in 1913, Parts I and II of the Twelfth Yearbook were devoted to the supervision of city schools and rural schools. In 1914, high school administration and secondary school instruction were the subjects of Part I of the Thirteenth Yearbook. Topics directly germane to the administrative function did not appear again until 1934 in the Thirty-third Yearbook, Part I, The Planning and Construction of School Buildings. The Forty-fifth Yearbook, Part II, Changing Conceptions of Educational Administration (1946) was the first yearbook in which chapter authors concentrated on educational administration as a field of study and practice. Behavioral Science and Educational Administration (Sixty-third Yearbook, Part II, 1964) also treated administration as an established function, even a discipline, essential to schooling and informed by knowledge from a broad range of the behavioral sciences. Leaders in American Education (Seventieth Yearbook, Part II, 1971) contained biographical and autobiographical essays on the lives of eleven selected educational leaders, ten men and one woman. It is the only yearbook in which the term "leader" appears in the title. Obviously, the content of all yearbooks has been pertinent to the work of administrators. Most volumes often have broad policy

Interprofessional policy analysis is a new concept in the annals of policy development. It responds to a growing need among legislators at all levels for information about exceptionally difficult problems confronting the human community. The disease AIDS, for example, is devastating to the persons who acquire it, the families involved, and the work places and institutions it touches. AIDS has evoked medical uncertainties, moral and social issues, legal questions, educational policy debates, and religious controversies that fall heavily at the doorstep of the professions. Professions tend, over time, to develop intraprofessional perspectives in regard to the problems AIDS has created. But seldom, if ever, do we structure ways professions can address a complicated issue interprofessionally. Interprofessional policy analysis is designed to bring the knowledge and insights of individual professions into play in the review of problems such as those AIDS produces. Leaders from the human services professions join in intensive discussion, over extended periods of time, probing the dimensions of a problem, leading eventually to a written statement which clarifies potential policy directions for society.

The factors that fostered the birth of interprofessional practice and are nurturing its early adolescence hold promise of encouraging a vibrant maturity. As several of the authors in this issue have postulated, tomorrow's culture will see the continuing explosion of professional knowledge, increasing specialization, a growing desire and necessity for treating clients as whole persons, and, in general, a more complex society in which all aspects of life become increasingly interrelated. This future need not be frightening. In fact, the soon-to-be-in-place web of interprofessional communication and concerted action will result in the

The subject of this chapter is the application of computer technology to educational governance. According to Mitchell, three important aspects of educational governance attract scholarly attention: (a) the congeries of constitutional, statutory, and regulatory policies that are the parameters within which educational goals and objectives are prescribed; (b) the exercise of power and authority over education within the legal machinery of government at federal, state, and local levels; and (c) the linkage between, as well as the interdependency of, the managerial and political (executive and policy) functions) It is that linkage that is of interest in appraising the role of computers in governance responsibilities. Often that linkage is described and analyzed in terms of school board and superintendent relationships emphasizing administrative and legislative roles and responsibilities. Occasionally analyses are devoted to power relationships and how the influence of superintendents and boards shifts back and forth in the making of policy. Although references are made to federal and state levels of government in this chapter, the major focus is upon computer uses in local district governance activities and upon the problems and issues arising from that usage. Current applications are described in terms of Harold D. Lasswell's decision-phase analysis framework which makes it possible to project new uses including those made possible by "fifthgeneration" computers. These are controversial machines which are expected by their designers to enhance human intelligence artificially. These computers are described as "thinking" or "reasoning" machines. If and when they are perfected and marketed, their potential for changing the governance of local school districts may be revolutionary. It must be n.oted that research is sparse on computer uses in policy processes, especially at the local district level, Studies are cited of the applications of computers in policy development and legislative oversight within federal, state, and other local governments to illustrate possible computer uses by school boards.

Just as the 2 1/2 decades of publication of Theory Into Practice have been years marked by change and transformation, so it is with the field of educational administration and, to some extent, school organization. When TIP began publication, educational administration was influenced by research and concepts drawn often from the behavioral and social sciences. It was an emerging profession, filled with energy and a sense of direction. A number of promising fields of inquiry were tied to theories that helped explain administrative behavior. There was in fact a movement, stimulated by such scholars as Halpin, Getzels, Culbertson, Guba, and Griffiths. These scholars were joined by other individuals who were developers, such as Campbell, Gregg, Goldhammer, Reller, Johns, and Lonsdale. These leaders were followed by dozens of other scholars and their students, who struggled with theory development and its application to practice. The history of Theory Into Practice parallels in large measure the evolution of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), located for much of its history at The Ohio State University (now located at Arizona State University). The UCEA stimulated a greater emphasis on research, theory development, and linkage to practice. The development of professors was a priority, as was the sponsorship of conferences, publications, and collaborative research activities. Preparation programs

A recurring theme is emerging as national, state, and local policy makers and educators attempt to define and assess educational excellence. Again and again, improvement in the quality of teachers and teaching heads the reform agenda of state boards of education and state legislatures. In many states improved instructional quality has been legislated through reform initiatives such as teacher competency testing, increased certification requirements, and more standardized tests for students. Most of these reform measures operate on the assumption that good teaching can be made uniform and predictable. This type of thinking places

IT IS DIFFICULT to address a sub ject about which so much has been said but so little is really known. Bi ographers, historians, and social scientists of all stripes have discussed the concept of leadership for genera tions. Despite their efforts, the topic re mains hard to pin down. In many re spects, leadership is whatever people be lieve it to be. In his new book, Warren Bennis notes that there are more than 350 definitions of leadership recorded in the literature.1 Some years ago, I de scribed leadership as