The Politics of School Reform in Chicago and Cleveland: The Impact of
Mayoral Control in the Minority Community
Department of Political
Science
Across
the country big-city mayors are taking control of their city school systems to
improve educational opportunities for our nation’s urban youth. Chicago’s Mayor Daley, and Cleveland’s Mayor
White are two mayors leading this new trend.
In this project I examine the movement toward mayoral control of school
systems to determine how responsive these new school governance structures are
to the needs of the minority community, whom school board members and mayors
are accountable to in their decisions, and the educational effectiveness of
this new reform trend. This new emphasis on mayoral control is
compared to previous administrative structures which emphasized parental and
community control of the school system.
Project Description
The problems associated with urban public education
are many. A few policy makers have
pinned the blame for failing inner-city schools on school boards. Boards have been criticized as financially
undisciplined, corrupt, unresponsive, and unaccountable to both the communities
they serve and to the government. Where
educational reform efforts to improve administrative structure have been
implemented, school boards have frequently been the focus for improving urban
schools in cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, and New
Orleans.
Low
public confidence in school boards has led mayors like Richard Daley of Chicago
and Michael White of Cleveland to execute large-scale takeovers of school
boards to establish direct accountability to the city government. Chicago led this new trend in mayoral
control of school systems when in 1995 the Illinois State Legislature granted
Mayor Daley control of the Chicago school system. Following Chicago’s reform, Mayor White was granted control of
the Cleveland schools by the Ohio State Legislature. As a result, Cleveland’s elected board was replaced by one
appointed by the mayor in 1998. In both
cases, these mayors were granted broad oversight of school district finances
and the ability to hire (and fire) the board’s CEO or superintendent.
While
some applaud the efforts of big-city mayors to radically reform their school
boards, others contend that the financial crises faced by cities are the
overwhelming factor behind the failure of urban school systems. Altering the political control of the
schools, therefore, would not necessarily remedy the immediate crises that
affect our urban public school students.
It might not be a coincidence that both mayors sought control of their
school systems due to large school budgets and the financial flexibility state
legislatures tied to recent reform legislation.
The
path that Chicago established, and that Cleveland has followed, demonstrates a
growing movement toward mayoral control of big-city school systems. My dissertation research on school reform in
Chicago revealed that despite the praise Mayor Daley has received since his
take-over of the Chicago Public Schools, a great deal of frustration is growing
within the minority community, among teachers, and even among administrators
since the inception of this new reform.
At the heart of the controversy over mayoral control is whether those
served by the schools are in fact benefiting educationally or whether politics
and economics have become more important than improving educational opportunities
for our urban youth. This new trend in
mayoral control requires evaluation if other cities intend to adopt similar
school reform initiatives. More
importantly, we must understand the impact of these governance changes on those
served by the schools.
As my dissertation research
revealed, mayoral control helped stabilize Chicago’s school budget. Whereas the district was previously heading
toward bankruptcy, it is now operating on a balanced budget. At the same time, this new reform trend may
have adversely impacted those served by the schools. During my in-depth interviews with parents, community activists,
teachers, and school administrators, many respondents expressed considerable
dissatisfaction with policy initiatives implemented by the new school
administration and the subsequent repercussions on students. According to these respondents, the new
school administrative structure may balance the budget or create the impression
that student achievement is soaring, but in reality a very different scenario
is at play. In addition to high levels
of frustration among many respondents due to an allegedly unresponsive school
administration, empirical evidence on student performance did not clearly point
to student improvement. Because mayoral
control in Chicago occurred so recently, I intend to update and confirm the
findings from my dissertation research and compare these findings to another
city where mayoral control is underway.
In the proposed project, extension of my Chicago study to the Cleveland
case will yield important findings of interest to politicians, policy analysts,
educators, and urban residents concerned about the education of our urban
youth.
In the proposed project I seek to determine
how effective the move to mayoral control has been, whom mayors and their
appointed boards are accountable to, and whether they are responsive to
community needs. By building upon my
Chicago research, I intend to offer an assessment of this new urban educational
reform approach and to examine any differences between Chicago and Cleveland
school reform models as they pertain to student achievement and minority
incorporation in policy making. As a
political scientist, my interests are rooted in the minority empowerment
literature (Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Browning , Marshall, and Tabb 1987 and 1984;
Eisinger 1982). However, while this
body of research emphasizes mayors and city councils as the principal policy
actors, I seek to explore the school board as a third policy actor. Further, I seek to bridge the gap between
the educational policy literature (Bryk et. al.1998; Gittell 1998; Stone 1998;
Hess 1995; Peterson 1985) and the minority empowerment literature.
I seek to determine whether and how the political
structure of a school system influences administrative accountability,
responsiveness, and overall educational effectiveness. I believe that the structure of the school
system can profoundly influence the subsequent educational policy decisions
implemented by the system. By administrative
structure I am referring to the way school board members are selected. Are they appointed by the mayor, or are more
democratic methods of board selection used, such as elections? Are board members accountable to different
interests when operating under different political structures? I consider whether board members act as
“delegates” for their constituents or as “trustees,” relying on their personal
judgments to determine which policies are best for the district. I also examine the social and political
backgrounds of appointed and elected school board members.
With regard to
responsiveness, I identify the groups that the board members appear most
responsive to and to whom community and minority groups look for educational
change. Elected boards may be too
responsive to too many special interests, including teachers’ unions, leading
the district down the road to fiscal insolvency. And because voter participation is generally low in school board
elections, the potential clout of organized interests in the cities may be
greater than that of low-income minority residents. Assigning formal powers to the mayor, however, may also limit the
responsiveness of the board to the city’s minority community as it limits
citizens’ access to the people who control city schools. Appointed boards may increase the business
community’s control over educational policy, as mayors, even minority mayors,
have been shown to be highly responsive to the business community (Stone
1989). Mayors have been openly motivated
by fiscal factors to assume control of cities’ school boards, and government
efficiency is a chief aim and general preoccupation of the city’s business
elite (Peterson 1981).
Finally,
I assess various student performance measures to determine whether school board
structure may be linked to certain aspects of school performance. While turning control of the school board to
mayors is likely to improve the management of the district’s finances, it is
possible that elected boards, or those school boards appointed with community
involvement, may better address student performance. If community members are involved in the selection of the school
board and have first hand knowledge regarding the performance of their children’s
schools, the quality of education may improve.
To determine how various administrative structures impact urban
education in the areas of responsiveness, accountability, and effectiveness,
there are two components to my research approach. Both stages are modeled after my dissertation research.
In the first stage I examine and compare the political structure of the
school systems in Chicago and Cleveland over time, discussing minority and
community involvement in educational policy decisions. These cities differ along important
political lines. Cleveland’s African
American mayor and Chicago’s White mayor are Democrats. Prior to mayoral control, Chicago’s school
board selection process involved the community. Cleveland’s school board was an elected board prior to mayoral
control. Both of these earlier models
incorporated community members and were arguably more democratic. These models of school board selection
provide interesting contrasts to new mayoral control models. Because I am interested in understanding the
structural changes of school boards in these cities, I will examine school
administrative structure from 1965 through 1999. I have selected this time period given my strong interest in the
growing influence of minorities in urban governments and urban educational
policy.
The second component of my research will
include a performance evaluation of the schools under the various
administrative structures. In addition to empirical data such as test scores,
student-teacher ratios, graduation rates, and per capita expenditures on
students, I will consider parental assessments of the school system under
different administrative structures as a measure of school performance because
education extends from the schools to the home.
Collecting the data for this project entails two
stages. The first stage includes the
review of secondary sources and relevant local/national news stories related to
school reform in the two cities.
Empirical data on both cities will also be collected. Stage one will be completed during the
spring of 2001. The second component of
my data collection will involve in-depth interviews in Chicago and Cleveland
with the principal actors in educational policy. Interviews will be conducted over the summer. These actors include current and former
school board members, parents, community and minority group activists,
educators, and mayors. Questions will
be designed to determine to whom board members feel they are accountable, the
extent of their authority and political power, the types of solutions that they
believe would improve school performances, and the role of minority and
community groups in educational policy decisions.
Community and minority group activists will be interviewed to determine who they seek for school reform, if they believe their requests have been met, and how they believe school performance can be improved. Public school teachers will be interviewed for their assessment of reform initiatives as they are the link between students and the administration. Finally, I will interview the mayors and concentrate my questions on their assessment of school reform, their feelings about the role of minority and community groups in the urban educational policy process, and how they feel school performance can realistically be improved.
Travel funding for the principal investigator is requested for the
purposes of collecting interview data in Cleveland and completing follow-up
interviews in Chicago this summer. The
attached budget summarizes all anticipated travel costs.
While I have a publishable book manuscript
from my dissertation which is based on the Chicago case, the Cleveland case
will strengthen my claims about mayoral control as a method of improving urban
education. I expect to complete my
revised and expanded book manuscript by the spring of 2002.