Friends and Neighbors-

I'd like to share what I learned about bold education reform - transformation, really - 15 years after it began. I visited the United Kingdom months ago for one week with Georgia educators to learn from the country's successes in public education. The visit itself is old news, but what we saw isn't.

Sponsored and paid for by the British Council, 16 Georgians visited over a dozen schools, met with principals, local school councils, school board staff, elected officials and national education department staffers. A press release with more information sent out by State School Superintendent Kathy Cox follows my comments.

Implemented over a several-year period in the late '80s under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's leadership, England's public school system gives greater authority and decision-making to parents, teachers and principals at the school level.

Parental authority and involvement

Parents can apply their children to any public school. Priority is given to siblings at the same school and to geographic proximity when a school is full. Outside of the closest school, or district school, a parent provides transportation. Some parents interview a number of schools. Each school creates its own brochure touting its unique qualities, academic achievements and goals.

England, in general, has smaller schools and more differentiated schools and, therefore, more schools to choose from. This nation of 58 million citizens offers far greater parent choice and more local school management than Georgia with its 8.5 million citizens. And it has successfully for over 15 years.

Management at the most local level - schools

Each school has its own governing council - sort of like the Local School Councils (LSC) in Georgia that were legislated several years ago, but with more members (15-20 depending on school size) and more teeth. The LSC hires the principal and approves the yearly budget he offers. The LSC also monitors the school's budget and performance.

The LSC is comprised of parents elected by school families, teachers elected by teachers, a non-teacher staffer elected by peers, the principal, school board appointees, and others from the local community selected by the LSC. Privately-raised funds remain at the school and their use is determined by the principal with LSC oversight. At several schools we visited serving disadvantaged populations, local companies were actively involved and provided substantial additional funding and resources.

Transparency of information

England's highly developed education information system provides great transparency for parents and communities. How much does each school receive in funding? Exactly how does each school spend the money? The yearly budget for each school is published. How does each school perform on standardized tests and other measures? And it's all on the Web, which parents use in comparing schools. Academic achievement is monitored over time by child, teacher, principal and school. The information is instrumental for principals and teachers to target specific areas to improve. Georgia will have the same capability in a year when each child will have a unique, private identifier.

Principals

A principal manages his school and the funds allocated to his school. Larger schools may have a part-time accountant/finance staffer, or a LSC member can perform that function. In reality, the bulk of state funds pay for teachers through the state salary/benefit schedule, as in Georgia, but the principal (with local oversight by the LSC) manages the rest. Principals choose their own asst. principals. And have full discretion over which teacher to hire when there's an opening.

England has maximum class sizes as does Georgia, but larger classes with a 30/1 ratio in all grades. Several principals we met "buy down" class sizes through other budget savings. Want to purchase cafeteria services from the school board? Fine. Don't want to use school board maintenance, but use a local service? Fine, too. Want to hire aides in K-3 classes? Fine, but better cut back on other things to fit it in the budget.

Accountability

There's no accountability like competition. Schools that don't attract enough students to financially balance the books close down. Do parents want to send their children to this school or that school? Many choose the most geographically-close school, but a significant number do not. Principals and their staff attract parents/children through their success. The U.K. also has charter schools, which operate even more independently, but with similar standards and checks and balances.

Each school is inspected every two years through a state inspector process. Several inspectors spend several days evaluating each school on many factors. Principals and teachers know the many factors their schools will be evaluated on. The results are published and available on the Web. If you think of England as a state, they have a state curriculum (as does Georgia). And like us, the U.K. has regular standardized testing, and it publishes the results.

Schools are accountable to - and in this order - parents, local school councils, school boards and the state. Parents vote with their feet/children and through local school council elections.

Not one principal or elected official, school board staffer or teacher we met expressed a desire to return to a less local approach. Several principals said they would never want to manage a school without also managing the budget. Teachers are involved in a real way in school decision-making through their elected representation on the LSC's, which have considerable authority.

Two schools we visited had a student majority body of Bangladesh immigrants. One school was overfull because of demand (outside of the area) created by achieving academic success in spite of its challenges. It transformed itself into a language charter school and offered 8 languages (Charter schools have greater independence in their operation). The other, a boys' high school with a sports and music theme, enforced high discipline and structure.

Funding

About 70 percent of school funding comes from the central government. The rest is generated at the local school board level (organized differently from the U.S., but also elected). Funding follows the child to whichever school he attends. The state allocates per pupil funding according to a formula that takes into account special needs, poverty level, sparsely populated areas (with, for example, higher transportation costs), more expensive cost-of-living areas (metro-level school property and salary costs) and such. School boards (and their staffs) receive 20 percent of the state's education funding to offer specialized services to local schools such as maintenance, cafeteria services, construction and professional guidance.

School boards

State funds are sent to school boards, which allocate state and local monies to individual schools based on student population. In other words, the money follows the student, both local and state funds.

School boards offer an array of support services to the local schools. Schools can choose to purchase school board services, or not. Most purchase, for example, cafeteria services. One school principal we met has a handyman on his cell phone speed dial and uses a local landscaping company for outside maintenance.

School boards may revoke a school's authority to manage its budget if the principal and his LSC demonstrate failure to do so adequately. The same is true for the school's management, which the school board may reorganize under certain conditions. The school board owns all the buildings and allocates to schools local funds generated from local taxes.

We found primarily supportive, collaborative relationships between the school boards and the schools. Instead of ruling/managing each school, the school boards' staffs offer consultative support in raising academic achievement. Because schools can determine which services to purchase from their school board staffs, the board staffs have very real incentives to offer value and service to the schools.

Achievement

Every person we met said that local control of schools at the school-level led to higher achievement. Several mentioned the underlying competition for students among schools as driving excellence. Each school prepares and publishes short-term and long-term plans for improvement. Local school councils and school boards monitor each school's progress with respect to the plans.

Finally

England and Georgia have many differences, but more similarities when it comes to the challenges of educating children today. Like Georgia, England has considerable variations in wealth and cultural backgrounds, preparedness of students entering school, non-English speakers, etc. We can learn from one another, just as Georgia can learn from other U.S. states. Several states have implemented similar reforms to England's.

The U.S., and Georgia, surpasses England in education practices for special needs children, quality school facilities and educational opportunities for 16-18 year olds. England has a 15-year successful history with public school choice; increased authority by parents, teachers and principals; greater autonomy and differentiation of individual schools; and an excellent child- and school-specific information system.

I look forward to learning more about best education practices among Georgia's schools, the states and other countries. And working with you and others to transform Georgia's public education so we can lead the nation in improving academic achievement and customer responsiveness.

Best-

Jan Jones - janjones38@bellsouth.net

State Representative - District 46

(Serving northwest Fulton, including portions of unincorporated, Roswell and Alpharetta)

GEORGIA EDUCATORS LAUNCH INTERNATIONAL DIALOGUE
WITH U.K. COUNTERPARTS

Policymakers and Teachers Visit Britain to Examine Best Practices

ATLANTA – Sixteen of Georgia’s top educators and policymakers returned yesterday from the United Kingdom, where they studied U.K. best practices on school financial decision-making as part of a new partnership developed by the British Council USA (BCUSA) and the state of Georgia.

Designed to foster mutually beneficial relationships between education professionals in Great Britain and the United States, the program establishes partnerships between policymakers and practitioners involved in school governance and education technology in the two countries. The returning U.S. delegation includes Georgia Department of Education State Superintendent Kathy Cox, Georgia State Representative Jan Jones, and Georgia Teacher of the Year Chase Puckett.

“This was an eye opening trip for the entire Georgia team,” said State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox. “While schools in England and the United States share the goal of improving student achievement, we have two very different ways of getting there. Georgia can learn a lot from England’s time tested school reforms, while teaching our new friends what we’ve learned about embracing diversity and closing the achievement gap.”

Also traveling with the group was Brantley County School Superintendent Dr. William A. Hunter who said Georgia’s students will ultimately benefit from the international collaboration. “The U.K. has integrated very creative ideas into their schools as they have pursued a priority - raising standards,” he said. “As Georgia seeks to lead the nation in school improvement, we can learn much from the British Council that can make our journey more fruitful and more rapid. State Superintendent Kathy Cox should be commended for her foresight in studying the best practices in the U.K.”

In early 2005, a team of British education policymakers and practitioners will visit Georgia in order to continue the international dialogue on local autonomy in school financial decision-making. Later phases of the program will bring additional U.K. educators to the United States, where British teachers and administrators will gain expertise in education technology by studying its innovative applications in Georgia.

“Through partnerships like this one, the United Kingdom and the United States are fostering sustainable bilateral networks in education policy,” said Andy Mackay, director of the British Council USA, the United Kingdom's international organization for educational and cultural relations. “The program taps best practices in two areas that are of vital importance to educators in both countries, school governance and the use of technology in the classroom.”

Participants in the first phase of the program included:

· Kathy Cox – State Superintendent, Georgia Department of Education
· Stuart Bennett – Chief Deputy State Superintendent, Georgia Department of Education
· Scott Austensen – Deputy State Superintendent, Georgia Department of Education
· Dr. Martha Reichrath – Executive Director, Office of Student Achievement, Georgia Department of Education
· Dr. Howard Woodard – Executive Project Director, Statewide Student Information System, Georgia Department of Education
· Jan Jones – Georgia House of Representatives
· Ronnie Chance – Georgia Senate
· Kimberly A. Quinn – Information Systems Manager, Georgia Department of Education
· Dr. William A. Hunter – Superintendent, Brantley County School System
· Steve Dolinger – President, Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education
· Mike Campbell – Executive Director of Government Relations, Cobb County School System
· Dr. Holly Robinson – Senior Vice President, Public Policy Foundation
· Dr. Willie Wiley – Principal, Spirit Creek Elementary School and President-Elect, Georgia Association of Middle School Principals
· Phil Dockery – Principal, Indian Creek Elementary School and President, Georgia Association of Elementary School Principals
· Patrick (Pat) Blenke – Principal, Duluth High School and President-Elect, Georgia Association of Secondary School Principals
· Sadie Dennard – President, Georgia School Boards Association
· Chase Puckett – Georgia Teacher of the Year