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Memo
To: Participants and interested others
From:
Richard Meinhard, Ph.D. (234-4600, edcenter@teleport.com)
Date:
October 9, 2002
Re:
Conversations with John Gardner
(Here are some of my notes from John Gardner's September
visit to Oregon. John is the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, school board member who has
been leading the reforms made by the board in response to parental choice in
Milwaukee. John, a Democrat with a long record of successful labor organizing,
became active in education reform while working on behalf of his own Milwaukee
neighborhood school. For years, parents had been fighting for Montessori
programs, and in 1968 parents launched the Highland Community School.
Finally the school secured a charter, the only charter issued in Milwaukee. In
1995 John won a seat on the school board, and by 1999 the pro-change coalition
had captured control of the Milwaukee school board. During his three days, he
spoke (and debated) with district administrators, school board members,
legislators, and groups of community leaders. His message challenged us to
think much more deeply about the institution of public schooling as it is now
defined and organized—to think out-of-the-box.
John sketched a picture of the board's reforms that created site-managed,
autonomous and accountable schools, and the parental choice that created the
pressure and need for the board reforms, what he referred to as "leverage."
John pointed out that school improvements have to be generated by the schools so the board's goal was to make schools
self-governing and self-improving. The reforms offered the schools autonomy and control over
decision making and resources so they could respond and beat the
"voucherites." The schools are succeeding in drawing families back into the district, improving test scores,
and increasing graduation rates. In school reform, John sees two essential factors:
site-based decision making and the leverage of parental choice. Putting the school reforms in
place, such as school power to hire and fire, faced stiff opposition in the past. "I
contend," he said, "that (these changes) would not have occurred without the introduction of true
school choice.")
The
reforms we made broadened the definition of public schools; our definition
includes all schools attempting to educate Milwaukee's children—district owned
or not, in-district or not. This open system of choice by parents made it
important for the board to enhance the capacities of schools so they could
respond to families. Our job is to build capacity in schools by giving them
control over their own programs. Our intention was not to try to reform our
schools or to manage them but to push them to become self-reforming, to manage
themselves so they would become autonomous, self-improving.
(The first public discussions
with John were hosted by the Molalla School Board, a board that is proactively
looking at systemic change in its district. It was a powerful discussion that
created a powerful vision focused on nine systemic reforms the Milwaukee board
has put in place.)
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