1. Sticking Points: How School Districts Experience Implementing the Portfolio Strategy
- Author
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Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), Lake, Robin, Posamentier, Jordan, Denice, Patrick, and Hill, Paul
- Abstract
The portfolio strategy is a change strategy for public education in a district or metropolitan area. It is founded on the idea of re-missioning government agencies from rigid bureaucratic entities that mostly manage compliance requirements and interest group politics to a new role: overseeing performance and a diverse range of school choices (portfolio) from which families can choose. Since 2013, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has published annual "dashboards" of districts' progress on portfolio strategy implementation. CRPE recently analyzed the data on trends across all portfolio districts, breaking it down by the strategy's seven key components. This report shows quite starkly where cities are moving ahead rapidly and where they are getting bogged down for technical or political reasons. Key findings include: (1) While a handful of districts are at an "advanced" level of portfolio strategy implementation, too many are moving very slowly or are stalled; (2) Some districts are implementing portfolio strategy in a piecemeal fashion that is unlikely to produce significant results for students; (3) A group of districts not well known for portfolio implementation has been making a lot of progress lately; (4) Districts tend to get "stuck" on or avoid the parts of portfolio systems that require a fundamental restructuring of the central office or changes to the union contract; and (5) It will take leadership at the state and local level to overcome barriers, and sustained progress is likely to require state action. "The Seven Components of the Portfolio Strategy and Their Corresponding Elements" is appended.
- Published
- 2016