Schools of Thought: A Taxonomy of American Education Governance

Those wanting to put government into service to enact necessary education reforms, would be wise to begin with a clearer understanding of both the arrangements that are presently in place, and the remarkably different arrangements that are in place in other jurisdictions. To that end, the authors created a taxonomy of education governance systems. To do this they first classified governance relative to three main components: (1) The degree to which decision-making authority lies at the state versus the local level; (2) The degree to which decision-making authority is distributed among many institutions versus consolidated in a few; and (3) The degree to which the public can participate in the policymaking process. States were scored on each component then combined into eight "governance types" named for the characteristics they have in common with some of history's most famous political leaders and theorists. The typology is supplemented with qualitative data that explores how different approaches to governance constrain or facilitate the work of schools and districts on the ground. [This report was written with Joanna Smith, Michael Thier, Ross Anderson, Christine Pitts, and Hovanes Gasparian. The foreword was written by Amber M. Northern and Chester E. Finn, Jr.]