Editorial: Decentralizing the district

A legislative panel has approved plans to decentralize the massive Clark County School District, a move intended to thin the bureaucracy and ensure more money funnels to the classroom.

This is good news for local schoolchildren and parents.

The interim committee’s unanimous action on Wednesday nudges the district closer toward adopting the so-called “empowerment” model, which shifts control of budgets and staffing from central administrators to principals, who work in conjunction with teachers and parents to set priorities. The goal is to place as much decision-making as possible – in terms of staffing, instruction and spending – in the hands of those working the trenches.

It was developed in the 1970s by educator Michael Strembitsky when he ran the school system in Edmonton.

The proposal – part of a bill approved in 2015 dealing with the reorganization of the school district – also includes provisions to make it easier for principals at lower-performing campuses to attract high-quality teachers. Schools would receive funding based on enrollment and the individual characteristics of the students in attendance, meaning more money would follow at-risk students.

In his 2007 State of State Address, then-Gov. Jim Gibbons proposed similar measures. But not much materialized because Democrats hostile to education reform dominated the Assembly. The landscape shifted in 2014 when the GOP took control of the lower house, allowing Gov. Brian Sandoval to guide his ambitious education agenda through the 2015 Legislature.

William Ouchi, a UCLA professor who studies business management, held up Mr. Strembitsky’s success in Edmonton as a model for other school districts seeking to overhaul hidebound management systems.

Edmonton “has the highest rate of child poverty in the province” of Alberta, but “its students pass the diploma exams in math and English at the same rate as the rest of the province,” Mr. Ouchi noted in a 2009 interview with UCLA Today. Mr. Strembitsky’s push for decentralized decision-making resulted in “principals in Edmonton controlling 97 percent of the money and the schools are at an all-time high graduation rate and rising.”

Disrupting an entrenched bureaucracy takes determination, time and tenacity. Elements of the system are certain to oppose reform. But there comes a time when the defenders of mediocrity and the status quo in education must no longer be allowed to obstruct reform.

The empowerment approach has a proven track record and encourages principals, teachers and parents at individual schools to work together to tailor policies and solutions that reflect their own unique circumstances. And that’s a formula for enhancing student achievement.