Jeffrey Silva

A027B

SDCS Case Analysis

3/31/2015

1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of San Diego City Schools’ (SDCS) strategy for

reallocating and realigning resources to the Blueprint for Student Success?

The primary strength of SDCS’s Blueprint for Student Success in a Standards-based

System lies in the unified, district-wide educational vision that resulted from a centrally imposed

budgetary process. Whereas prior budgeting had allowed school principals great discretion over

fund usage, the Blueprint shifted virtually all resource allocation decision-making to district offices

by restricting school-level spending to only include expenditures that were district-approved.

Similar to Honan’s assertion that an “explicit connection between strategies, resources, and

results” (2011, p. 142) is crucial to improving student achievement, the new top-down budgetary

approach provided SDCS with a coherent improvement strategy – one centered on advancing

instructional quality – that starkly contrasted with past, disjointed improvement efforts. In practice,

SDCS’s newly shared educational vision manifested in three ways: a common curricular

framework run by school-based “peer coaches”, a formalized professional development strategy

(i.e. the establishment of the Institute of Learning and the Educational Leadership Development

Academy, two entities responsible for principal and instructional leadership training and

development), and the realignment of Title I resources toward the lowest-performing schools.

Unfortunately, the consolidation of decision-making at the district level also proved to be

the source of the Blueprint’s greatest weakness. In contrast with Shim and Siegel’s

recommendation that “Budgets should be participatory to encourage teamwork” (1997, p. 140) the

Blueprint confiscated decision rights from those who previously shared in the governance of

SDSC’s yearly budgets. Along with principals, three school advisory committees – composed of

parents, teachers, staff, students, and principals – that California law and local agreements require

SDCS to collaborate with in resource allocation policies vociferously protested the loss of their

decision rights, even to the point of one advisory committee’s (the District Advisory Council for

Compensatory Education) filing a uniform complaint with the California Department of

Education. The damaged morale among these stakeholders was further realized in such forms as

lack of teacher respect for peer coaches, many principals’ early retirements, and parents’

dissatisfaction in the district’s mass dismissals of teacher assistants. Here, the district failed to

follow Young’s advice to balance the qualitative measure of stakeholder satisfaction with its drive

to maximize the more quantitative measure of instructional quality “in conscious and sensible

ways” (2004, p.198).

The emergence of California’s budget crisis in 2004 brought another weakness of the

Blueprint to light. Although the Blueprint was intended to be flexible through its annual

modification of resource allocation based on program effectiveness, organizational capacity, and

the availability of restricted funds and private grants, for programs to effect long-lasting

improvement, they must be sustainable, something not feasible under the current configuration of

the Blueprint. For example, given the district’s increased reliance on peer coaches to provide

ongoing school-based support after external consultant expenditures were reduced, a contingency

plan such as that recommended by Shim and Siegel (1997, p. 141) could have aided in helping to

account for the loss of $36 million in revenue between SY03 and SY04 (from $108 million in

SY03 to $72 million in SY04) that resulted in the decrease of peer coach salary funding by 16%

and thus provided real increased flexibility to the Blueprint’s year-to-year budgeting.

2. Would you grant more control and flexibility over resources to SDCS principals? Why or why

not?

I would reinstate principal control of resource allocation for the same reason that Young

argues: “if managers are to commit themselves to achieving the strategic and financial aspects of

the budget, they must have some degree of participation in setting the budget targets” (2008, p.

166). The district’s objective, to improve instructional quality, has been made explicit, and it is

reasonable to assume that principals share in this objective since 80% to 90% of current principals

have been hired under Alan Bersin’s tenure and have presumably been trained at the district’s

Institute for Learning or its Educational Leadership Development Academy. Now that the vast

majority of principals are on board with the collective district goal, responsibility for its attainment

should be returned to principals and local advisory committees for four reasons.

First, further legal challenges by advisory committees to the legality of strict central control

of resource allocation policies can be avoided. This is especially salient since the waivers that

exempt peer coaches from the Title I comparability provision granted to SDCS by the U.S.

Department of Education expire in SY06.

Next, since uncertainty exists over continued board support for Bersin’s superintendence

as a result of upcoming board elections, it is important for both Bersin to concede to popular

demand for the return of local control over spending in order for SDCS to maintain stability in

leadership while driving towards improved instructional quality. Bersin must not allow what

Weikert, Chen, and Sermier declared “shortsightedness on the part of local government officials”

(2013, p. 22) to derail the long-term objective of instructional improvement.

Third, return of resource allocation control to the school level will also go a long way to

restoring principal, teacher, and parent morale as well as fostering communication across the

district, what Proctor labels “constructive motivation of staff” (2004, p. 22). Young furthers this

notion when he states that participatory budgeting “can help managers at all levels to anticipate

potential problems. This communication aspect of the budgeting process is perhaps one of its most

important benefits” (2008, p. 166).

Finally, building on Young’s idea that participatory budgeting assists in anticipating

problems, control over spending should be placed again in local hands since they are located in

closer proximity to the unique challenges that individual schools face. Their detailed knowledge

of these challenges, combined with the district’s knowledge of research-supported interventions

and system-wide reaction to interventions, allows all parties greater ability to collaborate

effectively in formulating strategies that will maximize each school’s potential to push toward the

collective goal of instructional improvement.

3. What are the implications of your response to question #2 regarding SDCS district strategy

and organization?

The primary issue in returning resource allocation control to principals is whether they

want it now that difficult decisions need to be made. Intimidated by the prospect of being held

responsible for balancing a $98 million deficit in SY05, principals may feel indignant out of the

belief that the district may be trying to set them up as “fall guys”. In order to address this very real

possibility, SDCS must not forget that “it is essential for managers be [sic] held accountable for

items they can control and not for those outside of their control” (Young, 2008, p. 166). The

California budget shortfall clearly does not fall within the control of school principals and local

advisory groups. It cannot be expected that they can sustain all of the district’s previous programs.

However, what does fall under their control is the alignment of what programs they do decide to

continue funding to the district’s objective. For instance, if a school’s principal and advisory

committees decide to dismiss peer coaches in order to reduce expenses, it is their responsibility to

find more cost effective alternatives. One possible solution could be to work with the district to

ensure that mandatory and voluntary professional development days substitute for the supports

that peer coaches currently provide, namely those of dissemination of research-based instructional

practices and the maintenance of common curricular frameworks.

Related to fair accountability is the concern that principals are not currently capable of

once again handling the responsibility of effective resource allocation. SDCS’s Chief

Administrative Officer Lou Smith explains, “One consequence of telling our… principals to just

focus on instruction over the past six years is that they haven’t been trained to think strategically

about budgets and operations” (Honan et al., 2004, p.15). Fortunately, SDCS has the infrastructure

to train principals with these skills, the Institute of Learning and the Educational Leadership

Development Academy. Adding strategic financial planning to the training at these centers should

be a top priority for SDCS as it moves back to budgetary decentralization, for until principals are

given the capacity to handle these problems, they cannot be expected to perform satisfactorily. It

is therefore preferable to return budgetary control to principals and local advisory committees

gradually instead of immediately. However, any timetable should take three aforementioned events

into account: the November 2004 board elections, Bersin’s 2006 contract termination, and the

SY06 expiration of SDCS’s peer coach exemption from the Title I comparability requirement. It

would be best if the shift to local control be well on its way by the board elections to assist in

persuading new board members to retain Bersin until the end of his contract. The shift should be

completed by 2006 in order to give Bersin the best chance at renewing his contract, thus

maintaining leadership stability, and for SDCS to avoid any further challenge to the legitimacy of

its use of Title I grants to fund peer coach school-based supports.