Instruction was just as tightly controlled.  So many minutes were allocated for each subject to be taught in such a way. Some school systems in America boasted you could walk into any elementary school at a certain time of the day and know which textbook was being used and what page the class would be on.

Milwaukee followed Cleveland and other school systems into site-based management in the late 1980s. A series of superintendents all advocated more decentralization, and schools were told that central administration didn’t care what process schools used so long as they got results. 

But now Milwaukee School Superintendent William Andrekopolos is leading a retreat from nearly two decades of decentralization. He recently announced he will take direct control of 19 schools with the lowest test scores. The “system of schools,” it seems, will once again become a “school system.” Is MPS heading in the direction of more bureaucracy?
 
A reduction in central office administration is touted by some as a way to save money that could go back to the classroom. A study of area school systems by the Public Policy Forum found a wide range in administrative spending in Milwaukee County, from $622 per student in St. Francis to just $85 per pupil in Wauwatosa. St. Francis, the county’s smallest school district, could save its taxpayers a bundle by consolidating with another district, but good luck trying to sell that to residents who prize their independence.

The Trevor-Wilmot school district in Kenosha County is the state’s first to consolidate in 11 years. The move seemed a no-brainer: Trevor had the students; Wilmot had a half empty building. Wisconsin also has numerous independent elementary school districts that feed into equally independent high school districts. Such overlapping costs money. Nicolet High School, a district separate from the elementary school districts that feed into it, has the county’s second highest administrative costs, $386 per student.

Milwaukee spends $202 per student, near the median for the county. But Milwaukee never decentralized to the degree this figure might suggest. While the School Board boasted that most of the money was now going to the schools, in practice the administration took much of it back through “charge backs” and “buy backs.”

Even before Andrekopolous’s announcement, there were signs that he was reversing  decentralization. Representatives of MPS charter schools complain about increasing pressure from central office pushing these schools to conform to central office policies or to hire administrators chosen by Andrekopolous. Andrekopolous denies the latter charge and says any directions from MPS have been required by the federal No Child Left Behind law (which may be the ultimate top-down approach): “The law pushes us to be more prescriptive and provide technical support,” he notes.

The question of who controls the charter schools is critical, says Cindy Zautcke, who sits on the MPS review board for charter schools and is a policy analyst for Marquette University’s Institute for Transformational Learning. “One of things we were fighting for was to determine who flies the airplane.”

Zautcke’s boss Howard Fuller, is a charter school advocate who once served as MPS superintendent and pushed for site based management. What does he think of Andrekopolous’s reversal of direction? Fuller declined to say, adding that he avoids commenting on his successors.

Andrekopolous’ move to decentralize may not grab more money for central office. But will it grab more power? The superintendent says his goal is take authority away from poor performing schools and give more autonomy to successful ones. But there was no grand announcement of any grants of autonomy along with the declaration taking control of those 19 schools. Once a superintendent begins to take power, it’s hard to ever give it back.

Ultimately, any school needs a buy-in from the teachers and parents if it is to succeed. They may view a superintendent who micromanages schools as paternalistic and arrogant, as saying, “I know what needs to be done; you don’t.” And veteran teachers offered impractical commands from central office bureaucrats they consider refugees from the classroom may simply smirk and say, “Why don’t you come into my classroom and teach a few days to show me how it’s done?”

There is no one model for how to run a school system. But past experience suggests Andrekopolous should carefully consider any move toward centralizing more power. Milwaukee’s schools may not have gotten to the point of bartering paper clips, but it looks like some are being forced to bargain for more power. 

 (Article first appeared in Milwaukee Magazine, "Endgame," October 2006)