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As stated in the last chapter, increasing a school’s organizational autonomy will not automatically improve the education of children or the quality of teachers’ work in a given building. Although school autonomy is a crucial first step in a very long journey, it is equally important to help schools create a democratic ethos and “culture” within which to generate pedagogical and curricular reform conversations. As Anderson (1998, p. 572) observed, the notion that decisions about educational reform should be made by the people who work on a dayto -day basis with children has gained some acceptance in the United States: Viewed in education as an antidote to entrenched bureaucracy, hierarchy, and excessive specialization, [school-based reform] appears to have strong support among superintendents, principals, teachers, and the general public, regardless of their political ideologies. However, Anderson (1998) and others point out that school-based reform is extremely challenging (e.g., Anderson and Grinberg, 1998; Barker, 1993; Campbell and Neill, 1994; Campbell and Southworth, 1990; Katz, 1995; Hargraves, 1994; Lipman, 1997). ESTABLISHING DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURES AND RITUALS Although creating democratic structures, rituals, and ethos as a foundation upon which school-reform discourse can emerge in a given school is difficult, we were surprised at the positive response we received in nearly every school in which HEC worked. Our portrayal of these efforts might best be presented around three goals that emerged from our work: 1) establishing democratic governance, 2) promoting the voices in a given school community, and 3) providing ways to work through conflict. Following this discussion, we explore several issues that emerged in light of our work as external educational change agents committed to improving the education of children within a democratic ethos. 55 CHAPTER 4 Constructing a Democratic Foundation for School-Based Reform Discourse *Thanks to Daniel Baron and Carol Myers for their assistance with this chapter. Democratic Governance At the heart of school-based reform is the disruption of conventional ways that power is distributed within a given building. In most of the schools in which we worked, official power flowed from the principal down to teachers and staff, and then to students and their parents. However, like in all complex organizations, the flow of power was more multifaceted than the previous statement would imply. One of the common themes that emerged during our introductory interviews was the fact that all of these schools, to some degree, were “loosely coupled systems” (Weick, 1988). Either by direct opposition with the assistance of their unions or through indirect noncompliance, subordinates in these schools often found ways to ignore or alter many superordinate directives. However, without exception, the vast majority of faculty especially in high-poverty schools initially expressed deep feelings of powerlessness. Several faculty expressed similar sentiments as Beverly, a fourth grade teacher with nineteen years of experience, “I’ll believe it [the faculty having an authentic role in reforming her school] when I see it. This school can’t change. A year from now you [Harmony Education Center] will be a distant memory” (excerpt from introductory interview). Given this situation, we found it necessary to set up a structure to maximize participation in all aspects of the reform project. Ironically, the power to establish this structure was given to us initially for being the project “facilitators .” The governance restructuring that took place in Elletstown Elementary School was similar to what occurred in each of the schools where we worked: Once the introductory interviews were completed and the findings reported to the faculty, the building administrators (e.g., principal, assistant principal, Title I coordinator), teachers, parents, and support staff formed a Leadership Team (LT). We suggested the following criteria to the principal for selecting teachers: 1) willingness to work, 2) grade-level representation, and 3) diverse representation regarding race, gender, age, and seniority in the building/profession. At the first LT meeting, we explained that its primary responsibility was to encourage, articulate, communicate, and coordinate the ideas of the school community, and we then asked if anyone else should be included. A few suggestions were made, and the principal agreed to ask these individuals to join. At our first meeting with the entire faculty, the LT was introduced, and we asked each teacher to internally identify at least one individual on the LT who they trusted to represent their interests. If a given faculty member did not feel represented, s/he was invited to join or recommend someone else who would have his/her trust. One teacher accepted our...

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