Giving Compass' Take:

• The author relates various lessons in education reform that other schools and educators can learn from Indianapolis schools that are strategic with their goals and depend on the accountability of their teachers. 

• Can strategic education reform be replicable from state to state? What are the difficult parts of implementing changes in education?

• Read about the pillars of successful teacher-led education reform. 

Education reform is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. It’s an ultra-marathon.

Reimagining a city’s school system so it delivers better outcomes for all children is fundamentally a long-term effort. Too often, communities take a quick-sprint approach and give up when their initial efforts meet resistance or failure. But effective, sustainable education reform takes patience and endurance.

Since 2001, Indianapolis has pursued a strategy guided by one central idea: Teachers and school leaders do their best work when they are empowered to lead and held accountable for results. Simply put, great schools emerge when they operate under conditions of autonomy and accountability, which happens most often when schools are governed by nonprofit organizations.

Today, nearly half of students within the boundaries of Indianapolis’s largest district attend schools with these conditions, in the form of charter schools or nonprofit-governed district schools called Innovation Network Schools.

These students are doing significantly better academically than their peers in traditional schools. As a result, education leaders in other cities frequently ask how they can replicate Indianapolis’s transformation.

Here are some key principles for running the ultra-marathon of city-based education reform:

  • Find the right north star: Education leaders should focus their vision for navigating education change on a north star capable of guiding a multi-decade effort.
  • Stay focused on systemic reform: Ultimately, education reform must be about transforming an education system so it works better for all kids in perpetuity.
  • Make sure autonomy means autonomy. Districts looking to embrace the idea of school autonomy frequently do so by giving educators and principals more freedom instead of full autonomy.
  • Safeguard school autonomy so it will last. The impact of autonomy is undermined when there is a risk that future district leadership will infringe upon it.

Read the full article about education reform by David Harris at The 74