Benchmark Comparison

American Schools perform significantly well due to the nation’s serious approach to the governance and structuring of their schools. The leadership in charge of the schools plays a significant oversight role that sees them tasked with ensuring that the growing number of students throughout the country is in a position to meet their educational needs. The leadership has the task of specifying policy changes that produce the best marginal gains in student achievement throughout pre-college education. All the corners of the political spectrum are similarly incorporated to ensure that the academic system of the country is geared towards helping students succeed in the rapidly changing and shrinking world. For the country to attain high rates of pre-college education excellent performance, it has equally had to incorporate other stakeholders, whose role is increasingly becoming indispensable. These include parents, families, wellness and guidance professionals as well as coaches and technical trainers. American education governance structure is highly fragmented, densely politicized, decentralized, and bureaucratic. Therefore, with that brief introduction, this paper seeks to discuss the strategic planning of the academic organization of the US school system through the comparison of unified and K-8/union high school districts.

Governance and Structure between a Unified School District and a K-8 or High School District

This case study pits Los Angeles Unified Schools District and Ohio Community District School Governance as perfect examples for Benchmark comparison.

Los Angeles Unified Schools District

The Los Angeles Unified Schools District (LAUSD) is the only District Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA). It provides complete special education program services for learners with exceptional needs (Hill et al., 2016). The board of education is the district's governing body, LAUSD. A democratic process is followed to elect seven members. The seven members appoint the school's superintendent, including a Deputy Superintendent of Instruction, Senior Deputy Superintendent of School Operations, Chief Strategic Officer, Chief Facilities Executive, General Counsel, and Local District Superintendents (Hill et al., 2016). All the superintendents are thus responsible for the administrative areas of the schools.

The superintendents recommend the adoption of policies and governmental regulations related to the governance and operation of the SELPA to the board of education. Moreover, they assume fiscal accountability for the special education programs and services operated by the SELPA. The leadership structure assumes responsibility for exercising authority over the special education services. The operations are done by the SELPA, which holds public board of education meetings in compliance with state law. SELPA then designates the voting members to the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) (Hill et al., 2016).

Ohio Community District School Governance

Poiner (2015) states that in Ohio, a community high school is a public school that is independent of any school district. The school is, moreover, still part of the state's program of education. The public schools are, therefore, tuition-free, nonprofit, non-religious, and open to any student (Poiner, 2018). The school is, therefore, required to submit to the state and federal authorities regarding transparency, financial audits, testing, and overall standards. Unlike the unity schools, the district high schools are headed by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) (Poiner, 2015).

Ohio community schools are estimated at 395 community schools that serve more than 120,000 students (Poiner, 2015). Based on their autonomous nature, Poiner, (2015) asserts their administration hierarchy differs from that of unity schools. At the top is the Ohio Department of Education. According to Poiner (2015), the next is the school board, then superintendents who govern the schools. In the governance structure, the budgets, operations, and curricular decisions that impact the daily operations of the schools are made by superintendents and boards. The only similarity between the District schools and the Unity schools is that publicly elected school boards choose the superintendents, which positions the types of schools to democratic ideals.

Standard leadership practices that are required for successful strategic planning for both Unified School Districts and K8 District Union Schools

The most pivotal development that is vital for unified district schools and K-8 schools entails leadership. The leadership should be based on a developed and implemented performance management system that starts from the central office departments of the district. Indeed, this is possible through the following ways:

Institutionalizing the Leadership to Make the Systems Successful

The district board members should assign a team to enable the district school to exhibit higher progress. The team should comprise the chief operating officer, the chief of staff, the chief academic officer, and the associate superintendent for the K-12 and K-8 curriculums. The team analyzes the traits and practices in the schools as a foundation for developing turnaround strategies.

Outstanding Leadership must have a Vision for their Schools

The leaders should set clear goals for magnet programs that define how they can enhance the overall situation of the school's system. Janmaat (2016) states that the overall wellness of the school system is crucial in the initial steps toward the sustenance of long-term success. After the establishment of the vision and goals, the commitment of the key players within the district will take charge of potential opportunities within the region and the resources that may influence the planning process (Janmaat, 2016).

The leadership of both Unity and K-8 schools should, therefore, move forward and rethink the specialized education systems by reducing disproportionality by addressing identification, including the provision of professional learning based on identification (Janmaat, 2016). It is also essential for districts to build wraparound social supports, making those additional resources available to all the learners. While still on social support, specialty should be employed while focusing on communities of highest needs.

Moreover, the existing strategies for both the unity schools and K-8 schools continue to build on the current success strategy. This will aid student and family engagement. The administration should listen to the community's needs and adjust the partnership programs to enhance their needs.

The Leadership Should set the Direction for the Schools

Regarding school outcomes, Humphrey et al. (2018) state that strategic management should ensure that successful results for marginalized students are scaled to other schools in need. Consequently, it should provide all the staff with professional learning opportunities to enhance the level of marginalized students. Strategic management should cover the improved and required professional learning staff. They have to continue providing professional learning, one that is based on identification.

Even though there exist differences between the achievement gaps and the two types of schools, strategic leadership should be employed to visualize the elements of leadership ability while encompassing a wide variety of factors. Consequently, the administration needs to develop a coherent model that informs them about what strategic leadership entails. Accordingly, this will prompt the leaders to start exploring their strategic direction and to deepen their practice in an effort to continue improving their school's ability to succeed. (Humphrey et al., 2018).

Stakeholder relations practices that are necessary for success in a diverse district

An effective stakeholder engagement system must ensure that every party involved is well-engaged throughout the process (First, 2009). First (2019) directly implies this in the stakeholders' discussions, for instance, ongoing conferences, board decisions, and meetings. The five criteria that form the basis of an ideal successful stakeholder engagement program include being fast, flexible, accessible, controlled, and transparent.

a) Fast

Being fast entails the talent of predicting issues well in advance, such as the adoption of a new calendar, the closing of a school, and other factors that are tied to education. The faster the stakeholders are, the more flexible they get, and the more excellent value they have with regard to success rates (First, 2009).

b) Flexible

It is a significant criterion that entails a system's ability to help choose priorities from all the feedback. To accomplish this, the stakeholders must share the feedback among relevant participants so that all the thoughts and ideas get tabled for everyone's consideration (First, 2009).

c) Accessible

The accessibility rate of the stakeholders should be judged from the perspective of the user (e.g., the district superintendent) and the education participants. The stakeholder's engagement system should be available to as many people as possible through both sides of the exchange. The more various parties can reach the stakeholders, the stronger the engagement and the more dependable the stakeholder's output (First, 2009).

d) Controlled

Active stakeholder engagement in education complies with the existing communicated policies. The structure and process for making the committee's decisions should be founded on meaningful, focused engagement and organized, processed codes of conduct (First, 2009).

e) Transparent

An active engagement system makes all the engagements, including discussions, visible to all the participants throughout the entire process. The merits of transparency are associated with values such as the ability to mitigate accusations of closed-door policy discussions and discoverable support for the decisions that are made. Transparency also enables each participant to see the input that others are making, and this may make them change their ideas potentially (First, 2009).

The achievement of more efficient stakeholder engagement is more accessible when the stakeholders identify issues and shape decisions in a cost-effective, collaborative, and healthy manner (Humphrey et al., 2018). Therefore, the channels of engagement become more efficient and effective when they are guided by a broader audience.

Conclusion

The majority of American schools understand the value and power of stakeholder engagement. This has improved their education system, yielding better decisions and ideas and building stronger trust between the leaders and the stakeholders. Indeed, this has resulted in a more effective, harmonious, and efficient process for identifying and addressing the major issues that arise in their education system.

References

First, R. (2009). Engaging Stakeholders, Including Parents and the Community, to Sustain Improved Reading Outcomes. Arlington. RMC Research Corporation with the U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/programs/readingfirst/support/stakeholderlores.pdf

Hill, L., Warren, P., Murphy, P., Ugo, I., & Pathak, A. (2016). Special Education Finance in California. Public Policy Institute of California.

Humphrey, D., Koppich, J., Lavadenz, M., Marsh, J., O'Day, J., Plank, D. ... & Hall, M. (2018). How Stakeholder Engagement Fuels Improvement Efforts in Three California School Districts. Policy Analysis for California Education, PACE.

Janmaat, G., McCowan, T., & Rao, N. (2016). Different stakeholders in education.

Poiner, J. (2015). Ohio Community School Governance: An Overview. Retrieved from https://fordhaminstitute.org/sites/default/files/publication/pdfs/Charter-School-Governance-final-for-publication-as-of-9-15-15.pdf