The Unforeseen Consequences of School-Choice Policies: Social-Justice Principles and Year-Round Schooling

Title: The Unforeseen Consequences of School-Choice Policies: Social-Justice Principles and Year-Round Schooling

Author: Marilynne Waithman EdD

The story

This article tells the story of the implementation of year-round schooling (YRS) at an inner-city elementary school in British Columbia. The story is a synthesis of my retrospective critical-case study conducted as a scholar-practitioner leader and doctoral student in the UBC Department of Educational Studies. The study is directed toward educational leaders, practitioners, administrative bodies, and policy developers who work in partnership with government agencies and the public school system. The purpose of this retrospective study was to explore three topics which influence students’ learning and academic achievement within the public education system in general and designated inner-city schools in particular … the adoption of school-choice and open- boundary policies; the development of full-service year-round schooling, and the application of integrated social-justice principles. In this study, I report on the unforeseen negative consequences of the implementation of school-choice and open- boundary policies upon an inner-city school and explore the structural and discursive strategies implemented to address these outcomes.

Conceptual framework

The conceptual framework that I employed for my case study was that of social justice. I utilized Young’s (1990) work to define social justice as “the full participation and inclusion of everyone in a society’s major institutions, and the socially substantive opportunity for all to develop and exercise their capacities and realize their choices” (p.173). In this study, I approached social justice through the lens of key sensitizing concepts: recognitive, distributive, and representative justice concepts based on Nancy Fraser’s (2005) theorizing. Distributive justice speaks to issues of equality, equity, and need; recognitive social justice speaks to the matters of recognizing cultural differences, and in this case study, it directed attention to individual student need; and representative social justice refers to ensuring equal political voice. My study reported on an integrated approach to providing socially-just educational opportunities for children and it appraises, evaluates, and examines the structural and discursive approaches taken.

The questions

The study was guided by the following research questions: 1.) How did various interests and ideologies inform the introduction of school-choice and open-boundary policies and how did they support or inhibit redistribution and recognition at the school? What was the impact of these policies? 2.) What were the limits and possibilities of various structural strategies, such as year-round schooling, which were implemented to mitigate the negative impact of school choice and open-boundary policies? 3.) What were the limits and possibilities of various discursive strategies, such as efforts to change the school’s reputation internally and externally, that were implemented to mitigate the negative impact of school-choice and open- boundary policies? 4.) What recommendations can be made based on this case study, for a more socially just approach to open-boundary, school-choice, and public- education policy development?

Background and Context

The school at the center of this case study, KMCS (a pseudonym) is located in a public school district in the province of British Columbia. Its inner-city designation was granted by the Ministry of Education based on the socio-economic status of the students, many of whom lived in poverty. Its community-school designation was awarded upon application and required a relationship between the school and its external community. KMCS, an elementary school, recorded the highest or second highest percentage of students with special-needs, Aboriginal ancestry, and English Language Learners as well as accommodating the highest percentage of transient students within the school district.

During my tenure at KMCS, school-choice and open-boundary policies had become institutionalized within the school district. Choice-program offerings across the district include French Immersion, Montessori, fine arts, traditional education, sports academies, international baccalaureate, and outdoor education. For purposes of this work, I describe school-choice policy as the policy crafted by the Board of Trustees of a public school district that permits children to register at schools-of-choice offering specialized programs developed under the auspices of the Board. Brown (2004) describes open boundary policies in B.C. as “the right to attend any public school as long as space is available” and explains how “this form of open enrolment . . . gives students who live within a catchment area first priority to attend their designated school” (p. 77). According to these policies, parents were guaranteed two rights. First, they had the right to select an alternate school for their children, and second, children residing in a particular neighborhood were guaranteed access to a seat in their designated neighborhood school.

It is my contention that KMCS was negatively affected by school-choice policies and my challenge as a school administrator was to respond. Choice policy is contentious within public education. Some educators have come to believe that school choice is essential to encourage change within a uniform and bureaucratic system (Merrifield, Dare, & Hepburn, 2006). Proponents furthermore assert that through school choice, competition and the marketization of schools will result in improved student achievement in all schools (Bergstrom & Sandstrom, 2002; Coulson, 2001; Merrifield et al., 2006; Yair, 1996); that choice programs permit space for specific educational interests (Raham, 2002); and that they improve student achievement (Dosdall, 2001). Critics of school choice point to the lack of attention given to the impact of school choice upon the issues of equity and social justice (Bomotti, 1998); the lack of equal student accessibility to schools due to transportation issues (Maguire, 2006); and the negative impact on neighboring schools when high achievers leave one school to cluster in a school-of-choice (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006). Others have pointed to the tendency of selective admission policies to discriminate against low-achieving students (Maguire, 2006) and argue that “choice initiatives further diminish the power of urban educators to effectively and equitably meet the needs of children in the urban context” (Horn, 2006, p. 188). In this report, I elaborate on these key assertions in the debate on school choice and evaluate them based on my experience at KMCS.

The Rationale for Change at KMCS

The implementation of a choice program featuring a fine-arts curriculum at the neighbouring public-school lead to a population decline which resulted in reduced funding and a stratified student population that required additional special-education services.  While many of the “best practices to help meet the needs of children living in poverty” had been initiated at KMCS, low student academic achievement remained a concern.  The need for change also grew from the fact that students at KMCS lived and learned in an inner-city community where poverty and other related problems influenced daily life and where children and their families depended upon and trusted the school to provide consistent social and educational support.  Current research emphasized the crucial relationship between time and learning and reminded educators that students, particularly disadvantaged students, experience a summer-learning loss; YRS could increase learning time for certain students. And finally, the proposal was based on the knowledge that support from the school-district senior management team, the business community, and service organizations external to the school was essential to success.

A Proposal for Change at KMCS

During my tenure at KMCS I developed a proposal to re-structure the school calendar. The proposal was approved as a pilot by the Board of Trustees. The intent of the calendar change, as part of a comprehensive plan to improve student achievement and learning, was to provide socially-just educational opportunities for the students at KMCS. At that time, I was not explicit in naming social justice concepts in this proposal; rather, I had envisioned full-service year-round schooling at KMCS for pragmatic reasons and at the time of writing, I simply understood that our students were marginalized, that our school was resource poor, and that as the school leader I felt responsible for addressing these inequities. The overall goals of the calendar-restructuring proposal were developed to provide equitable learning opportunities for KMCS students and to improve the school climate; the goals were intended to improve student achievement, reduce student misbehaviors, improve community support systems, enhance professional practice, and improve staff wellness through the implementation of a single-track year-round calendar.

Year-Round Schedules 

Year-round school schedules are centered on re-organizing the academic year to provide more continuous learning for children. The calendar is organized into instructional periods and vacation weeks that are balanced across a 12-month period by reducing the summer vacation and redistributing those vacation weeks throughout the year. The curriculum and the number of days of instruction are identical to the traditional calendar. Intersessions, the periods between terms organized through redistributing the summer vacation days from the traditional calendar, are a structural component of a year-round schedule. Intersession weeks can be utilized as vacation days or developed into remedial or enrichment programs or a combination of these. The schedule allows schools to remain open year-round to provide additional learning and recreational opportunities for students. YRS creates a consistent environment in which children can be supported and guided along a 12-month continuum wherein educators and community members, in partnership with parents and caregivers, are empowered to enhance the social and educational environments which contribute to children’s well-being.

The YRS Program at KMCS

The program timeline and actions were based on the knowledge that simply rearranging the school calendar would have no effect on student achievement. To increase student achievement and reduce student misbehaviors it was essential to establish a year-round calendar; offer remedial intersessions in October, March, May and July; embed professional development and enhance professional practice by rearranging the weekly schedule to allow for the early dismissal of classes one day each week. The early dismissal plan would include day-care provisions for primary students and extracurricular programs for intermediate students; offer a more protected environment for students by providing connections to the school on a sustained and continuous basis; provide an innovative climate in which parents, staff, and community-support agencies could pilot creative programming; sustain a community-based model which encompasses the resources of numerous partner agencies; and cause minimal fiscal impact to the KMCS budget.

Data collection

Conducting my analysis of the challenges and benefits of YRS required the utilization of publicly available sources of empirical data, school-based achievement data, and engagement in the systematic collection of personal data. A range of sources provided quantitative information relevant to my study (Ministry of Education, Census Canada, school-district archival records). Essential to this analysis was my extensive collection of personal records including a diary with meeting dates and agendas, attendance records, personal memos, pertinent emails, budget information, Board of Trustees reports, photographs, conference proceedings and newspaper articles.

My Findings

The specificity of focus of a case study proved to be valuable in analyzing, critiquing, assessing, and reporting on my practice and enabling me to enter conversations with educators as I explored my research questions. My first question asked the following: “How did the various interests and ideologies inform the introduction of school-choice and open-boundary policies, how did they either support or inhibit redistribution and recognition at the school, and what was the impact of these policies?”  To answer these questions, I examined the claims made by both proponents and critics of these policies (Lubienski, 2006; Maguire, 2006; Merrifield &Hepburn, 2006) and explicated five key assumptions with respect to the benefits of school-choice policies and schools-of-choice that are not supported by empirical research.  The assumption that schools-of-choice provide a better education than neighbourhood schools; parents always make informed choices around school selection; the exit of children from a neighbourhood school will not harm that school; competition will automatically improve schools; and schools-of-choice policies will provide equal opportunity and access for all students are not supported by empirical data.

My second research question asked, “What were the limits and possibilities of various structural strategies such as YRS, which were implemented to mitigate the negative impact of school-choice and open boundary policies”? In answer, KMCS was organized as a single-track YRS that was designed to meet student needs and to respond to their academic and social struggles, rather than to provide efficient scheduling.  The YRS schedule was undergirded by a community-school initiative that provided funding and staffing to assist in the implementation of academic and social-support initiatives, as well as a host of volunteers, service groups and corporate sponsors that provided direct assistance to students and their families. While the changes were structural and primarily focused on economics, in theory, they also required an orientation to recognitive and representative social justice and the principle of parity-of-participation. Growth in academic-achievement scores supported the contention that structural changes were beneficial to KMCS students.

My third research question asked, “What were the limits and possibilities of various discursive strategies, such as efforts to change the school’s reputation internally and externally, that were implemented to mitigate the negative impact of school choice and open- boundary policies”? In answer, I described my successful efforts to shift the discourse at the school and in the community from a deficit orientation towards a capacity-building approach. Discursive strategies were grounded in social-justice and were reflected in discussions and initiatives addressing pedagogy, communities of difference, equity, and privilege.

My final research question asked, “What recommendations can be made based on this case study, for a more socially just approach to open-boundary, school-choice, and public- education policy development”? In answer, I recommend the provision of social-justice education for all practitioners and administrators; the evaluation of the impact of proposed learning initiatives and policies through a social-justice framework prior to implementation; compensation for schools that experience negative repercussions from the implementation of choice policies; study into the relationship between time and learning including the implementation of full- service year-round schooling; and, differentiated hiring practice for schools with high-needs populations.

From Research to Practice:   In closing, I offer guidelines for educators who are considering the implementation of a full-service year-round calendar:

• Implementing a balanced-calendar schedule is a political issue within the parent community, the neighborhood, and the educational community. A school principal advocating for year-round education is more likely to garner support if the initiative involves staff and parents from the outset.
• Successfully implementing a YRS calendar requires a leader or principal with expertise, personal courage, and positive relationships with staff. Personal courage is required to deal with the challenges and criticisms put forward when an initiative results in a change in policies and procedures.
• The demands upon personal and professional time extend beyond the expectations of an administrator working within a ten-month school year. The availability of increased clerical support is essential to assist with the increased workload.
• An intersession coordinator, other than the principal, is essential if a comprehensive full-service program is planned. The coordinator requires teacher credentials and expertise in curricular areas if the intersession programs are academic in nature.
• Teachers-on-call may be in abundance during summer months since beginning teachers may seek work to supplement their incomes.
• Beginning teachers, at the elementary school level, who are available for intersession and summer work, are often university graduates with current training in the areas of literacy and numeracy. Their ability to contribute to conversations around pedagogical practices and current research findings can be valuable to school staff.
• Special-services employees who work on a ten-month contract can schedule individual student assessments and remediation programs during intersessions; therefore, students receive the mandated level of support throughout the school year. This procedure allows specialized staff to meet their obligations to students within a ten-month time frame.
• Teaching staff must be informed that their pension income status should be examined if they plan to retire from a balanced-calendar schedule.  Income may be adjusted if the number of months of pensionable employment is recalculated
• Fiscal issues alter capital and operational expenses as follows: intersession programs require paid certified teachers as opposed to volunteer instructors; additional clerical support is required during intersessions; additional custodial support may be required throughout the year; maintenance costs increase due to increased usage of facilities.
• At KMCS, offering intersession programming was contingent upon successful grant writing and through garnering financial support from service agencies and corporate sponsorships. Variable costs that would be borne by a host school district include staffing, recreation, supplies, and meals.
• The implementation of year-round schooling can be contentious and may require adjustments to collective agreements with professional and para-professional groups.  The support of these groups is essential to the adoption of a re-structured calendar change.
• Parents must be informed and included in discussions if a calendar change is proposed within a school that operates on a traditional calendar.
• It is essential that administrators in the human resources department of a school district commit to providing a range of assistance to teachers and support staff.  Staff currently employed within the school may not support calendar change.  These individuals must be assisted in transferring to a school with a traditional calendar.

• Author Biography: Marilynne Waithman EdD is an Adjunct Professor in the Educational Studies Department at UBC.  She is an educator whose career and post-graduate studies are focused on leadership, academic research, professional ethics, policy studies, social justice, special education, and community service; an administrator who has provided leadership across the post-secondary education system, the K -12 public education system, international education, and the community-service sector.  The Canadian Association for the Study of Educational Administration (CASEA) awarded Marilynne the Thomas B. Greenfield Distinguished Dissertation Award for this retrospective case study.

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