In 2002, School Communities that Work, the Annenberg Institute’s Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts, developed a set of ideas to create “smart districts” (Annenberg Institute 2002). Since then, a major part of the Annenberg Institute’s agenda has been to work with existing districts to implement these ideas. While no district, on its own, can provide the comprehensive web of opportunities and supports that children and their families need,¹ there are a number of ways most districts can be much smarter than they have been historically.

School districts, which emerged in the early twentieth century, grew out of the social and organizational ideas that took hold during the Industrial Revolution. “Administrative Progressives,” as this early band of reformers has become known, sought the “one best system” (Tyack 1974) that would separate schooling from politics and produce assimilated, productive citizens as efficiently as Ford’s factories produced cars. Alongside the focus on “scientific management” was a strong belief that intelligence was innate and that race and ethnicity played a powerful role in determining an individual’s potential. The idea that only a small proportion of children were meant to succeed academically was built into school systems.

As these ideas played out over the last century, school districts became highly bureaucratic organizations that buffered schools from outside intervention (Elmore 2000). School districts attempted to standardize inputs — treating all schools, students, and educators as the same — while tolerating wideranging outcomes for students. By the late twentieth century, the reputation of school districts was as an obstacle to, not a catalyst for, reform.

But creating whole systems of successful schools requires school districts to be a key player in reform. As school districts evolve from their bureaucratic roots, they are struggling with a number of critical questions: What are the roles that we should keep and what roles should we eliminate or transfer to others? What new functions should we take on? What capacity must we have in-house and what capacities can we find in partner organizations, in the schools themselves, at city hall, and at the state department? Which decisions should be centralized and which should be made at the school level or in other entities?

As the Annenberg Institute works with school districts and communities all over the country, it is clear to us that the essential roles of school district central offices have not been adequately articulated. To fill this void, the Institute has developed a framework, based on the accumulated knowledge about effective central office practices gleaned from our work and from our own and others’ research.

In this article we provide an overview of these key functions and their attendant practices. We also discuss what distinguishes this framework from other like efforts and discuss the framework’s implications for school districts.

The Smart District Framework

Our framework includes the following key functions:

• Lead for Results and Equity
• Focus on Instruction
• Manage Human Capital
• Use Data for Accountability and Continuous Improvement
• Build Partnerships and Community Investment
• Align Infrastructure with Strategic Vision

Lead for Results and Equity

Smart districts develop and provide leadership necessary for the district and its schools to accomplish the goal of providing all students with an excellent education. In our formulation, responsibility and authority are firmly lodged with the superintendent, but he or she understands the need for and the power of inclusive, distributed leadership. Plans and policies are drafted by teams with expertise in the area of interest, but they are reviewed and revised through input from staff at all levels of the district and from parents and other interested citizens. Leadership sets the tone for the organization by modeling professional behavior, including clear communication and effective collaboration. To lead for results and equity, district leaders:

• collaborate with all stakeholders to develop a vision for the district and implement a strategic plan for realizing it;
  
  
• build ownership and sustain progress toward the vision through effective internal communication;
  
  
• establish a collaborative organizational culture that balances the prescription and guidance from central office with flexibility and autonomy for schools;
  
  
• develop substantive leadership at all levels of the organization;
  
  
• encourage and evaluate new ideas, methods, and partners to ensure the availability of the most effective supports and services for schools;
  
  
• ensure a service orientation toward schools and the community.

Focus on Instruction

Having an instructional focus does not mean creating a lockstep, teacherproof curriculum. Rather, it means that the central office ensures that a district’s time, attention, and resources are focused primarily on schools and student learning. Achieving this focus relies on input from school-based staff to agree on a set of common materials and approaches, so that the highest standards for instruction and learning are built into the system.

• establish a common curricular framework aligned with high academic standards and assessments;
  
  
• develop and implement valid and useful systems of formative and summative assessment;
  
  
• ensure appropriate supports and interventions for all students while maintaining high expectations;
  
  
• ensure extended learning opportunities and supports that facilitate learning beyond the classroom;
  
  
• develop and distribute teaching and learning tools and resources effectively.

Manage Human Capital

In public education, human capital refers to the knowledge and skill sets of our educators that directly result in increased levels of learning for students. In short, we are talking about what they know and are able to do — their talent level. Given this definition, managing human capital refers to how an organization tries to acquire, increase, and sustain that talent level over time. More specifically, it refers to the entire continuum of activities and policies that affect educators over their work life at a particular school district. Given that teachers, principals, and those that support them are the biggest factors impacting student achievement in schools, effectively managing human capital is arguably a smart district’s most important job. To manage human capital, district leaders:

• attract talent from a variety of sources, create a diverse pipeline of quality applicants, and streamline entry into the system;
  
  
• provide ongoing mentoring and support in varying levels and form;
  
  
• deploy human capital to meet the varying needs of schools and students;
  
  
• evaluate the effectiveness of personnel and provide appropriate recognition and accountability;
  
  
• ensure that all staff participate in high-quality professional development that is tied to evaluation and, whenever appropriate, supports instruction;
  
  
• provide competitive compensation and a variety of incentives for achieving excellence and meeting goals;
  
  
• establish a career track for teachers that provides varied challenges and advancement opportunities for the most effective individuals.

Use Data for Accountability and Continuous Improvement

To achieve results, smart districts need to know current and past results and what they have to do to improve those results. Districts and their partners need to develop sophisticated and userfriendly data collection and analysis systems that enable them to monitor the performance of young people, schools, programs, personnel, and the partners themselves against the results they expect. Smart districts integrate not only the collection of data, but also the serious and regular examination of data into the normal operating procedures of schools and districts. To use data for accountability, district leaders:

• collect, organize, analyze, and act on data and help others throughout the system to do so;
  
  
• monitor outcomes of students, schools, and district personnel, as well as indicators that impact those outcomes;
  
  
• evaluate the effectiveness of implemented programs;
  
  
• evaluate the effectiveness of personnel;
  
  
• ensure technology and support necessary for timely and effective use of data.

Build Partnerships and Community Investment

In most communities, the school district is the organization with the greatest number of resources at its disposal, both fiscal and human, for serving children. In addition, it is the entity charged with ensuring the academic success of those children.

• broker partnerships to increase resources for schools and students;
  
  
• collaborate with multiple sectors of the community to set district priorities and identify strategies for realizing them;
  
  
• advocate for a web of community supports and coordinate partnerships to provide them;
  
  
• communicate effectively externally;
  
  
• regularly seek community input and feedback.

Align Infrastructure with Strategic Vision

School districts are complex organizations involved not only in educating young people but also in transporting them, feeding them, paying their teachers, and complying with state and federal mandates. Smart districts manage their operations and resources to ensure an appropriate learning environment and support systems for all schools and students. Smart districts employ sound management practices, ensuring that the buses run on time, legal obligations are met, paychecks go out, and facilities are conducive to learning. Finally, they make clear the difference between board and central office roles and responsibilities. To align the infrastructure with the strategic vision, district leaders:

• ensure the equitable, efficient, and transparent distribution of public and private resources;
  
  
• ensure clean, safe, and wellmaintained facilities that allow for productive learning environments;
  
  
• implement policies that support the district’s focus on instruction and its accountability for results and equity in alignment with legal requirements;
  
  
• develop a technology infrastructure that enables central office and school-based staff to do their jobs efficiently;
  
  
• attend to the logistical needs of students so that they arrive on time and are ready to learn throughout the day.

What's Different about This Framework?

The Annenberg Institute is certainly not alone in its efforts to catalog and describe what effective school districts and central offices do. This framework is different because it focuses on both what school districts should do and how they do it. The last decade or so of research on school districts has touched on several of these functions.

Focusing on instruction and using data, for example, are two areas that have been clearly established in the literature as key roles for school districts (see, for example, Cawelti & Protheroe 2003; Corbett & Wilson 1991; Massell & Goertz 1999; Murphy & Hallinger 1988; Shannon & Bylsma 2004; Snipes, Doolittle & Herlihy 2002; Springboard Schools 2006; Togneri & Anderson 2003).

But there has been little information provided about how districts develop these functions. Our framework includes not only the functions and practices that school districts should focus on, but also on the ways they should approach their work. Below we describe the key values that are infused throughout our framework.

Smart Districts and Their Central Offices Collaborate and Partner in Critical Ways

Smart districts acknowledge that ensuring an excellent education for all students is not something they can achieve alone. They foster substantive collaboration within themselves as well as with important community stakeholders.

Whether under a traditional governance structure or new models like mayoral control, smart districts actively look to create important partnerships that are critical to their success — partnerships with entities like education management organizations that run portfolios of public schools, child and family service organizations that tend to the health and welfare of students and their families, and service-provider organizations that have expertise in things like quality after-school programs or targeted recruitment that the district may lack. This sentiment comes through in virtually every function in the framework.

Smart Districts Are Communicative and Transparent

Smart districts consistently strive for a high level of transparency. They ensure opportunities for community participation in goal setting and governance; provide clear and consistent explanations for district decisions to district staff and external parties; and work to build investment in their vision and plans through ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders in various forums.

Smart Districts Are Committed to Equity

Smart districts champion the cause of equity throughout the district through communication with the community, strategic allocation of resources, and nurturing of high expectations. They recognize that creating equity for students does not simply mean dividing resources equally, but rather that it means providing to each student what he or she needs to be successful.

Smart Districts Are Service Oriented

Smart districts recognize students, families, the community, schools, and educators as their partners and work to serve and support them to ensure children have what they need to be successful.

Smart Districts Are Coherent

Smart districts play the key role of aligning resources, internal and external capacity, policy, and strategic planning to ensure that students have everything they need to be successful and to receive a high-quality education.

Implications for School Districts

The implications for districts are straightforward, but not necessarily easy to implement. District leaders, at the behest of boards or in the face of community pressure, must focus on practical questions necessary for day-to-day operations (e.g., Should school supervision be organized by grade level or K-12 feeder patterns? What curriculum support materials should we purchase?). But they must also make time for even more important questions and reflection on whether they are fulfilling the most important roles that districts must play if all students are to be guaranteed the opportunity for an excellent education. Moreover, they must look carefully at how they play these roles and the values they foster in their approach to the work. This framework attempts to impart the importance of developing the capacity to work in these essential areas and in these essential ways.

We have already used this framework to help districts catalogue the challenges they face, to understand the capacity that exists among school district employees, to organize potential supports from outside the district, and to reflect on where they need to improve. While many large urban school districts are making progress in educating all students and reducing achievement gaps, none of the examples of district turnaround have achieved the goal of all students reaching proficiency.

This framework is, of necessity, a work in progress — like the development of smart districts. In the future we hope to build specific tools for districts, based on the framework, that will help them and their communities identify, not just what they should be doing and how they should be doing it, but also how to get from where they are to where they need to be.