Consider the following January 31, 2006 article from Governing Magazine Otis White’s Urban Notebook
Results and Accountability- Running Schools the Canadian Way

Get ready for some new education-reform buzzwords: “the Edmonton model.” What is it? It’s a radical, bottom-up way of running schools, where principals are given say over 95 percent of their budget allocation and told to find the most effective and efficient ways of spending it. If it’s cheaper to spend money on outside vendors rather than with the school system, then that’s what they’re supposed to do. One city that’s taking a close look at this approach is Washington, D.C.

Background: It’s called the Edmonton model because this is the way schools are run in Edmonton, Alberta. It’s generating a lot of buzz because a management professor at UCLA, William Ouchi, wrote a book proclaiming it the most effective way to run schools. (If Ouchi’s name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because of his book in the early 1980s, “Theory Z.” For a while, the book about how to adapt Japanese management techniques to American companies was required reading for corporate executives.)

Conservative education theorists applaud the Edmonton model. School systems “should measure results, not dictate how to achieve them,” Diane Ravitch told a columnist for the New York Post. “The people who are closest to the kids should have room to make decisions and be held accountable.” Now the idea is spreading to the systems themselves. One who’s a fan of the Edmonton approach is Washington Superintendent Clifford B. Janey.

Janey has already tried it in one high school. In return for the school not becoming a charter school and withdrawing from the school system, he gave the principal broad authority to make spending decisions. So far, outside observers are supportive of this radical approach to school management. “This makes the schools more responsive,” an official with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs told the Washington Post. “You won’t have the same finger-pointing you do now.” Even the teachers’ union is generally in favor, although one official said it was important that principals and others in schools be trained in deciding things that were once handled downtown. “There needs to be [an] emphasis on making quality local school decisions,” he told the Post.

Janey has other ideas for shaking up Washington’s schools: He wants to make them into community centers as well as schools by offering services to adults in the neighborhood. This is called the “community school” or “full-service school” approach, and it’s used in a few schools around the country. In Boston, for instance, there are schools that run neighborhood health clinics and sponsor YMCAs. In Chicago, a school runs a student-managed bank for residents. And in Washington, an elementary school provides parenting education, health-care services and dance and music classes for adults.

How does this help the schools? As an official at a company that partners with the Washington school told the Post, “We’ve definitely seen an increase in test scores at the school, and we’re seeing the school become a magnet with more students trying to go there.” She agreed with the superintendent that other schools should try it. “There are a lot of benefits to the community, children and parents,” she said.

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