A Governance Revolution: Growing Results for Students through Policy Governance

• Author: Airick Leonard West
• Published date: 01 July 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/bl.30019
• Date: 01 July 2015

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FOR YOUR BOOKSHELF ... .......... 4

CALENDAR OF EVENTS ................ 7

NUMBER 140, JULY–AUG. 2015

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A Governance Revolution:

Growing Results for

Students through Policy

Governance

By Airick Leonard West

Airick Leonard West is a Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS) board member

and served as board chair from 2010–2014. During that time, he led the

implementation of Policy Governance® in KCPS and currently consults with other

urban school boards throughout the United States looking to effectively implement

Policy Governance. Here he tells us about KCPS’s journey.

BOARD LEADERSHIP

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO GOVERNANCE

View this newsletter online at wileyonlinelibrary.com

Board Leadership • DOI: 10.1002/bl.20036 • July-Aug. 2015

A Portrait of Our School District

KANSAS CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS (KCPS)

was long considered Kansas City,

Missouri’s, premier school district

in its region. Civic leaders viewed

the district as a community asset

that served to attract generations

of families to Kansas City. White-

flight and affluent-flight throughout

the 1960s and 1970s largely eroded

that perception. The majority white,

middle-class district of nearly 90,000

students dwindled to a district of

nearly 15,000 students, of whom

more than 90 percent were low-

income students of color.

The Way We Were

In 1985, the Federal court-imposed

desegregation order effectively

removed local control of the school

district. Although technically there was

still an elected nine-member school

board, for all practical purposes a

court-appointed Desegregation Moni-

toring Committee made most of the

final decisions. For nearly two decades,

board members tumbled into a dys-

functional pattern of behavior that

bore little resemblance to governance.

KCPS board meetings became known

throughout the region—thanks in no

small part to local media—as a place

where yelling, cursing, storming out,

grandstanding, and even the occasional

tossed beverage took place. Board

members spent much of their time

carving out micro-fiefdoms and micro-

managing whichever district staff they

could influence behind the scenes.

RESEARCH GALORE!

Academia.edu is a platform for

academics to share research papers.

The company’s mission is to acceler-

ate the world’s research.

Academics use Academia.edu to

share their research, monitor deep

analytics around the impact of their

research, and track the research of

academics they follow. According to

their website, 21,730,414 academ-

ics have signed up to Academia

.edu, adding 5,844,433 papers and

1,556,083 research interests. All

this includes substantial amounts of

material on governance issues.

See https://www.academia.edu/

THE SECRET CORPORATE

TAKEOVER

The United States and the world

are engaged in a great debate

about new trade agreements,

reports Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel

laureate in economics, profes-

sor at Columbia University, and

former senior vice president and

chief economist of the World Bank.

Far from being “free-trade agree-

ments,” Stiglitz suggests, they have

actually beenmanagedtrade agree-

ments, tailored to largely US and

European Union corporate interests.

You can read more at http://

www.project-syndicate.org/

commentary/us-secret-corpo-

rate-takeover-by-joseph-e--stiglitz-

2015-05#J1YwHTv0Le3Xfl1Q.99

NEWS

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