In Edmonton, funds follow student needs

Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

What can Clark County learn from a Canadian school district less than a third its size, with vastly different demographics and educational challenges?

Not much, says John Jasonek, executive director of the Clark County School District's teachers union.

Plenty, says Ross Wiener, vice president for program and policy at the Education Trust, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

To Jasonek, Edmonton is too homogenous to be comparable to the diversity challenges facing Clark County. Edmonton is 85 percent Caucasian, with black students accounting for 2 percent of enrollment and Hispanics 1 percent. By contrast, Clark County is a minority-majority district - 39 percent Hispanic, 14 percent black. Additionally, English is the second language for one of every four students.

Jasonek said "Edmonton is a horrible example" for Gov. Jim Gibbons to have chosen as a model for his empowerment schools proposal, in which individual principals would be granted more autonomy over daily operations in exchange for greater accountability.

"They don't have nearly the complex issues they have in large urban American schools," Jasonek said. "Demographics is a major factor in educational success."

But Wiener said: "There's lessons to learn everywhere. We shouldn't close our eyes to places just because the circumstances aren't exactly the same."

A key element of the success in Edmonton, which allows parents to choose where they want to enroll their children, is that the resources follow the students, Wiener said.

Edmonton schools receive extra funding for students with special needs, which acts as an incentive for campuses to develop programs to serve those populations. Nevada provides additional funding for special education students, but does not attach extra dollars for each English language learner.

"The way we've built budgets in our big city districts, there's a tendency to think of programs at the central office level and it ends up not leaving a whole lot of money for things at the school," Wiener said. "When it comes to weighted student funding, Edmonton were the pioneers."

Bill Ouchi, a management professor at UCLA and expert on school-based autonomy, said for Nevada to follow Edmonton's lead, it will have to do more than just give more control to campus principals. Parents must also be allowed to choose where to send their children.

"When you empower principals and schools but don't allow choice, you give them the ability to adjust and improve, but not the incentive," Ouchi said.

Students and their families will naturally gravitate to the best schools, Ouchi said. "As a matter of personal pride, no principal wants to have a school that's one-third empty," Ouchi said. "And as a matter of job security, no principal wants to have a school that's one-third empty."