With so much recent emphasis on the importance of state governance in education, it is important to understand that states have widely varying ways of implementing governance structures. The Fordham Institute has categorized states based on the commonalities in their governance systems. Below is an excerpt from their taxonomy:
We don’t have one education governance system in the United States. We have fifty.
Despite some common features, the structures and processes that govern education in each state vary significantly. Those wanting to put governance into service on behalf of needed reforms are wise to start with a clearer understanding of not only the arrangements they’re presently working within, but also of the remarkably different circumstances that have arisen in other jurisdictions. To that end, this study creates a taxonomy of education governance systems.
To do this, we first classify governance relative to three main components:
- The degree to which decision-making authority lies at the state versus the local level
- The degree to which decision-making authority is distributed among many institutions versus consolidated in a few
- The degree to which the public can participate in the policymaking process
We score states on each component, then combine them into eight “governance types” named for the characteristics they have in common with some of history’s most famous political leaders and theorists. We supplement our taxonomy with qualitative data that explores how different approaches to governance constrain or facilitate the work of schools and districts on the ground.
For more information and the infographic that shows the state categorizations, please visit:
