This inter-district transfer plan provides yet another avenue of school choice. Milwaukee participates in the Chapter 220 Integration Settlement Agreement with 23 suburban school districts. While waivers of certain Board policies, additional funding, and inservice training are part of a comprehensive program to decentralize services, it is not until you permit principals, staffs, and the community actually to control their budget that true empowerment, and in turn, decentralization occur. This process needs the total involvement of all of the stakeholders to ensure initial and continuous success. The existing bureaucracy often is cited as an obstacle to changing the governance of a school district.
People are resistant to change.
We were never good at getting information past the first several layers of central office staff down to the teachers. There are serious consequences if nothing new is done, but there's also a lack of support for change because there's always someone who feels you are not going in the right direction. Remember, change is unsettling. We are gradually changing people's attitudes about the central office as a source of mandates to a central office that is a source for service. You have to support people who are risk takers.