Parent participation in school governance : a legal analysis of experiences in South Africa and Kentucky

This comparative study on the educational governance systems of South Africa and the Commonwealth of Kentucky examines legal evidence from judicial decisions and administrative law to understand similarities in how school-based governance structures have been developed. We found that although school-level governance structures may provide greater opportunities for community and parental participation, each engenders a number of legal problems that compromise the decentralization of democracy to the school level. Recommendations for policymakers and practitioners are offered that may achieve this goal. Education is an important social function that consciously weaves together responsibilities of the state, the community, and the family. Most nations engaged in systemic education reform are challenged by the need to balance countervailing forces for centralization that advances the broad interests of the state and for decentralization that gives greater voice to communities and protects individual legal rights of parents. Although education reform is 11_522_5_Bathon.indd 349 10/27/11 2:33 PM 350 JUSTIN BATHON ET AL. a global phenomenon in the 21st century (Bjork & Alsbury, 2011), many countries find devolving authority to the local school level and installing representative democratic bodies problematic. Understanding the legal complexities of enacting educational representative democracy in the Republic of South Africa and the Commonwealth of Kentucky—both viewed as reform states—is the focus of this cross-national comparative study. This article provides a discussion of the history of educational reform with attention to the devolution of governance in each state, as well as an examination of evidence from legislation, judicial decisions, and administrative regulations that illustrate unique legal complexities as well as similarities encountered by each state in enacting school-based governance structures. An analysis of legal implications of the school-based governance provides a basis for offering recommendations to policymakers and practitioners who are considering a school-based approach to governance. SCHOOL GOVERNANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA AND KENTUCKY South Africa and Kentucky are distinctive in that both states made a commitment in the early 1990s to systemically reform their respective education systems. As part of this reform effort, the states sought to shift the locus of education decision making to the school level. In South Africa, this responsibility is placed in the school governing body (SGB); in Kentucky, it is vested in the school-based decisionmaking (SBDM) councils. The following sections discuss the way that each state reconfigured its education system and the legal framework that created these representative democratic structures. SGBs in South Africa The apartheid system in South Africa created a race-based system of education with five main national structures (see 11_522_5_Bathon.indd 350 10/27/11 2:33 PM Parent Participation in School Governance 351 Figure 1)[Q1] composed of approximately 17 separate systems or departments of education. Each operated under different laws and governance systems that provided little substantive coordination of the whole enterprise. Except for the White systems, there was little real parental education (Department of Education, 1995). When the democratically elected government assumed power in 1994, the nation ended apartheid and set about developing and implementing a comprehensive suite of policies and laws to deal with its legacy of inequality, discrimination, and race-based education. One of the most urgent matters focused on addressing the wide disparity in the quality of education and the related undemocratic nature of school governance. For example, there was little provision for parent and community input in Black schools. Teachers used inappropriate and outdated pedagogical instructional materials and strategies. The local education systems were led by autocratic administrators, and financial inequalities in the system were rampant. The White Paper on Education and Training (Department of Education, 1995) was the first education document to emerge from the newly formed government that embodied a comprehensive set of new public education policies. The white paper unambiguously stated that parents have the primary responsibility and inalienable right to be involved in the education of their children, and it asserted the rights of parents [Q1: Table