Lessons from Alberta
Issues in Forming School District Consortia to Provide Distance Education:
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Margaret Haughey and Tara Fenwick
VOL. 11, No. 1, 51-81
Abstract
Consortia are a popular way for organizations to extend their activities without incurring the costs involved to expand their own operations. School system consortia developed in Alberta in response to the Alberta Government's decentralization of distance education in 1989. Jurisdictions formed consortia to co-operate, to pool resources, and to be cost-effective. The five consortia provide many examples of the issues faced in developing and operating of consortia, and from these eight issues, implications are drawn. Finally, Kanter's conceptualization provides a framework for identifying varieties of consortia according to intent and interdependence.
Résumé
Les organisations ont volontiers recours aux consortiums afin d'étendre leurs activités, puisque ce moyen leur permet d'éviter les dépenses habituellement liées à l'expansion de leurs opérations. En Alberta, des circonscriptions scolaires ont donc mis sur pied des consortiums à la suite des mesures de décentralisation de l'éducation à distance entreprises par le gouvernement de cette province en 1989. Les consortiums ont ainsi été constitués par ces circonscriptions dans le but de collaborer, de partager leurs ressources et de réduire leurs coûts. L'article décrit ces cinq consortiums, brosse un tableau des problèmes survenus au cours de leur mise sur pied et de leur fonctionnement, et analyse notamment huit problèmes ainsi que leurs répercussions. Finalement, la conceptualisation faite par Kanter offre une structure d'identification des divers consortiums possibles selon les objectifs visés et leur interdépendance.
Introduction
Collaboration has been idealized for its purported benefits to teachers, administrators, and institutions in helping provide more effective access to distance education and enhancing learning in more general ways (Bynner, 1985; Feasley, 1995; Timmers, 1988). Konrad and Small (1989) insist unequivocally that institutional collaboration is essential to achieve the potential of distance education. Moore (1993) has also argued strongly that institutions should work co-operatively to deliver distance education, becoming a network of people integrally linked to a whole. Technology has the potential to revolutionize education, said Moore, but only when the current constraints of conventional organizational structures have undergone radical change. Anderson and Nelson (1989) claim that collaborative institutional effort improves distance education at all levels and that it “has a synergistic effect beyond the participating educational institutions” (p. 210). Of the various possible models of collaboration, consortia appear to be the preferred form of inter-institutional partnership chosen to implement distance education.
What exactly is a “consortium,” and why is one formed? Konrad and Small (1989) defined a consortium as “the highest level of collaboration wherein two or more institutions agree to establish a new mechanism to undertake, on their behalf, programs and projects of mutual interest” (p. 200). Kanter (1989) described a consortium as a group formed to undertake an enterprise beyond the resources of any of its members that will provide benefits to all of them, a perspective similar to that of Reddington (1982), who noted that educational consortia are formed primarily to provide more cost-effective methods of providing education to students at a distance. Hough (1992) named four building blocks of a consortium: personnel, policy and procedures, a financial arrangement, and a management structure, the classic aspects of any organization. Other writers have identified the elements essential for a successful consortium as a formal agreement, an agent or consortium co-ordinator to manage the agreement, and the contribution of resources by member organizations (Grupe, 1971; Konrad and Small, 1989; McKenna, 1976; Nelsen, 1972; Reddington, 1982).
Establishing and maintaining a consortium is more difficult than it appears, and collaborative arrangements among school systems for providing distance education are not well documented (Hough, 1992). Studies describing post-secondary consortia, such as those cited above, offer some lessons for school district consortia. But as McGreal and Simand (1992) have pointed out, school systems trying to establish a consortium face very different issues. Differences in educational philosophies, student needs and interests, financial stability, comfort and experience integrating technology with instruction, and teacher characteristics all ensure that there will be tremendous diversity in the agendas brought to the consortium by school district members.
Although consortia are frequently mentioned in research journal reports of distance education initiatives, few articles focus specifically on issues and concerns related to the development of a consortium. A consortium is a unique form of organization with idiosyncratic operations, organization, and governance issues that shape its success and there are advantages to be gained from exploring these issues and examining how consortia have dealt with them.
The data for this paper come from an analysis of public documents and from formal and informal interviews with personnel involved in developing consortia and with staff from Alberta Education. Alberta Education has developed a consortium guide, and a number of jurisdictions developed specific documents, including memoranda of understanding and policy handbooks. We examined a number of research studies (Clark & Haughey, 1990; Gonnet, 1991; Hough, 1992) and undertook a general review of public documents. These are referred to throughout the paper. As well, both researchers were involved in a three-year study of superintendents’ views on the implementation of distance education initiatives, which included interviews with a number of them. Data from the interviews are included in this report. Intensive reading of documents and transcripts led, first, to the identification of general categories (Gleshne & Peshkin, 1992). Further refinement of the categories made it possible to organize them as a framework of questions. Finally, the implications derived from the data were obtained through critical analysis (Winter, 1989) and many conversations between the researchers and colleagues in the field.
Lessons From Alberta
The experience in Alberta offers some lessons attending distance education consortia formed from school districts. Alberta’s government decentralized the delivery, teacher support, and marking of distance education high school courses in 1989 (Haughey, 1990). Some districts reconfigured themselves internally to provide access to distance education courses by creating a co-ordinating function to share teacher expertise among their own schools. Other rural school districts formed consortia to pool resources for what they speculated would be better, more cost-effective provision of the distance education courses.
The Decentralization of Distance Education in Alberta
The Alberta government changed high school diploma requirements with the plan that they would be phased in over a three-year period beginning in 1988 with Grade 10 students. These requirements increased the number of subjects or credits students had to complete to earn a diploma. For small schools that were already struggling to provide high school programming, the new requirements posed additional demands for specialist teachers in core subjects, provision of a broader curriculum, and potential changes in student enrolment patterns. At the same time, the traditional provision of distance education through the Provincial Correspondence School was under review.
The subsequent Action Plan (Alberta Education, 1988) suggested that the Correspondence School be restructured to focus on the development of course materials with the addition of multimedia and that the provision of distance education courses, including registration, student support, marking, and grading, should become the responsibility of school systems. Two pilot programs to test the feasibility of this devolution of responsibility to school jurisdictions had shown that such a move could be successful in encouraging schools to use distance education courses (Clark & Haughey, 1990; Clark & Schiemann, 1990) and in raising considerably the percentage of students who successfully completed distance education courses-from about 30% to 90% (Alberta Education, 1990b; Gee, 1991). This initiative, then, was designed as a way to help ensure access and equity in small schools, by “enabl[ing] the school to provide courses not otherwise available by traditional delivery methods because of (a) insufficient student numbers in these courses, or (b) absence of an on-site specialist to deliver these courses” (Alberta Education, 1990a, p. 2).
Today, the Alberta Distance Learning Centre (ADLC), a branch of Alberta Education, develops print and non-print distance education materials; selects other print, non-print, and computer learning resources for distance education programs; and assists jurisdictions through services in co-ordination, consultation, in-servicing, and evaluation. School jurisdictions purchase ADLC distance education course materials through the government’s Learning Resources Distributing Centre. Thus, school-based distance education is centralized in design but decentralized in delivery. To encourage schools around the province to implement the new distance education initiative, Alberta Education made available a Distance Education Grant to eligible schools (fewer than 150 students, offering at least one distance education course, at least 30 kilometres from a high school with 150 or more students, and with a specified maximum jurisdiction assessment per student). Schools that met these criteria could receive a one-time equipment accession and installation grant and an operating grant based on the number of distance education student-credits offered. In 1990, Alberta Education stated its expectation that jurisdictions wishing to participate in distance education would also contribute to the cost of programs from local resources.
The Genesis of Consortia
Given the importance of co-ordination in the successful implementation of the two pilot projects, Alberta Education encouraged collaboration among schools and districts, advising them to develop legal partnerships using contracts that clearly spell out governance, financial management, and day-to-day operation (Alberta Education, 1990a, p. 13). Alberta Education also suggested a number of models for providing distance education and delineated the responsibilities of the various personnel involved in these models (tutor-markers, school co-ordinator, principal, district co-ordinator, and superintendent). However, schools were advised to “look at the models described and take the parts that meet your needs, and create your own custom model” (Alberta Education, 1990a, p. 10).
Many rural school jurisdictions decided to form working partnerships with other districts chiefly to minimize costs by sharing people and resources and to gain access to a broader range of subject specialist tutor-markers. One deputy superintendent also added, “We felt very strongly there was a need for some coordination and direction, and we didn’t feel we had the expertise to provide that” (Hough, 1992, p. 202). Four consortia, Distance Learning North, Central West, East Central, and Big Sky, were founded in 1989-1990, and two jurisdictions, Leduc and Camrose, chose to develop internal arrangements. Subsequently another consortium, Distance Learning Options South, was founded.
The organization of each consortium was very different. They seemed to evolve according to such factors as the shared philosophy of participating jurisdictions, the personalities instrumental in the consortium’s formation, the role ascribed to technology, and the circumstances of their actual genesis. An overview of three consortia illustrates these differences.
The Big Sky Consortium
Big Sky was the largest of the consortia, linking 10 districts situated in the southeastern area of Alberta, which measures about 65,000 square kilometres. Twenty-two schools in Big Sky provided distance education courses. Many of them had been involved in one of the distance education pilot projects. Given the success of the pilot project, protection of autonomy was not a key concern. Big Sky had centralized its organization and management and had developed written policies describing responsibilities and activities of governance, membership, and financial arrangements. Jurisdictions in the Big Sky consortium decided to appoint one district to act as an “agent board” to assume the duties of daily operation.
Three committees governed the consortium. Policy-making and budget approval was assumed by the Trustee Committee, which acted upon the recommendations of the Management Committee (composed of the district superintendents), which reviewed policy and budget. A half-time co-ordinator made many of the operational decisions with input from the Executive Committee (a branch of the Management Committee).
Districts paid a yearly start-up fee of $1,000 to join the consortium plus $65 per course credit. Tutor-markers were paid by the consortium, which compensated the local jurisdictions employing the tutor-markers. Thus, any profit potential realized by tutor-markers earning more through their compensation for course credits than the cost of their salaries went to the consortium for the potential benefit of all. Some tutor-markers were already employed by participating jurisdictions, but many others were retired or former teachers who lived in the local community.
Central East Distance Education Consortium
The Central East Distance Education Consortium (CEDEC) drew together six jurisdictions representing a total of 17 schools and spread over an area of about 14,000 square kilometres.
Participating districts in CEDEC were very interested in protecting their control of the education of their own students, so the consortium was structured specifically to maintain each district’s autonomy. Policy and procedures were allowed to evolve according to the issues and needs that emerged during the early implementation. The consortium body did not function independently of the member jurisdictions. No single jurisdiction or director made decisions without the consensus of the other participants. According to Hough (1992, p. 87), the arrangement created a “potential for disharmony” among districts.
The consortium was managed at two levels: Superintendents of each participating jurisdiction comprised the Management Committee, which established fees, policies, and budget, while the Co-ordinating Committee handled day-to-day operations. A quarter-time co-ordinator was hired to manage the buying and selling of credits among the districts. There was no initial start-up fee. Instead, each school was charged $110 per course credit. Tutor-markers earned $100 per credit for their districts, potentially translating to about $100,000 per year for a full-time tutor-marker given an average load of 500 credits per term (the equivalent of approximately 28 students in each of six classes). This amount was roughly double a tutor-marker’s actual salary, creating a profit-making potential, especially for the larger boards that employed more tutor-markers. Like Big Sky, CEDEC jurisdictions employed a mix of tutor-markers from their own staffs and from the local community.
Conflicting understandings among districts about which staff were involved in the distance education programs; conflicting expectations about the “trade-offs” of teacher tutor-time versus the course credits purchased by each district; and conflicting interests of superintendents, who understandably promoted the unique agendas of their own districts, had to be worked out. Gonnet (1991) reports that these conflicts often blocked consensus and thus militated against the speedy decision making required for smooth operation of the consortium.
West Central Alberta Distance Education Consortium
In contrast to both CEDEC and Big Sky, the West Central Alberta Distance Education Consortium (WCADEC) took an entrepreneurial approach. Thirteen schools in nine jurisdictions were members. Participating jurisdictions reported two motives for forming the consortium: one, to gain access to expertise in finding a direction for and implementing the distance education initiative; and two, to share teacher expertise by gaining access to tutor-markers specializing in subject areas in which individual districts had limited resources.
Policy was established by a Board of Governors (school board representatives), while a Management Committee consisting of district superintendents made recommendations to the Agent Board. The Agent Board appointed one board to make operational decisions and manage all the funds in the course credit exchange. In contrast to Big Sky and CEDEC, a full-time co-ordinator was hired to manage the buying and selling and other responsibilities of developing the consortium.
Boards paid an annual fee of $6,000 to join plus $60 per course credit. Each participating school could choose to pay for course credits or balance its own credits and debits. Most of the distance education courses were tutor-marked by teachers already employed within the member schools, so no additional payment of tutor-markers was required. However, some jurisdictions opted to use tutor-marker services from other member jurisdictions. Teacher tutor-markers usually did not work at home but were encouraged to remain in the schools and take part in regular school activities.
Issues in Forming School District Consortia
An analysis of Alberta consortia yields helpful insights into issues of or-ganizing, governing, and operating a consortium of school jurisdictions effectively. The remainder of this article presents a discussion of these issues.
Why Form a Consortium? How Can a Collaborative Arrangement Help Provide Distance Education?
A consortium formed to ensure the provision of high school courses through distance education can function primarily as a co-ordinating body as the Ontario Contact North/Contact Nord consortium established in 1986 does. Its mandate includes the provision of courses for primary and secondary students and for adult basic education. According to Anderson and Nelson (1989), the Contact North consortium serves three main purposes:
- It facilitates accessibility by linking individuals, isolated socially or geographically, to the programs of two universities, five colleges, and the Independent Learning Center (The Ontario equivalent of the Alberta Distance Learning Centre).
- It provides information by offering advice on local and provincial policy and administrative expertise on issues related to delivery and support of distance education: contracts, acquisition and compatibility of technology, student support services, professional development, course development, and consolidation and expansion of community and institutional co-operation.
- It helps avoid duplication of services among its member institutions.
The existence of the consortium “body” consolidates and expands the co-operation of different institutions with the community they serve. Konrad and Small (1989) drew similar conclusions about the functional benefits offered by consortia for the delivery of distance education. Their findings were derived from an analysis of co-operative ventures sought by post-secondary institutions because of fiscal constraints. For these colleges and universities, collaboration apparently helped reduce costs, eliminate duplication, strengthen the quality of courses and services, and provide “better options for an ever-increasing diversity of learners” (p. 202).
In Alberta, school districts joined consortia for two key reasons: they predicted that doing so might minimize the costs of providing distance education, and they wanted access to teacher tutor-markers offering subject matter expertise that was limited or unavailable in their own districts. Interestingly, although most district superintendents stated that membership in a consortium was actually more cost effective than trying to offer distance education programs on their own, there was little evidence to support their belief (Hough, 1992). In any case, jurisdictions thinking of joining a consortium typically asked themselves first if it was more feasible economically to buy resources from a consortium or to pay for additional staff themselves using the same amount of dollars.
Some district representatives noted the importance of working collaboratively with educators from other jurisdictions. They liked the support from others in hiring tutor-markers, the assistance with governance, and the opportunities to associate positively with other jurisdictions. One Alberta superintendent participating in a consortium noted that the “team” approach had definite advantages for smaller school systems, ensuring they could continue to provide distance education “because we all have strengths and weaknesses in different areas.”
However, Alberta school jurisdictions do not have a history of formal collaboration. The establishment of distance education consortia uncovered what for some jurisdictions were new questions about their relationships to their staffs, students, and other school districts. For example, joining a consortium means developing policies and budgets that will work interdependently with those of districts that do things differently. It means learning to trust other systems to provide services on which the district relies. It means negotiating decision making and authority in various areas that influence the operation of the co-operative program. Some interpret this interdependence as a rather frightening loss of autonomy. In districts that opted not to join a consortium, some principals indicated they would prefer to control their own schools and use funds to run their own distance education programs without any interventions by outside agencies. In response to this concern, one consortium co-ordinator commented that:
I don’t believe that can happen, because a small school can’t function; they can’t supply the product. If you’ve got twenty-six students and three staff members, you’re not going to be able to offer that [a broader curriculum] unless you take those kids and haul them to the next town. (Hough, 1992, p. 318)
In essence, districts who join a consortium must decide whether the surrender of a certain amount of control over their own programs is worth the cost savings, if any, and the benefits and sharing expertise.
What Issues Might Be Expected to Emerge in the Process of Developing and Maintaining a Consortium?
Reddington (1982) pointed out that educational consortia tend to fail, and he argued that the reasons for failure lie in the traditional way of structuring a consortium as the sum of its institutional parts. That is, each member “co-operates” in a group that tries to serve and balance the interests of the whole. This group, maintains Reddington, is thus a dependent body, limited by the understandings and interests of each member (including the “weakest link”), and it often receives the unwanted burdens of member institutions. Konrad and Small (1989) observed six “barriers” in post-secondary distance education consortia: professional freedom and independence, institutional autonomy, academic credibility, lack of trust, fiscal constraints, and structural arrangements.
Similar difficulties are experienced by school district consortia, and there are additional complications caused by the often inflexible procedures and organizational structures already governing school systems. McGreal and Simand (1992) outlined many problems experienced in the organization and provision of distance learning to secondary schools through a consortium established in northern Ontario (Contact North/Nord). Members of the consortium included different religious and linguistic school boards, each competing for students and each comprising schools with different student and program needs, teacher expertise, teacher technological interest and comfort, and administrator characteristics. Because of this diversity, organ-ization of course delivery within the consortium (co-operative timetabling, teacher release, co-ordination of program offerings, and administrative support) was burdensome and sometimes impossible to achieve.
Struggling to offer distance education courses within the conventional structure of the schools creates difficulties with which post-secondary institutions don’t have to cope. Supervision of distance education students, for example, must be provided within the regular timetable. Agreements among schools to trade course offerings must be maintained even when student interest and enrolment in the various schools make it difficult for some to participate. Other timetabled program offerings at the schools must be protected from the migration of students into the distance learning alternatives.
Alberta’s experience echoes some of the problems reported in the Ontario consortium. Similar issues were encountered arising from co-ordinating teacher supervisors and tutor-makers across districts and maintaining a regular school staffed by teachers and governed by a classroom timetable at the same time as making distance education courses available. In Alberta, other issues that emerged as consortia began operation related to changes in role expectations for teachers and administrators.
Staff Issues: Changing Roles and Workloads
A new role, that of the teacher/tutor-marker, was created when Alberta’s distance education consortia came into being. Teacher/tutor-markers were certificated teachers who took on distance education responsibilities as, or in addition to, their regular duties. Different payment and working conditions for teacher/tutor-markers were found by Hough (1992) in different parts of the same consortium. For example, some teacher/tutor-markers were supplied with fax machines and microcomputers and were allowed to work at home. Others were expected to travel regularly to a site containing a fax machine or to attend a school just like a regular staff member. Some worked part of their time in the classroom and part of the time in the distance education room. Complicating the issue further, teacher/tutor-markers typically worked across jurisdictional boundaries where different teacher agreements specifying salary and duties were in effect.
In his study of one Alberta consortium implementing distance education, Clark (1990) drew specific attention to the “duties, responsibilities, and authority of the tutor-markers.” He stressed the unique demands of this role in contrast to the skills and understandings required for regular classroom teaching, and he recommended that more attention be paid to selecting and educating teacher/tutor-markers. Hough (1992) expressed serious concern about the lack of consideration by the government or the teacher association with regard to the implications of the unique role of the tutor-marker in terms of establishing and regulating salary and benefits, duties, general conditions of employment, and teacher evaluation. In light of Clark’s assessment of the tutor-marker role, one could also add the implications for institutions and agencies involved in teacher education and continuing professional development.
Some teachers in smaller schools had to take on the duties of teacher/ tutor-marker or distance education co-ordination to supplement their work as classroom teachers in order to maintain a full-time load. Not all teachers were happy about this unexpected change in the nature of their work. In-services were not always readily available to assist teachers in understanding the very different pedagogical demands of these new roles. Several Alberta superintendents expressed a general need for more in-service opportunities for teachers as well as administrators to allow sharing of experiences, help foster understanding of the distance education process, and provide assistance in naming and solving problems.
In some jurisdictions, full-time teacher/tutor-markers were expected to take on double duty, acting as in-school student supervisors while marking students’ work. Some others were expected to assume the necessary clerical tasks required to maintain the distance education programs without time to carry out these extra duties being figured into their work loads. Some teachers were expected to teach full-time and provide services as tutor-markers as part of their extracurricular responsibility to the school. Some full-time administrators also had to assume additional responsibilities as supervisors without compensation. The result was resentment over the volunteer time required in certain parts of some consortium. As one principal remarked, staff who contribute time to help launch an innovation cannot be expected to continue to act as volunteers for long.
Externally marked courses incurred extra hours of clerical duties in faxing, recording, distributing, and reporting. One principal estimated that this work required an extra two hours per day of clerical work to run the 200 distance education credits students were taking in his school (about 60 three-credit and four 5-credit courses). In some schools no extra clerical assistant was available. The time either had to be taken from the regular clerical support provided to school staff, or staff had to do the clerical tasks themselves-neither was a satisfactory arrangement.
Some teachers in schools implementing distance education were afraid that the new programs would turn out to be a means of replacing teachers in the future. Others were concerned about the changes in attitudes and philosophy required to facilitate distance education, which, as one superintendent explained, must focus on the learner rather than on filling the required time unit with instructional activity (Hough, 1992). Another superintendent felt that traditional teachers must reconceptualize their relationships with students in a much closer, more personal way to ensure the student’s success-a new way that this superintendent perceived as “a threat to a lot of teachers.”
Interestingly, supposed teacher resistance to distance education and the need for teachers to undergo significant change is largely reported by superintendents and school-based administrators. The distance education co-ordinators, who had the most contact with teachers involved with implementing the innovation, held a rather different opinion: most teachers were positive about the distance education programming.
Leadership Issues: Changing Responsibilities
In Alberta consortia where no officially appointed director or co-ordinator was granted full authority to make decisions, participating school jurisdictions reported a lack of direction (Gonnet, 1991). Roles and respon-sibilities were unclear, producing some inconsistency and staff frustration.
A management committee had to absorb all the duties of co-ordination. Operational management by committee is slow at best. All practical decisions must be negotiated; the process is cumbersome and leaves little time for important leadership concerns, such as developing a collaborative culture, planning new directions, or proactively exercising initiative.
In two Alberta consortia, the distance education co-ordinator was only paid for part-time work even though both co-ordinators discovered that the duties involved in running an effective consortium were closer to a full-time workload. The high volume of buying and selling of credits among districts was unexpected, and the extra time the co-ordinator had to spend travelling across large rural areas was not always foreseen. One consortium that hired a full-time co-ordinator reported that it was very happy it did so (Hough, 1992). Further, where the co-ordinator was trusted to act independently, member jurisdictions considered the operations to be more efficient than where the co-ordinator was not empowered with full decision-making authority.
School principals whose jurisdictions were members of a consortium of school districts were caught in a difficult position. On the one hand, they were directly accountable for the learning experiences and achievement of the students in their own schools, and, in many cases, they were also responsible for their own budgets. On the other hand, as distance education consortium members, they had to be willing to relinquish control over significant aspects of instructional delivery and student accountability. For example, some had to rely on teacher/tutor-markers paid and supervised according to regulations governing other jurisdictions. In turn, these teacher/tutor-markers had to deal with students working and supervised in other districts. Issues involving all aspects of this cross-district student-teacher relationship affected the operations of the consortium: motivating and facilitating student learning, assessing achievement in a timely way, and reporting and tracking students’ progress. Implementing any real-time technologies when no two schools had the same time schedule was particularly difficult. Here is an example of the sort of practical problem that can arise: if a particular school gives a student until June 20 to complete a course, it creates a rush for the tutor-marker who lives in a different district and cannot influence the situation except through that district’s hierarchy. The tutor-marker’s assessment process potentially holds up the school’s reporting procedures, which needs the student’s results to report to parents before the year end.
Distance education courses also create changes in the structure of a school’s enrolment that some principals, who thought of their function as maintaining stability in student enrolment in classroom instruction, viewed as disruptive and undesirable. In one school, an administrator interviewed by Hough (1992) would not allow students to take a distance education course if the school offered that particular course in the regular timetable. In another school, a principal said:
We already have very small classes . . . if you take two or three students out of each class to go on distance education, pretty soon you don’t have a class left . . . we try and insist that unless they’re really opposed to those classes, then they take the inschool classes rather than the distance education classes. (p. 320)
In some consortia, principals felt that the distance education programs were forced on them by their jurisdictions, without their involvement in determining how and when to implement, how to distribute the work among their school staff, and how to work with other schools and districts to share resources. Gonnet (1991) found that when principals’ input into the consortium decision-making was not actively sought and used and when principals’ roles were not clearly defined, tasks began slipping “between the cracks.” Principals described feeling frustrated because they were “flying by the seat of their pants.” They experienced little sense of owning the policies and guidelines governing the consortium. Gonnet (1991) suggested that principals felt that there was little consideration of the impact of distance education decisions on their schools.
At the same time, Hough (1992) found that principals sometimes initiated implementation of distance education for short-term gains. He suggested that principals needed to be encouraged to use distance education to fill a real need in their school programs and discouraged from using distance education to acquire more resources. When the Alberta government made grants for computers and telecommunications technology available to schools willing to initiate the new distance education programs, principals naturally wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to get the equipment without necessarily taking time to plan for its implementation.
It was clear that the principals’ co-operation was key to the success of distance education consortia. They must be involved in meaningful decision making about distance education, and efforts must be made to provide plenty of information about distance education and ways to implement it effectively and to offering timely assistance to them as they work through the process of implementation. A consortium, it would seem, should have the necessary resources to provide the sorts of assistance principals might find valuable.
How Should Issues of Autonomy and Interdependence Be Addressed?
In describing large consortia formed in the UK to deliver adult education at a distance, Sofo (1990) noted that rivalry between institutions was a recurring problem. Competition rather than the desired co-operation was evident. Other threats to institutional commitment to the consortia included staff turnover, personality clashes, and hidden agendas. As well, change in economic and political conditions produced changes within the individual financial and operation circumstances of the consortia’s members. Finally, Sofo noted one consortium’s somewhat incomprehensible failure to implement a number of efficient operating procedures necessary for any business to succeed.
In Alberta, similar difficulties emerged related to balancing the control exercised in the consortia by each participating district. The attitudes of their own staffs (administrators, teachers, distance education facilitators) appeared to influence the way districts behaved with respect to the consortia. In the CEDEC example, each district was represented by a superin-tendent on the Co-ordinating Committee running the consortium, and these individuals often blocked consensus in attempting to protect their district’s interests. Speedy decision-making was thus difficult, impeding the operation of the consortium and intruding on the already limited time of super-intendents, who had to deal with all of the many new program priorities of the government. Power struggles ensued in consortia where districts feared losing control over the education of their students (Hough, 1992, p. 89). One superintendent described the sorts of situations that can develop:
I guess our difficulty is sometimes, although it’s trying to be co-operative, it ends up being competitive, mainly the financial type of things. . . . But as everybody knows when you have your territory you don’t want to give that up. I’ve basically said, “We’re prepared to give up our territory if you guys are willing to do the same.” (Haughey and Fenwick, 1994)
Essentially most school districts are committed first to their own students, community, and staff. Their commitment to the consortium is second, and they have no inherent interest in maintaining and developing it as an entity in itself. Districts want to survive, a particular concern in today’s milieu of drastically reduced resources and recent government initiatives to amalgamate districts, increase public involvement in schools, and demand accountability. School jurisdictions are interested in the distance education consortium chiefly for what it can contribute to their survival. Their efforts to collaborate must be understood as finding ways to exchange services with reasonable equity and mutual satisfaction.
The rapid implementation of distance education services while districts were struggling to establish a consortium produced a variety of problems.The consortium studied by Gonnet (1991) reported that operations were started before planning was completed, which led to confusion in guidelines and procedures, problems in student registration and supervision, and courses commencing before materials were available. In general, problems and questions emerged before answers were available. The demand for distance education courses exceeded the predicted numbers, straining the fledgling consortium infrastructures and placing heavy demands on the co-ordinators. Policies to solve immediate problems were increasingly drafted quickly at upper levels, often with minimal conversation with staff because of time constraints. People dealing with operational concerns, therefore, were sometimes unaware what policies existed to govern what they were doing. Administrators, teachers, and distance education co-ordinators in the consortium wanted “face to face” meetings, with clear records maintained and communicated to all, to discuss policies, procedures, and issues related to implementation. When channels for such conversation didn’t exist, negative perceptions of the distance education programs and the consortium management process sometimes developed. Although some of these issues could be connected to the hurried start-up of the consortium, the increasingly frequent changes in personnel also disrupted continuity of understandings and operation in the consortium.
In Alberta’s school district consortia for the provision of distance education, both Hough (1992) and Gonnet (1991) found concerns related to balancing the input of time and dollars by the various districts belonging to the consortia. Each district was very concerned that the cost of purchasing courses from the consortium be justified in terms of the quality and timeliness of the tutor-marker services they received from the other districts. The fact that evaluation of the tutor-markers was raised as an issue indicated that districts were not always satisfied with the trade-off.
Problems arose when implications of the consortium’s plans for a financial infrastructure were not completely thought through or when these arrangements were not clearly articulated and understood by all consortium members. For instance, in CEDEC the financial arrangements created a profit-making potential for larger districts. Although this issue was resolved eventually, the potential for profit engendered distrust in an already volatile situation.
Gonnet (1991) suggests that consortia should expect problems if there are ambiguous financial arrangements. The consortium and each member board are mutually dependent in maintaining their financial responsibilities and their commitments to a central student registry. Districts expect equal trade-offs. When there was no clear written agreement detailing these arrangements, certain districts of the consortium became concerned that they were not getting adequate returns for the services they gave. In the Alberta CEDEC example, for instance, no document stated clearly the apparent agreement that each district would supply teacher/tutor-marker services roughly equivalent to the amount of student course credits used. Such an arrangement would not involve any cash transfers. When some jurisdictions were not able to balance their numbers and hence were asked to provide a cash payment to other jurisdictions, the result was disbelief and conflict. As well, discrepancies sometimes emerged between central registry figures and individual jurisdiction figures, making billing difficult. Without reasonably accurate estimates of student enrollees from member board, the consortium had difficulty planning its budget.
Implications
The context will determine the applicability of different suggestions for resolving difficulties experienced by consortia. The process of developing a consortium unfolds within the context of each particular school district, the intersection of that district with other school districts within the consortium, the political milieu and resources available to support the distance education initiative, and the general community environment to which each school and district must be responsive. In school district consortia, the co-operation that has to be negotiated among jurisdictions also has to be developed within individual districts. Hence issues of control and autonomy relate not only to the concerns of trustees and superintendents but also to those of principals and teachers in each school.
In Alberta, the consortia have been conceived in traditional terms of school governance and incorporated into the province’s educational system as a new level of bureaucracy, existing mainly to co-ordinate resource exchange. The effectiveness of the operation of the Alberta consortia do not appear to be related to their particular organizational or management structures. Instead, the most significant factors influencing effectiveness are the existence of a comprehensive agreement, relevant policy and procedures, clearly delineated functions, open communication, time allotted for planning, and the empowerment of a co-ordinator to make decisions on behalf of the consortium.
Develop a Clear and Specific Consortium Agreement
Hough (1992) found that a comprehensive partnership agreement was essential for the effective development of a consortium. The agreement should spell out clearly the financial arrangements governing the receiving and delivering of distance learning course credits among participating institutions. McKenna (1976) listed procedures that need to be specified in post-secondary consortia agreements. There should be procedures for joining, withdrawing from membership, or disbanding the consortium. The details for funding arrangements as in amounts to be collected, manner of collection, holding of funds, and disbursement should be specified. Procedures should outline the basis for representation-which institutions may join, by whom they shall be represented, and the number of representatives and governance-and they should detail the consortium’s management structure. Hough felt that this list was an acceptable starting point for consortium agreements, but he added other elements he found to be essential after studying Alberta’s distance education consortia. These were: a mission statement or some statement detailing what the consortium is expected to accomplish, operational details of the consortium, and specific delineation of the responsibilities and conditions of employment of the consortium co-ordinator, the school co-ordinators, and the tutor-markers.
Members of Alberta distance learning consortia also felt that day-to-day operations needed to be specified, which indicates that school districts are entrenched in a frame that provides control, prediction, and standardization with little variability. Consortium members found from experience that constructing a consortium agreement typically took more time than anticipated.
Develop Policies Carefully and Communicate Them Clearly
Many of Alberta’s districts found that lack of planning resulted in hurried policy making to meet contingencies and led to confusion about what procedures actually existed. District representatives wished that more time had been set aside for upfront planning. Their advice was not to rush implementation before materials, guidelines, procedures, roles, and responsibilities were in place. One area of joint responsibility that caused particular concern was the need for an accurate central student registry for tracking and reporting student progress. Alberta’s example demonstrates the need for procedures to establish this registry early and maintain it efficiently. Gonnet (1991) recommends that a policy handbook, clearly spelling out these and other procedures to govern all operations shared by districts, should be made available to all participating districts. Policies should be assembled, notes Gonnet, using input from those stakeholders most affected by the policies.
Create Interdependent Structures
Despite the loss of district autonomy reported in many Alberta consortia, a structure can sometimes be established that helps secure the autonomy. In Alberta’s CEDEC example, each participating jurisdiction developed its own policies. Although this practice helped preserve local autonomy, individual districts often reached the same decisions and so duplicated tasks and responsibilities. Districts also produced different understandings and directions, requiring careful co-ordination, planning, and communication to mediate among them.
Three principles appeared to govern the process of balancing control and commitment of districts in a consortium. First, meaningful involvement of all member jurisdictions must be encouraged so that districts are supplying services as well as purchasing courses. Second, more successful members were linked through interdependency and a “loosely coupled” structure in preference to a more “traditional” hierarchical organizational models. Whether member districts each preserved their own identity and individuality within the consortium, or whether they surrendered a fair amount of their own autonomy to the consortia management, they perceived their relationships to be mutually dependent. Third, in the most effective consortia, accountability was delegated to levels where it had the greatest impact, creating more local autonomy and involvement of staff at lower levels by giving them greater responsibility for making decisions.
Appoint a Central Consortium Co-Ordinator With Meaningful Authority
Hough (1992) found that the effectiveness of a school district’s consortium operation was related not to the organization and management structure but to the “empowerment of a co-ordinator” (p. 347). That is, a co-ordinator needs the power and flexibility to make decisions and act on them quickly. The co-ordinator or director needs to be given resources, organizational support, and, most importantly, time. The greater the distance that separates the co-operating institutions, the more time is required to co-ordinate them. Hough concluded that the consortium co-ordinator should be a full-time appointment, especially in the first two years. Grupe (1971) agrees that this crucial start-up and implementation stage takes two to three years. McKenna (1976) also found that a full-time leader “is essential . . . depending upon the extent and complexity of a consortium’s activities” (p. 26). Haughey and Fenwick (1994) reported that superintendents in Alberta tended to believe that a strong individual leader was the key to a consortium’s success. One superintendent claimed:
I would attribute [the consortium’s success] to the consortium co-ordinator. We have an individual who is highly committed and is very attentive to the details of the operation, very responsive, and is very capable of effecting changes whenever these are necessary. If you put all those elements together and if you find them in a single individual, then I believe you have the recipe for success.
The co-ordinator assumes a variety of operational responsibilities. One of the most important responsibilities is to monitor costs and review fee structures to eliminate any inequities. McKenna (1976) outlined two main qualities this director should have to ensure the success of the consortium: “entrepreneurial leadership” and “authority based on the power of suggestion and persuasion-quite different from the traditional hierarchical leadership” (p. 26). McKenna believed that effective directors must first develop lines of communication and co-operation with all participating institutions, and then they must justify the existence and survival of the consortium by producing evidence of financial savings. But they should also focus on expanding the consortium’s offerings through their willingness to work in untested areas, and they should try to influence the educational structures to extend educational opportunities for more students.
In Alberta’s Big Sky consortium, the co-ordinator was trusted by all participating districts and was granted reasonably wide latitude in decision making. The individual reportedly spent considerable amounts of time fostering communication among the districts and among the staff within the districts. Besides managing the buying and selling of course credits, the co-ordinator devoted much energy to “troubleshooting” activities.
In Hough’s (1992) study of Alberta’s consortia, the co-ordinators typically described their most important role as “selling” the innovation to teachers and administrators, to certain students and parents, and sometimes to school boards. The co-ordinator especially needed to establish good working relationships with principals. Hough (1992) suggested that the co-ordinator should spend time with them, helping them make sense of the new distance education programs, convincing them of the benefits it offers their students, and helping delineate their role in the implementation of distance education in their schools. In particular, principals need to be convinced to use distance education to fill a need in their schools not just to acquire resources. The co-ordinator might also help mediate relations between principals and the tutor-markers.
Develop Clear and Consistent Role Descriptions
When the establishment of a consortia creates a new staff function such as that of the teacher/tutor-marker, careful thought must be given not only to the responsibilities and duties of the position but also to the relationship of the function to the existing structure of people and to the power distribution in the system. Alberta’s example demonstrates that conflict can develop where lack of clarity about just what sorts of duties constitute a full-time tutor-marker’s job and what conditions and compensation are fair result in misunderstandings and inconsistent expectations in different parts of the consortium. Gonnet (1991) suggests that the consortium agreement is the place to specify aspects of workload, training, duties, evaluation and feedback procedures, salary, and authority attending any new personnel roles, especially that of the tutor-marker. These specifications should be stated early in the consortium’s development.
Engage School Principals in Meaningful Involvement
Consortia members in Gonnet’s study (1991) agreed that school principals should have more control delegated to them and that they should be more involved in identifying problem areas and discussing procedures in the consortium operation. Not only would principals be more likely to support the distance education initiatives if they were involved meaningfully in decision making, but also they represented a crucial source of information concerning staff and student needs.
Specifically, principals in a school district should be invited to participate in the development of solutions to problems, in the design of policies and procedures that directly affected students (especially in the area of evalu-ation), and in the creation of an environment that facilitated student learning and provision of distance education in the school. In particular, principals should help develop guidelines for their particular areas of responsibility: registering students, reporting student achievement, determining course loads, programming, monitoring course completion, and timetabling.
Provide Support to Teachers Adjusting to the Consortia Arrangements
Changing workloads and expectations for teachers and other staff created in-service needs, not only so that they could gain expertise and confidence in using the technology but also in some cases so that they could develop skills in new ways of working with learners. Rapid implementation and preoccupation with issues of organization and financial matters among districts did not always leave sufficient time to attend to these needs. Besides expertise, staff enthusiasm was an important component that Hough (1992) identified in successful consortia. It was generated by key people like the consortium co-ordinator, the in-school co-ordinators, the teacher advisors, and the clerical assistants involved in the overall operation of the distance delivery system.
Maintain Frequent and Open Communication
Districts that reported the greatest satisfaction emphasized the need to maintain open communication lines even when the pressure was on to operationalize the government initiative. Extensive discussion fostered the resolution of differences and co-ordination of efforts. Teachers, admin-istrators, and distance education co-ordinators wished for more opportunities to share experiences and sort through problems in conversations with other consortium staff members.
The most successful consortia in Alberta were characterized by regular interpersonal dialogue among staff, school-based administrators, and central office representatives of different member districts. Open and positive communication among constituents with differing perspectives, power relations, and philosophies is usually recognized to be a crucial component in establishing effective working relations, especially in a collaborative venture. However, authentically open dialogue is often not acknowledged as the complex and multilayered phenomenon that unfolds only through careful balancing of “inquiry and advocacy” (Serge, 1990). Consortia that were described as having achieved regular, open communication among their members appeared to share five key elements: a consortium co-ordinator with strong interpersonal skills, who committed much time and energy to communication with various district administrators and staff; frequent conversations involving all districts (although some superintendents were concerned about the amount of time required for these meetings); commitment to a central vision for the consortium; willingness to relinquish a certain amount of control; and appreciation for the positions of other district members in the consortium.
LaRocque and Coleman (1993) show that collaboration among school districts does not mean the same thing as consensus. Rather, the most effective partnerships occurred when district representatives focused on balancing two parts of “open” communication: listening to one another and genuinely trying to understand each others’ perspectives and taking the necessary care and time to articulate their own meanings, including their objectives and opinions as authentically and clearly as possible.
Final Reflections
Any consortium among school districts creates a new level of bureaucratic complexity to an already complex system. Greater complexity in an organization, according to Elmore (1983), results in more sign-offs to implement a decision, more difficulty following lines of responsibility, more actors, and more transactions among actors to accomplish a task. After comparing the northern Ontario consortia model to other distance learning consortia in Newfoundland, Louisiana, New York State, Pennsylvania, and Alberta, McGreal and Simand (1992) concluded that agreements between local school boards severely limit the educational possibilities of distance education. They recommended centralization to minimize local differences in levels of expertise and ability to deliver courses, to help equalize educational services, and to help mediate different educational philosophies among schools and their boards.
This paper presents an alternate view. Despite its attendant difficulties, decentralized consortia have been very successful in contexts where they are carefully planned and organized and when time is taken to foster effective communication among member districts. To ensure the success of a collaborative organization of institutions, Konrad and Small (1989) emphasize the importance of “appropriate structural arrangements” that “reflect the ’ownership’ of all participants and . . . maximize responsiveness to emerging opportunities” (p. 199). For an effective consortia to develop, they conclude, educational institutions “must move away from a posture of independence and isolationism toward a commitment to interdependence and co-operation” (p. 201).
Kanter (1989) described three types of arrangements that she saw as beneficial in extending the ability of organizations to compete without extending their internal capacity. Her first type, “multiorganization service alliances,” involves a group of organizations with a similar need banding together to create a new entity that will provide this service. It seems to describe the distance education consortia, and her analysis of their likely difficulties is apt. She mentions low interdependence and hence few changes in the partner organizations, difficulties associated with obtaining agreement on a service that suits all of them, and loss of interest or commitment. Her second category, “opportunistic alliances,” involves organizations who co-operate in order to obtain a competitive advantage. Often one is more advanced technologically while the other has better access to markets. These consortia are very vulnerable to dissolution. Distance Learning North could be considered one example. The technological expertise was provided by one partner, Fairview College, while the other jurisdictions sought to provide CML services for their students. Costs, the expansion of expertise in individual jurisdictions, and software and hardware changes pushed the consortium towards dissolution.
She called her third partnership category “stakeholder alliances,” where the partnership involves complementary organizations. The nexus of such an alliance could be considered to be the relationship between ADLC and the consortia for the provision of distance education. It would be strengthened if it also involved groups of distance education students and the teacher/ tutor-markers. Such relationships, Kanter argues, provide the best services to students, enhance the problem-solving abilities of the member organizations, and keep them on the cutting edge.
The major focus of this article has been on the development of consortia. Between 1992 and 1994 the government initiated a 12% cut in the operating grant of school jurisdictions. As well, beginning in 1995, the distance education grant will no longer be a separate grant to schools; instead, the monies will be put into the general operating budget allocation of school systems as a distance and sparsity entitlement. Given the present financial constraints, there is genuine concern that the jurisdictions will reduce their spending on distance education. Further, the government has reduced the number of school jurisdictions in the province from 141 to 60. At present, three of the original five consortia continue to operate, two disbanded. Distance Learning North had focused on CML technologies, and distance even within the member jurisdictions was a major cost factor; Central East ceased operations because many of the public district members were amalgamated, and tutor-marking services could now be provided within this newly enlarged school jurisdiction. The absence of targeted funds will test the commitment of financially stretched jurisdictions to distance education. It remains to be seen whether the consortia will continue or whether school jurisdictions will look to internal arrangements to provide the support for distance education.
Acknowledgment
The authors wish to acknowledge in particular the work of Peter Hough and the assistance of Diane Pon, ADLC.
Correspondence To:
Margaret Haughey, Ph.D.
Department of Educational Policy Studies
7-104 Education North
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB
TOG 5G5
Margaret.Haughey@ualberta.ca
Tel: (403) 492-7609
Fax: (403) 492-2024
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