2010 Research Update

Dear District in Research and Reform members,

Thanks to the many members who sent in recent research focused on research on districts. Below is a list of the research published since December 2008. Also, please keep an eye out for an upcoming request for your district-focused AERA papers, roundtables, posters, and symposia.

Jacob

Anderson, Stephen E. & Rodway-Macri, Joelle (2009). District administrator perspectives on student learning in an era of standards and accountability: A collective frame analysis. Canadian J. of Education 32(2), pp. 192-221.

Our analysis explores the agenda for student learning communicated in interviews with school district officials from four Ontario districts. Using research methods drawn from collective action framing theory, we identified six core frames and one broader frame in the discourse on student learning: (a) measureable academic achievement, (b) personalized preparation for postsecondary destinations, (c) a well-rounded education, (d) personal development, (e) faith/values based education, (f) social identity development, and (g) developing the whole child (the broader frame). The analysis highlights the administrators’ advocacy for a more encompassing educational agenda than that mandated by government curriculum and accountability policies, and the utility of framing theory for education policy analysis.

Boggess. L. (in press; anticipated 2010). Tailoring New Urban Teachers for Character and Activism. American Education Research Journal.

This two-site, qualitative case study examined how the Chicago and Boston Public School districts alternatively prepared new teachers through partnerships with private, non-profit urban teacher residencies. Drawing on urban regime analysis and resource dependence theory, the study asked how the reform partners defined “teacher quality” and how the structure of their partnerships contributed to those meanings. The study produced findings indicating participants’ preferences for varying types of professional dispositions considered essential to teacher quality. The study considered the implications of reform partners “tailoring” teachers to possess specific sets of dispositions in order to fulfill ideal constructions of teacher quality and meet the instructional needs of each district.

Goldstein, J. (in press; anticipated February 2010). Peer Review and Teacher Leadership: Linking Professionalism and Accountability. New York: Teachers College Press. Forward by Pat Wasley, Afterword by Susan Moore Johnson.

This book examines a policy that is one of the most powerful levers to improve teaching quality and advance teaching as a profession. Jennifer Goldstein presents the story of Rosemont, an urban district in California that created “professional accountability” with peer assistance and review (PAR), an alternative approach to teacher evaluation in which expert teachers evaluate their teacher peers. It challenges a number of long-held beliefs and practices in education— adversarial labor relations, “being nice,” hierarchy, isolation, and negligence—to achieve very different teacher evaluation outcomes. This timely and accessible volume:

• Chronicles a rare case of a teacher union and school district partnering to improve teacher quality and teacher evaluation.
• Presents the most detailed study of PAR implementation, including its processes, challenges, and outcomes.
• Summarizes the state of PAR implementation across the country in an afterword by Susan Moore Johnson.

Padilla, C., Tiffany-Morales, J., Bland, J., & Anderson, L. (in press; anticipated January 2010). Evaluation of California’s District Intervention and Capacity Building Initiative: Findings and Lessons Learned. Menlo Park, CA: SRI International.

The final report from SRI International’s evaluation of this foundation-sponsored initiative, created in part as a response to the NCLB requirement to provide a statewide system of support to districts and schools identified for improvement, encompasses 2 years of data collection (2007-08 and 2008-09) in 15 diverse districts across the state. Drawing on early research conducted on effective district capacity-building practices, California identified standards and criteria to guide the work of technical assistance providers under the state’s new district intervention process. Each pilot district had an assigned technical assistance team called a DAIT provider. The goal of the evaluation was to understand how effective the DAIT initiative was in building the capacity of districts to support improved student outcomes. Building district capacity represents a significant shift in how the state is working to address problems associated with school reform. Not only is the focus on the district, as opposed to the school, to improve curriculum and instruction, but the DAIT process also addresses building the capacity of district leadership to support program and policy coherence. Our analysis of the pilot districts identifies implementation successes and challenges and shows mixed results in terms of student outcomes (when compared with a matched set of comparison districts). Our analysis also raises questions about the readiness of districts to accept this type of assistance. (Findings from this evaluation will be presented as part of an interactive symposium at the 2010 AERA meeting.)

Park, V., & Datnow, A. (2009). Co-constructing distributed leadership: District and school connections in data-driven decision making. School Leadership and Management, 29(5), 475-492.

The purpose of this paper is to examine leadership practices in school systems that are implementing data-driven decision-making employing the theory of distributed leadership. With the advent of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in the US, educational leaders are now required to analyse, interpret and use data to make informed decisions in all areas of education, ranging from professional development to student learning. The emphasis on data-driven decision-making practices to bring about improved student outcomes is relatively a new feature of the education reform landscape and thus requires educators to learn and develop new competencies. Leadership is one crucial bridge that can support and direct these new learning efforts. Using qualitative data from a case study of four urban school systems, the authors’ findings indicate that : (1) leaders at all levels co-constructed the vision and implementation of productive data driven decision-making by creating an ethos of learning and continuous improvement rather than one of blame; (2) in order to give data relevance, leaders also distributed decision-making authority in a manner that empowered different staff members to utilise their expertise; and (3) the school systems directed their resources on building human and social capacity mainly by focusing on modelling and knowledge brokering amongst their staff. The paper concludes with a discussion of research and policy implications based on the findings.

Stringfield, S., Reynolds, D., & Schaffer, E. (2008). Improving secondary students' academic achievement through a focus on reform reliability: 4- and 9-year findings from the High Reliability Schools project. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 19(4), 409-428.

The authors describe a reform effort in which characteristics derived from High Reliability Organization research were used to shape whole school reform. Longitudinal analyses of outcome data from 12 Welsh secondary schools indicated that 4 years after the effort was initiated, student outcomes at the sites were strongly positive. Additional quantitative and qualitative data, gathered 5 years after the end of the intervention, indicated that the majority of the schools continued using the high reliability principles and continued making strong academic progress. Results are discussed in terms of the original High Reliability Schools model, systemic effects, and sustainability.

Talbert, J. E. (In press), “Professional learning communities at the crossroads: How systems hinder or engender change.” In M. Fullan, A. Hargreaves, A. Lieberman, and D Hopkins (Eds), International Handbook of Educational Change, Second Edition,. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Press.

Evidence that teacher collaboration on instruction results in improved student outcomes, beyond those achieved by teachers working in isolation, has generated a Professional Learning Community (PLC) movement. School districts across the nation are trying to "scale up" PLCs. This chapter focuses on the problem of changing the professional culture of teaching toward PLC norms of collaboration, focus on student learning, and mutual accountability. Drawing upon a decade of research on PLC initiatives, I contrast bureaucratic and professional strategies for change and teachers' responses to each. Conclusions highlight both positive outcomes of professional strategies and the need for school systems to manage dynamic tensions between the two perspectives and resources for change.