Studies of Education Reform: Systemic Reform

[Pages:184]Studies of Education Reform: Systemic Reform

Volume I: Findings and Conclusions

Margaret E. Goertz, Project Director Robert E. Floden Jennifer O'Day

This work is part of the Studies of Education Reform program, supported by the U. S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Office of Research, under contract No. RR 91-172005. The program supports studies and disseminates practical information about implementing and sustaining successful innovations in American education. This document does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U. S. Department of Education, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

Studies of Education Reform: Systemic Reform

Volume I: Findings and Conclusions

Margaret E. Goertz, Project Director

Consortium for Policy Research in Education Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Robert E. Floden

National Center for Research on Teacher Learning Michigan State University

Jennifer O'Day

The Pew Forum on Education Reform Stanford University

July 1995

Preface

The reform of education has been a major focus of policymakers at the local, state and federal levels since the publication in 1983 of A Nation at Risk. Reform efforts have targeted all stages of education, from pre-school to school-to-work transition, and have addressed nearly every aspect of the public elementary and secondary education system: curriculum and assessment, teachers' preparation and their professional lives, school organization and management, technology, and parental and community involvement. To increase the knowledge base for identifying, implementing and sustaining successful reforms in these areas, in 1991 Congress requested the Office of Research at the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) to investigate education reform. In response, OERI identified and funded 12 studies of different aspects of current education reform, including a study of the systemic education reform movement.1

The Policy Center of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), in conjunction with the National Center for Research on Teacher Learning (NCRTL), was awarded the contract to conduct the Systemic Reform study. As used in this study and in developing approaches in a number of states, systemic reform embodies three integral components: the promotion of ambitious student outcomes for all students; alignment of policy approaches and the action of various policy institutions to promote such outcomes: and restructuring of the public education governance system to support improved achievement. This research, which built on studies of systemic reform undertaken earlier by CPRE in nine states, and on other studies of teacher learning and school organization and change, was designed to (1) expand our knowledge of state approaches to education reform, (2) examine district, school and teacher response to state reform policies in a small number of reforming schools and school districts, (3) identify challenges at the state, district, school and classroom levels to reforming education, (4) study the capacity of the educational system to support education reform, and (5) provide guidance to policymakers at all levels of the education system as they design and implement education reform policies.

The Systemic Reform study was conducted in three stages. In the first year of the study, we reviewed the emerging literature on systemic reform, and commissioned four papers that addressed issues related to the preparation and professional development of teachers and others in support of systemic reform, paying particular attention to the policy linkages between curriculum reform and teacher learning. These papers became the focus of a two-day national conference targeted to education policymakers and practitioners, and were used to refine the overall design of the second and third stages of the study. In the second stage, project staff conducted intensive case studies of twelve reforming schools located in six

1 These twelve studies are Assessment of Student Performance, Curriculum Reform, Early Childhood Education, Parent and Community Involvement in Education, School-Based Management, School-toWork Transition, Student Diversity, Students at Risk, Systemic Reform, Professionalism of Educators, Technology and Uses of Time.

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reforming school districts in three states that were undertaking systemic reform--California, Michigan, and Vermont. The third stage of the study entailed the preparation of state-level case studies and cross-site analyses that examined the scope, substance and coherence of state reform policies; teacher, school and school district reform activities in the context of these state policies; and the capacity of all levels of the system to support education reform.

The study's findings and methodology are contained in this three-volume technical report. Volume I begins with a summary of the literature review and commissioned papers (Chapter 1), the study methodology (Chapter 2), and the education reform strategies and policies in the three study states. In Chapter 4, we look across the schools, school districts and states in the sample to describe the strategies these sites used to develop a vision of reform, align relevant policies and support restructured governance systems, and the challenges they faced in implementing these strategies. Chapter 5 uses surveys of, and interviews with, teachers in our sites to characterize their instructional practices in mathematics and language arts in relationship to reform policies and opportunities for professional development. In Chapter 6, we present a framework for thinking about the concept of capacity and capacitybuilding strategies and policies in support of education reform, and examine how our sites used systemic tools to enhance the capacity of teachers and their schools. Chapter 7 identifies some common lessons for policymakers who choose to take a standards-based approach to instructional improvement, and suggests a set of research questions about both the role of capacity-building in systemic reform and broader aspects of education reform.

Volume II contains the case studies of California, Michigan and Vermont. These include more detailed information on state policies, and describe and analyze reform efforts in our small sample of reforming schools and school districts in each state. The findings reported in Chapters 4 through 7 of Volume I are based on data contained in these case studies, as well as the teacher survey. Volume III contains a description of the study methodology and copies of the interview protocols and teacher surveys used in the data collection.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the many people who assisted in this study. The study would not have been possible without the excellent cooperation of the teachers and school and school district administrators in our six study districts; state department of education personnel in California, Michigan and Vermont; and individuals in universities and other education organizations in these three states. We appreciate the time and effort that all of the respondents put into answering our numerous questions. The information and insights they provided us were invaluable.

We are indebted to Kimberly Bogdan (CPRE), David Gamson (Stanford University) and Jordy Whitmer (Michigan State University) who assisted us in the collection and preliminary analysis of the interview data for the Michigan, California and Vermont case studies, respectively. Chris Chiu (MSU) painstakingly analyzed the teacher survey data and produced the tables presented in Chapter 5 (Volume I) of this report; Jordy Whitmer organized these survey data.

Many individuals contributed to the overall design of the study. Our Advisory Panel reviewed our initial research plan and provided direction for the commissioned papers, national conference and site selection. Members of the Advisory Panel were Gail Burrell (Whitnell High School, Greenfield, WI), Jane David (Bay Area Research), Mary Kennedy (National Center for Research on Teacher Learning, MSU), David Mandel (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards), Andrew Porter (Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Kenneth Zeichner (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Cynthia Levinson prepared the review of literature on systemic reform with the assistance of Diane Massell. Jane David, Hendrik Gideonse, Judith Warren Little and Frank Murray contributed commissioned papers. Conversations with Deborah Ball, Thomas Corcoran, Susan Fuhrman, Diane Massell, Milbrey McLaughlin and Marshall Smith helped us conceptualize the study and think about ways of framing our analyses and interpreting our data. David Cohen and Thomas Corcoran also provided valuable background information on education reform in Michigan and Vermont.

We consulted several sources when designing our teacher questionnaires. Andrew Porter shared instruments and data from his teacher surveys with us. Joan Talbert, Sharon Bobbitt, Hilda Lynch, John Smithson and Iris Weiss helped us identify, obtain and interpret results from other teacher questionnaires.

This final report was greatly strengthened by reviews of earlier drafts by Deborah Ball, Richard Elmore, Susan Fuhrman and Jim Fox. We also thank Jim Fox for his support of our work over the life of this study. As our project monitor, he provided substantive and timely feedback on our draft products, facilitated our communication with OERI, and helped us through uncertain times.

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The national conference would not have been possible without the assistance of Stacy Gands, Melissa Lomench, Lynn McFarlane, Patricia Michaels, and Debi Slatkin of CPRE. They handled all of the meeting logistics, prepared and disseminated background materials, and communicated with the 250 persons who attended the conference. Their hard work and attention to detail contributed to the success of the meeting.

We are especially grateful to Patricia Michaels, who produced the final report on a very short timeline. She patiently formatted our text and tables, and caught and corrected our errors before this document went to press. Additional secretarial assistance was provided during the course of the study by Stacy Gands, Robb Sewell and Dawn Weniger of CPRE and Wendy Reed of MSU.

Finally, this report is the culmination of a three-year collaboration by the authors. We designed the study, conducted the cross-site analysis, and reviewed all products as a team. We were individually responsible for the collection and analysis of data and the preparation of case studies for one state--Robert Floden for Vermont, Margaret Goertz for Michigan and Jennifer O'Day for California. In addition, Floden oversaw the analysis of the teacher survey data and wrote Chapter 5 (Volume I) with John Zeuli and Chris Chiu. O'Day wrote Chapter 6 and Goertz was the principal author of Chapter 4 of that same volume. We take collective responsibility, however, for the findings and views presented in this report.

Margaret E. Goertz, Project Director Robert E. Floden Jennifer O'Day

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