Supporting Multiple Reform Designs in a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse School District

Abstract

Districts and schools are becoming increasingly attracted to externally developed reforms for their potential to raise students' test scores and, to a lesser extent, to increase schools' capacity for change. However, the implementation process of these externally developed reform designs is not well understood. This article uses data collected in a study of 13 multicultural, multilingual elementary schools, each implementing one of six externally developed designs, to examine the implementation process from an interactive perspective. All 13 schools are located in the same district, Sunland County Public Schools. Using a sociological framework of design implementation, the article analyzes the ways in which the state, district, design teams, and schools interacted to support some reforms and weaken others. More specifically, it examines several dialectically constructed factors (e.g., "measured merit" or "curricular fit") to see how these factors were created through the interaction of the different arenas and how they shaped the reform implementation. The article concludes that, although schools and design team actions influenced the ways the designs were received within the school, state and district forces were more important in determining the overall success or failure of the designs.