Engaging Practitioners in State School Improvement Initiatives

Abstract

For most of U.S. history, local communities were the primary arbiters of school quality. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, states began assuming more and more control over school standards and outcomes. The question we seek to answer is whether and the extent to which a particular kind of local voice—the voice of education practitioners—is represented in states' current, significant initiatives to improve low-performing schools. In the article, we focus on the role that practitioner knowledge played in the development of school improvement policies across three state education agencies. We draw on interviews, surveys, and document analyses collected for a larger exploratory study of knowledge utilization. Contrary to earlier research showing weak or uneven connections between state agencies and practitioners, we found that practitioner advice networks were generally stronger than states' research advice networks. We found ample illustration of staff using this advice to make sense of research for their own contexts, and for their own approaches to school improvement. Agencies formed ties to practitioners in districts and schools, in professional membership associations, within their own agencies, or in other agencies wrestling with similar problems. Who they turned to differed depending on earlier improvement policies and institutional histories.

Notes

All survey respondents were asked whether their work related “in any way to improving low-performing schools and school districts” in their state. We used results from all respondents who answered “yes” to this question, that is, staff who self-identified as being involved in school improvement work regardless of the SEA office in which they worked.

More specifically we multiplied the frequency score by a percent of influence. Thus, the strength scale is a matrix ranging from a cell defined by highly influential and daily contact (200) to a cell defined by not influential and contact only a few times per year (0.5).

One exception is when external funding sources require direct school-level engagement.

In 2011, although State B identified only 15% of its schools as failing, that percentage represented over 500 schools. The EDFlex waiver would raise that number, and present a significant management challenge for its SEA.