Scaling Personalization: Exploring the Implementation of an Academic and Social-Emotional Innovation in High Schools

Abstract

Scaling in educational settings has tended to focus on replication of external programs with less focus on the nature of adaptation. In this article, we explore the scaling of Personalization for Academic and Social-emotional Learning (PASL), a systemic high school reform effort that was intentionally identified, developed, and implemented with adaption in mind for both the innovation and the scaling process itself. Drawing on focus group and individual interviews with administrators, guidance counselors, and teachers in eight urban high schools in Florida, we explore five elements of scale: depth, sustainability, spread, shift in reform ownership, and evolution of PASL. We find that implementers demonstrated a depth of belief, sustainability, and spread related to the idea of personalization. They did not show the same levels of sustainability and spread regarding the organizational routines related to PASL, although this differed widely by school. The reform approach using continuous improvement helped with shift in reform ownership and gave implementers control over the evolution of the reform. Despite this active involvement, administrators and teachers responded to PASL much like they would have an external reform, identifying the lack of time and school norms as impeding the implementation of routines and practices.

FUNDING

This research was conducted with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (R305C10023). The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the sponsor.

Notes

1 Using achievement data from the 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 school years, we calculated VAM scores for each of the district's high schools as well as subgroups within each school: students qualifying for free and reduced-priced lunch, African American/Hispanic students, and English Language Learners. From this pool and particularly drawing from the subgroup performance, we identified six traditional high schools that were at or above the district average. We took the list to our district liaison and further identified three schools that were not implementing any major initiative during the upcoming three years. The principals of the three identified schools all agreed to participate.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stacey A. Rutledge

Stacey Rutledge is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at Florida State University. Her research focuses broadly on understanding how the work of administrators, teachers, guidance counselors, and students is nested within institutional and policy environments and how different approaches to school reform shape school practices and student outcomes. She has been a co-author and co-editor on several volumes, most recently of The Infrastructure of Accountability: Data Use and the Transformation of American Education published by Harvard Education Press. She is currently serving as a Project Investigator at the National Center for Scaling Up Effective High Schools that has as its purpose identifying the programs, policies, and practices that make some urban high schools particularly effective and working with these districts to scale these practices.

Stephanie Brown

Stephanie Brown is a postdoctoral research associate with the National Center for Research in Policy and Practice (NCRPP) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Stephanie's research interests are rooted in her experience as an elementary teacher in Florida, and include qualitative investigations of research practice partnerships in education, intermediary organizations, teacher policy and reform, and international and comparative education. Before joining NCRPP, Stephanie worked with the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools, where she conducted research and worked in partnership with a variety of practitioners as they developed educational innovations. She received her Ph.D. in Foundations of Education from Florida State University.

Kitchka Petrova

Kitchka Petrova is a Ph.D. candidate in Education Policy and Evaluation at Florida State University. Her research interests include STEM education and research policies, teacher quality, implementing innovative programs in K–12 schools, and teaching and learning in sciences.