The Power of Practitioner Expertise: Building and Using Teacher Knowledge in Service of School Reform

Abstract

In a policy climate driven by tests and external mandates, theories of school reform that place teachers, their knowledge, and their relationships at the heart of school improvement have garnered attention as promising alternatives. Yet little exists in print about how such theories actually work or what these approaches look like in practice. This article attempts to open up that black box by offering one example of these reform theories in action. The example derives from a study of the goals, structure, and nature of support provided within one particular network—the Middle College National Consortium (MCNC)—toward the implementation of a reform called Early College. In providing technical assistance to schools, teachers, and organizations within and outside of its membership, the MCNC network presumed that the knowledge for implementing the Early College reform, from technical details to substantive strategies for teaching, learning, and student support, inhered in the experience and expertise of veteran practitioners. The article thus describes some of the ways that the MCNC network provided assistance, development, and support for implementing Early College that depended upon the mutual sharing and building of knowledge among a network of like-minded practitioners. In so doing, it pays special attention to the role of practitioner expertise, principle-based reform, and the opportunities afforded by networks. While the paper highlights successful iterations of these theories in practice and considers the strengths of this teacher-centered approach, it also explores some of the associated challenges.

An earlier version of this paper, “Technical Assistance and Educational Reform: The Power of Practitioner Expertise”, was co-written with Jennifer E. Kim (a researcher who worked on the study the paper is based on) and presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in 2004. Special thanks go to Jennifer, as well as to Jacqueline Ancess, director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST); Cecelia Cunningham and Bobette Beinhacker, Co-Directors of the Middle College National Consortium (MCNC); and the MCNC membership, especially Mattie Adams, Kate Carter, Aaron Listhaus, and Bert Rosenberg. Thanks also to Tom Hatch, Reva Jaffe-Walter, Judith Kafka, Heather Lewis, and Vivian Shulman, as well as to the reviewers and editor of The New Educator for their comments on earlier drafts of this work.

Notes

¹This study was part of a larger documentation study of Early College implementation undertaken by the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching (NCREST) on behalf of the Middle College National Consortium.

²The MCNC received funding to implement Early College from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

³The aim to help members link their beliefs with practices that manifest those beliefs has always been a significant implicit aspect of the MCNC's approach to professional development. In response to documentation of the first nine months of Early College technical assistance, the organization made a commitment to make the connection between beliefs and practice a more transparent and explicit aspect of their work with Early College sites.

⁴In this case, the design feature involved a plan for the “13^th year,” or the additional time students required to finish their high school requirements as well as two years' worth of college credit while maintaining the status of high school students. For obvious political and economic reasons, this design feature presented a set of obstacles that Early Colleges, their higher education partners, and other stakeholders had to negotiate within their particular policy context.