Notes
- This article is a review of the findings of the first year of Rand's change agent study (July 1973 to July 1974). It also presents some preliminary ideas about what the first year's findings may mean for future change agent policy. The second phase of the work, covering the 1974–75 and 1975–76 school years, will investigate how innovative projects are continued and spread after federal support has ended. Other federal programs, not studied here, also aim at encouraging innovations—for example, certain programs for handicapped students, experimental schools, educational voucher demonstrations, Follow Through, and elements of the Emergency School Assistance Act.
- The Rand study was published in five volumes under the general title Federal Programs Supporting Educational Change (R-1589/HEW). Volume I of that study reviews the literature. This article's references to that study will simply indicate the appropriate volume number.
- In this report, we refer to programs when describing the federal change agent initiatives, for example, Right To Read. We refer to projects when describing the particular innovation selected by a school district.
- See Vol. I.
- See Vol. II for a description of the survey instruments, the sampling procedure, the nature of the Rand sample, and the statistical analyses.
- See Vol. III for an analysis of the field-work data and its appendices for the case studies.
- The appendices to Vol. III contain brief summaries of this work.
- See Vol. I for a discussion of the literature on this point.
- Volume I defines an innovation as a plan with a statement of goals and means designed to change standard behavior, practices, or procedures. Many educational innovations tend to have abstract goals, to be vague about means, and to be uncertain about the relationship between means and ends. Such uncertainty makes it desirable for the innovation to become developed, revised, or, in short, adapted to the realities of its institutional setting. Accordingly, we define implementation as the change process that occurs when an innovative project impinges upon an organization.
- The difficulty of implementation was another dependent variable used in conjunction with the above indicators of the project's implementation.
- Another outcome is dissemination—the extent to which the project is spread from its original site. Dissemination can involve the spreading of all or some project practices both within the district and outside of the district. This project outcome is a central focus of the second phase of our research. The first phase of the study did not systematically collect data about dissemination, except for observations in some fieldwork sites. See Vol. III, Sec. IV, for a discussion of these preliminary observations.
- See Vol. III, Sec. II.
- These findings must be treated as preliminary. We studied projects in their last years of federal funding and thus could only examine expected continuation. The next phase of Rand's research will focus on projects after the withdrawal of federal support.
- See Vol. III, Sec. IV.
- See Vol. II, Sec. V.
- This procedure used factor analysis. For statistical details, see Vol. II, Sec. II.
- See Vol. II, Secs. IV and V. Several exceptions to this overall statistical pattern occurred. A significant exception involved classroom organizational changes: Title III projects with high levels of classroom organizational changes were more likely to be continued than other Title III projects, even though they were more difficult to implement and were perceived as no more successful, at least in the short run.
- See Vol. II, Sec. IV. Three significant exceptions may have important implications for federal planners, even though the statistical effects are small. Projects with large target groups were negatively related to teacher change, particularly in elementary schools. However, the more concentrated the funding was on Title III projects, the more likely was teacher change. And the more expensive a project was, the less likely it was to be continued.
- This finding must be qualified. Although the per-pupil expenditure reached high levels (over $5,000 per student per year) for a small percentage of the projects in the sample, the federal funds provided were a relatively small percentage of most school district budgets. Therefore, very large increments of outside funds (e.g., 30 percent of a district's budget) might have major effects on project outcomes.
- See Vol. I, Sec. III; Vol. II, Sec. V; and Vol. III, Secs. I and III.
- See Vol. II, Sec. V.
- See Vol. II, Sec. IV.
- See Vol. II, Secs. IV and V.
- See Vol. II, Sec. IV, and Vol. III, Sec. III.
- One strategy that was not significantly related to outcomes was extra pay given as an incentive for teacher training. Our fieldwork observations suggest that money and other tangible rewards were not effective in inducing teachers to acquire new skills if their own professional interests or concerns did not lead them to see such new learning as important.
- We do not have direct evidence as to whether the quality of locally developed materials “improved” the curriculum. However, project participants consistently reported that locally developed materials were better for their needs than those that they replaced.
- See Vol. II, Tables 11 and 17. This analysis acknowledges the fact that we dealt only with the explicitly micro-level outcomes of individual projects. Federal policies also have macro and often implicit concerns, such as fostering the legitimacy of bilingual instruction in public education, or the broad goal of Right To Read—increasing general awareness of the importance of reading.
- Because the change agent policy common to the programs had limited influence, each separate program could affect project implementation only marginally. Within the latitude possible for marginal effects, some significant differences between programs could be discerned. Appendix C to Vol. IV presents our findings about these marginal differences.
- The Northwest Regional Lab appears to have evolved toward offering practitioner-based assistance.
- We are not referring to short trips to educational fairs or professional meetings which display innovations in an artificial setting.
- It would be naive to suppose that opportunity-based projects would not be funded in this phase. Neither the federal government nor state governments have low-cost means available for distinguishing opportunistic projects from problem-solving attempts. Proposals usually sort along a dimension of skill in grantsmanship, and thus big or wealthy districts benefit. Although there is no sure quick or easy solution to this problem, a required proposal formulation stage as previously discussed might filter out the more opportunity-based proposals.
- The use of matching grants might be one way to assure the district's commitment and its belief in the centrality of the project.