Designing infrastructures to support instruction remains a challenge in educational reform. This article reports on a study of one school system's efforts to redesign its infrastructure for mathematics instruction by promoting teacher leadership. Using social network and interview data from 12 elementary schools, we explore how the district's infrastructure redesign efforts were internally coherent with and built upon existing infrastructure components. We then explore relations between infrastructure and school practice as captured in the instructional advice-and information-seeking interactions among school staff, finding that teacher leaders emerged as central actors and brokers of advice and information about mathematics within and between schools. Further, changes in school advice and information networks were associated with shifts in teachers' beliefs about and practices in mathematics toward inquiry-oriented approaches consistent with district curriculum. We argue that the district's redesign efforts to support teacher leadership coupled district curriculum and school and classroom practice in mathematics. Disciplines Curriculum and Instruction | Science and Mathematics Education Comments View on the CPRE website.

Understanding those factors associated with the existence of a tie among school staff is important because such ties are a necessary condition for social capital. Yet, there is a dearth of research on those factors associated with the existence of these ties. In this paper, we use covariate blockmodels and a p2 model to examine the role of both formal organizational structures and individual characteristics in shaping advice and information interactions about instruction within and between schools. Our findings suggest that, while individual characteristics are significantly associated with having a within school tie, aspects of the formal school organization-gradelevel assignment, having a formally designated leadership position, and teaching a single grade-are also significant and have larger estimated effects than individual characteristics. With respect to between school ties, we similarly found that the formal organization superseded individual characteristics, and that having a subject-specific formal leadership position, more than anything, predicted instructional advice and information ties. In addition, our analysis of interview data supports and extends these findings by showing that school staff associate formal positions with instructional expertise in subject-specific domains and that formal positions work in tandem with other aspects of the organizational infrastructure such as organizational routines to influence school staff members' interactions about instruction.

His work explores the policy implementation process at the state, district, school, and classroom levels, focusing on intergovernmental and policy-practice relations. He also studies organizational leadership and change in schools and school systems.

This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law's capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders support continued attention, direction, and innovation in effectively educating ELs. The recommendations put forth in this article focus on monitoring both current and former ELs, establishing time frames for the attainment of English language proficiency, and setting expectations for academic achievement that are reflective of English language proficiency level and time in the state's school system.