“Policy coherence” is an often cited but seldom achieved education policy goal. We argue that addressing this policy-practice gap requires a reconceptualization of coherence not as the objective alignment of external requirements but as a dynamic process. This article elaborates this re-conceptualization using theories of institutional and organizational change and empirical illustrations from literature on school reform and education policy implementation. We define coherence as a process, which involves schools and school district central offices working together to craft or continually negotiate the fit between external demands and schools’ own goals and strategies. Crafting coherence includes: schools setting school-wide goals and strategies that have particular features; schools using those goals and strategies to decide whether to bridge themselves to or buffer themselves from external demands; and school district central offices supporting these school-level processes. This definition suggests new directions for policy research and practice.

District central office administrators increasingly face policy demands to use "evidence" in their decision making. These demands up the ante on education policy researchers and policy makers to better understand what evidence use in district central offices entails and the conditions that may support it. To that end, the authors conducted a comprehensive review of research literature on evidence use in district central offices, finding that the process of evidence use is complex, spanning multiple subactivities and requiring administrators to make sense of evidence and its implications for central office operations. These activities have significant political dimensions and involve the use of "local knowledge" as a key evidence source. Evidence use is shaped by features of the evidence itself and various organizational and institutional factors. Policy shapes evidence use, but other factors mediate its impact. The authors conclude with implications for future policy and research on central office evidence-based decision making.

Intermediary organizations have become increasingly prominent participants in education policy implementation despite limited knowledge about their distinctive functions and the conditions that constrain and enable those functions. This article addresses that research-practice gap by drawing on theories of organizational ecology and findings from a comparative case study of four intermediary organizations that helped with collaborative policy implementation in Oakland, California. I define intermediaries as organizations that operate between policymakers and implementers to affect changes in roles and practices for both parties and show that such organizations typically vary along at least five dimensions. Oakland’s intermediary organizations all provided new implementation resources—knowledge, political/social ties, and an administrative infrastructure—but faced different constraining and enabling conditions. Using insights from this strategic case study, this article begins to build theory about intermediary organizations as important participants in contemporary policy implementation.

The designation of district central-office administrators to operate as boundary spanners among the central office, schools, and community agencies can help with the implementation of challenging policy demands. However, educational research teaches little about central-office boundary spanners in practice. This article addresses that gap with findings from an embedded, comparative case study of boundary spanners in the implementation of collaborative education policy. The study’s conceptual framework draws on public management and sociological literature on boundary spanning and neo-institutional theories of decision making. Findings reveal that the boundary spanners in this case initially were particularly well suited to help with implementation in part because they brought non-traditional experiences to the central office. However, over time, many of the resources that aided them initially became liabilities that frustrated their work. This article documents the importance of examining boundary-spanning roles in implementation and suggests how central offices might provide supports to boundary spanners to increase their potential as levers of bureaucratic change.

School district central office administrators face unprecedented demands to become key supporters of efforts to improve teaching and learning districtwide. Some suggest that these demands mean that central offices, especially in midsized and large districts, should become learning organizations but provide few guides for how central offices might operate as learning organizations. This article presents a conceptual framework that draws on organizational and sociocultural learning theories to elaborate what might be involved if central offices operated as learning organizations. Specific work practices that this conceptual framework highlights include central office administrators' participation in new school assistance relationships and their ongoing use of evidence from assistance relationships and other sources to inform central office policies and practices. Sense making and managing paradoxes are fundamental to these processes. I highlight these activities with empirical illustrations from research and experience, discuss conditions that help/hinder these activities, and suggest directions for district research and practice. School district central office administrators currently face unprecedented demands to play key leadership roles in efforts to strengthen teaching and learning districtwide. As many have noted, district central offices traditionally have served mainly as fiscal or administrative pass-throughs for federal and state initiatives or have managed certain local operations, such as school buses, facilities, purchasing, and the processing of school teachers and administrators