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Nearly ten years after Katrina and the implementation of a host of new and radical education reforms in New Orleans, there remains little evidence about whether the changes have improved school performance. Despite this lack of evidence, the New Orleans model is held up as a reform success, and is being adopted by other cities. In this article the authors ask how policymakers in New Orleans and at the state level define, access and interpret research or evidence on the reforms, and how, if at all, such evidence informs their decision-making. They interviewed key district and state policymakers, as well as representatives from dozens of intermediary organizations in the area, who, they argue, are also shapers of policy. On the demand side, they found that policymakers primarily used personal anecdotes to justify their position and explain the success of reforms, and they relied on blogs or non-peer-reviewed sources for background information. Peer-reviewed research was seldom used, typically passed to policymakers via an echo chamber of intermediary organizations, personal contacts or key partners. Connecting supply to demand, the authors find that intermediary organizations broker research and evidence to advance their policy agendas, and that they serve as de facto policymakers in New Orleans.

Locally and globally among policymakers and edupreneurs, what constitutes “good teaching and learning” is highly contested, and prototypes that seem to embody “what works” are highly valued. In the United States, many accept Teach For America (TFA) as an exemplar of “what works.” As its U.S. operations continue to grow, TFA has recalibrated and expanded into Teach for All, an international organization with extensive reach. Teach For All not only finds historic roots in TFA, but it reflects TFA’s intentional expansion of its theory of change and implementation on a global scale. This exploratory essay investigates the linkages between TFA and TFAll, focusing on theory and implementation of education reform by comparing domestic TFA ideology and practices with those of TFAll. Also, we conceptualize the dimensions and anatomy of a global network of IOs engaged in global education reform. In addition to providing insight on TFAll, our broader goal is to build the knowledge base around what we are calling global Intermediary Organization Networks (IONs).

Purpose Data use cultures in schools determine data use practices. Such cultures can be muted by powerful macro accountability and organizational learning cultures. Further, strong equity-oriented data use cultures are challenging to establish. The purpose of this paper is to engage these cultural tensions. Design/methodology/approach The data discourse and decisions of four grade-level teams in two elementary schools in one district were studied through observation of 62 grade-level meetings over the course of a year. The observations focused on “data talk,” defined as the structure and content of team conversations about interim student performance data. Findings Distinct macro cultures of accountability and organizational learning existed in the two schools. The teams’ own data use cultures partly explained the absence of a focus on equity, and none of the teams used student performance data to make instructional decisions in support of the district’s equity aims. Leadership missed opportunities to cultivate an equity-focused data use culture. Practical implications School leaders who advocate that equity importantly guides data use routines, and can anticipate how cultures of accountability or organizational learning “show up” in data use conversations, will be better prepared to redirect teachers’ interpretations of data and clarify expectations of equity reform initiatives. Originality/value This study is novel in its concept of “data talk,” which provided a holistic but nuanced account of data use practices in grade-level meetings.

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A growing body of research investigates how intermediary organizations (IOs) and their networks navigate, promote, and produce evidence on social media. To date, scholars have underexplored blogs, an important milieu in which IOs produce and disseminate information. In this analysis, we broaden the emerging scholarship on evidence brokering by examining how IOs and individual and independent bloggers broker knowledge via education policy blogs on charter schools and related education policy. Although blogging can potentially enhance knowledge production and dissemination, our findings demonstrate that bloggers often promote research evidence of uneven quality and scientific rigor.

Abstract:The Chinese province of Shanghai has gained international recognition as a high performing education system with strong teaching and learning outcomes. One accountability mechanism in Shanghai's education reform strategy is statewide performance-based compensation (PBC), also known as performance-or merit pay. Providing a first time account of PBC in the Shanghai context, this study investigated variance in stated and perceived aims of this policy instrument. To explore this variance, the study drew on data from national, state, and school level policy documents, and data from interviews with 20 teachers and the principal in a high performing elementary school. The analysis revealed that PBC was intended to improve teaching quality. However, the teachers' perceived merit pay was meant to increase teacher enthusiasm, job Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 25 No. 88 2 satisfaction, and participation in teacher and student development activities. Importantly, the teachers perceived these aims as tangential from instructional improvement goals. Based on these findings, I argue that this particular PBC policy, as a manifestation of the marriage of standardization and incentivism, is unable to fulfill the promises of this marriage -to link incentives with homogenous, uniform metrics associated with a generic and shared notion of teaching quality. Keywords: Performance-based compensation; merit pay; Shanghai, teacher accountability Una unión fracasada entre estandarización e incentivismo: Perspectivas divergentes sobre los objetivos de la compensación basada en el desempeño en Shanghai, China Resumen: La provincia china de Shangai ha ganado reconocimiento internacional como un sistema educativo de alto rendimiento con fuertes resultados de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Un mecanismo de responsabilización en la estrategia de reforma de la educación en todo el estado de Shangai es la compensación basada en el desempeño (PBC), también conocido como rendimiento o pago por mérito. Proporcionar una primera cuenta de época del PBC Shanghai en el contexto, este estudio investigó Dicho y varianza en AIMS percibidos de este instrumento de política. Para explorar esta variación, el estudio se basó en datos de documentos de política nacional, estatal y escolar, y datos de entrevistas con 20 profesores y el director en una escuela primaria realizando alta. El análisis reveló que la PBC pretendía mejorar la calidad de la enseñanza. Sin embargo, percibido pago por mérito de los profesores fue significada de aumentar el entusiasmo de profesores, satisfacción en el trabajo y alumno y profesor participación en actividades de desarrollo. Importante, los profesores percibieron esos objetivos como tangentes a los objetivos de mejora instruccional. En base a estos resultados, y argumenta que esta política PBC particular, como una manifestación del matrimonio de estandarización e incentivismo, es incapaz de cumplir las promesas de este matrimonio -para vincular incentivos con métricas homogéneas y uniformes asociadas a una noción ...