Compliance, Chaos, or Coherence? How Superintendents, Districts, and Schools Craft Coherence From School Turnaround Policy

Abstract

This mixed-method study examines Michigan’s Partnership policy for school turnaround, which positions the district and superintendents as key policy implementation actors. We first interviewed 21 of 35 Partnership superintendents/leaders across Michigan and surveyed teachers to understand the initial response to the turnaround policy and the strategic planning process. We then used our understanding of these leaders’ responses to conduct a purposively sampled embedded multiple comparative case study of three varied districts. These case studies helped us more deeply understand and compare how districts engaged in the process of crafting coherence and school-level stakeholders’ perceptions of activities related to coherence and implementation of the reform. Based on these two levels of data collection and analysis, we found that many leaders used the opportunity to create new changes, roles, and partnerships, but the majority also symbolically adopted policy demands by aligning their turnaround plans with pre-existing efforts. Using cross-case comparisons of our three districts, we argue that some degree of strategic buffering from policy demands may be warranted, especially when districts have low capacity and face significant challenges recruiting and retaining teachers.

Principals or Agents? How State Education Agencies Build Trust to Balance Support and Accountability in Turnaround Policy Implementation

“…A large and growing body of literature aims to understand how governance bodies and intermediary organizations can best organize themselves in centralized or decentralized ways to support school improvement efforts (e.g., Johnson et al, 2015). The enduring dilemma in this strand of research is figuring out how providers can balance supporting school improvement efforts while affording schools autonomy to accept, adapt, or ignore support structures and external demands (Hashim et al, 2023;Torres et al, 2023).…”

“…In this situation, agents may seek to limit the involvement and monitoring of principals to comply with policy (though perhaps not meeting the actual policy goals) and to protect themselves. An example of this in turnaround policy implementation is reconstituting a chronically low-achieving turnaround school with different students, teachers, and administrators which would serve the purpose of changing the designation of the school as a turnaround school instead of actually raising the achievement of students who were in the initially identified school (Torres et al, 2023). This is sometimes referred to as moral hazard in P-A theory, which involves situations when the agent has opportunities or incentives to take actions that are not aligned with the principals' goals/interests (Laffont & Martimort, 2009).…”

“…According to a recent meta-analysis of impact evaluation studies on school turnaround, policies that were most effective had the following characteristics: district-level interventions, providing extended learning time, teacher replacement, and policies that included a larger quantity of intervention features aimed at improving school capacity such as professional development, wraparound services, curricular change, and new funding (Schueler et al, 2022). However, external partners, including SEAs, can play an important mediating role in helping districts and schools navigate the features or resources associated with turnaround policies like the ones studied in this meta-analysis (Meyers & VanGronigen, 2018;Torres et al, 2023). More research is needed on what this looks like in practice, including an enhanced understanding of the limits and possibilities of SEA-LEA interactions in the process of school turnaround.…”

Causal Stories and Problem Definitions: How Policymakers and Superintendents Frame School Turnaround

“…Scholars consistently find that district leaders act as boundary spanners, mediating the relationship and implementation between state policy and school practice as they work to create coherence between the demands of external reforms and the internal goals and functions of the district (Honig, 2012; Marsh & Wohlstetter, 2013; Rorrer et al, 2008; Torres et al, 2023). Consistent with Coburn’s (2006) analysis, this mediating role includes district leaders’ interpretation of policy in ways that shape its enactment.…”

“…The role of turnaround in school improvement underwent a significant shift in 2016 with the passage of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. Under Michigan's Every Student Succeeds Act plan, the state decided to shift the responsibility for turnaround planning and implementation from the school to the district level, creating a prominent role for superintendents and districts to design and implement their Partnership Agreements under the belief that districts are one of the most important units of change (Torres et al, 2023). Because superintendents must collaborate with state agents on strategic planning that guides the entire policy implementation process, it is crucial to understand the beliefs, rationale, and values they hold that influence this process and whether their beliefs match with underlying policy logics or theories of action.…”