Organizational Routines as Coupling Mechanisms

Abstract

The institutional environment of America's schools has changed substantially as government regulation has focused increasingly on the core technical work of schools-instruction. The authors explore the school administrative response to this changing environment, describing how government regulation becomes embodied in the formal structure of four schools. Working at coupling government regulation with classroom teaching, school leaders transformed the formal structure, paying particular attention to designing new organizational routines. Analyzing the performance of these routines, the authors show how both government regulation and the technical core featured prominently, if selectively, and explore how routines enabled coupling by promoting standardization through alignment with common standards, by monitoring teacher and student performance, and by making aspects of instruction transparent.

Sustaining change towards racial equity through cycles of inquiry

“…The type of data provided (Horn et al, 2015), leadership styles and the framing of conversations about the purpose of incorporating data into every-day practices (Hallett, 2010;Marsh, Bush-Mecenas, Strunk, Lincove, & Huguet, 2017;Spillane, Parise, & Sherer, 2011) and the quality of social interactions during data use matter greatly, especially when issues of trust, power, and professional identity come into play (Datnow & Castellano, 2000;Marsh & Farrell, 2015). The quandary posed by Goren (2012), "data, data, and more data-what's an educator to do?"…”

The Landscape of School Rating Systems

“…Teachers can experience both cultural and technical barriers to data use that limit the impact of performance reporting on actual practice (Ingram, Louis, & Schroeder, 2004) as well as come to adopt the conceptual framework of performance-based accountability in their thinking about and approach to classroom instruction and student development (Spillane, Parise, & Sherer, 2011). More ominously, in adapting themselves to the pressures of external accountability, schools have been found to "game the system" of accountability to, for example, exclude likely low-performing students (Heilig & DarlingHammond, 2008) or even change test answers and scores of students (Wilson, Bowers, & Hyde, 2011).…”

Good Instructional Leadership: Principals’ Actions to Increase Composite ACT School Scores

“…In addition, the definition of a principal's role and work within a school is to provide a map of the contextual information in which principals, principal preparation programs, school districts, and other principal support programs produce effective outcomes (Daly et al, 2010). Both practitioners and researchers can use these strategies as a method to direct actions of reform and support educators (Spillane, Parise, & Sherer, 2011).…”

“…The research illuminated strategies used in the school environment that are contributing factors for how principals successfully implement their roles and take action (Coburn, 2005;Daly, Moolenaar, Bolivar, & Burke, 2010;Spillane, Parise, & Sherer, 2011). As Coburn (2005) stressed, principals need to create a collaborative, clear mission and vision focused on academic excellence in order to increase student achievement.…”