Putting School Reform in Its Place

Abstract

For decades, policymakers and researchers have struggled to understand the reasons that schools in disadvantaged contexts have relatively more trouble responding successfully to reform demands. This analysis extends theory regarding the challenges of school change in disadvantaged contexts by illustrating how the internal resources that schools rely on to respond to external policy demands can be affected by the social contexts in which they are embedded. The article draws on data from a study of five high poverty high schools’ responses to the pressures of Texas’ high stakes accountability system. The case study data illustrate how a school’s social context can precipitate instability in some schools and relative stability in others, how organizational stability in turn can affect schools’ organizational social capital, and how organizational social capital can influence schools’ ability to respond to external policy demands.

Stressors and Turning Points in High School and Dropout

“…Such "quiet" dropouts represent a significant proportion of the dropout population (e.g., Bowers & Sprott, 2012a;Janosz et al, 2000). Whole-school programs cast a broader net and have a greater chance to reach all vulnerable students, but these programs are hard to implement, maintain, and scale up, especially in the very places where they are most needed (Holme & Rangel, 2012;Schneider & McDonald, 2007).…”

Examining the relationship of teacher perception of accountability and assessment policies on teacher turnover during NCLB

“…Teacher turnover continues to be a pressing issue in the field of education for a number of reasons. While some turnover in any organization can be necessary and even useful, too much instability of the teacher corps within certain school contexts or teacher demographic groups can create serious organizational challenges (Holme & Rangel, 2012;Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2013). Instability in the teacher corps of a school can reduce institutional history and knowledge and institutional coherence, which can ultimately lead to negative impacts on student achievement (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015;Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2009).…”

The Role of District and School Leaders’ Trust and Communications in the Simultaneous Implementation of Innovative Policies

“…The research team integrated four theoretical strands: (1) school and district leaders' relationships, including learning, alignment, and improvement mechanisms during innovation implementation (e.g., Knapp, Copland, Honig, Plecki, & Partin, 2014;Malen et al, 2015); (2) the relationship between workforce characteristics, organizational factors, and organizational social capital (e.g., Day & Gu, 2014;Holme & Rangel, 2012); (3) policy implementation theory, especially policy attributes theory (Cobb et al, 2013;Desimone1 2008;Fullan, 2006) in tandem with research on implementers' sense-making mechanisms (e.g., Coburn, 2005;Coburn & Russell, 2008;Domina, Lewis, Agarwal, & Hanselman, 2015); and (4) the education-specific and interdisciplinary literatures on trust, communications, and their relationship.…”

“…It is socially constructed and constituted over time in particular organizational settings, which is why some researchers recommend research on "the lifecycles of trust" (Kutsyuruba & Walker, 2015). This trust lifecycle concept provides three reminders: (1) trust can be eroded when suboptimal practices, policies, and conditions prevail; (2) schools and district offices without trust are unlikely to make improvement progress until it is developed; and (3) workforce stability is an essential co-requisite for the development and sustainability of trust (Holme & Rangel, 2012). Bryk and Schneider (2002) laid the foundation for research focused on trust in principals.…”

“…Perhaps anticipating these questions, Bryk and Schneider (2002) emphasized an important combination of workforce factors and organizational configurations (see also Day & Gu, 2014;Holme & Rangel, 2012). In their words, "Designing good schools requires us to think about how best to organize the work of adults so that they are more likely to fashion together a coherent environment for the development of children" (p. 5).…”