(Un)Commonly Connected

Abstract

As states continue to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), state educational agencies (SEAs) are providing professional development and curricular resources to help districts and teachers understand the standards. However, little is known about the resources SEAs endorse, the states and/or organizations sponsoring these resources, and how states and organizations are connected. This study investigates the secondary English/language arts resources provided by 51 SEAs (2,023 resources sponsored by 51 SEAs and 262 intermediary organizations). Social network analysis of states and sponsoring organizations revealed a core-periphery network in which certain states and organizations were frequently named as the sponsors of resources, while other organizations were named as resource sponsors by only one state. SEAs are providing a variety of types of resources, including professional development, curriculum guidelines, articles, and instructional aids. This study offers insight into the most influential actors providing CCSS resources at the state level, as well as how SEAs are supporting instructional capacity through the resources they provide for teachers.

State educational agencies in an uncertain environment: Understanding state provided networks of English Language Arts curricular resources

“…Traditionally, SEAs have focused on compliance and monitoring, but increasingly have provided instructional guidance in the context of standards-based reform (Murphy & Hill, 2011). SEAs provide instructional guidance to LEAs in a variety of ways, such as creating instructional materials, endorsing existing curricular materials, or providing professional development (Hodge et al, 2016). However, little research has examined the role of the SEA in college and career ready standards implementation.…”

“…SEAs have a wide array of choices in the instructional materials they provide to teachers, especially with the rise of Open Educational Resources (OER; Hodge et al, 2018). Recent research suggests SEAs tend to turn to one another, policy organizations, and professional organizations for CCSS instructional resources, and provide a wide variety of resource types (Hodge et al, 2016). States who turn to the same organizations signal that they are making similar choices, and viewing a set of shared organizations as legitimate sources of knowledge and information about state standards.…”

“…Miskel and Song (2004, 2005 used SNA to visualize influential organizational coalitions in literacy policy. Hodge et al (2016) used SNA to visualize the national network of state-provided resources for secondary ELA, providing partial insight to the CCSS theory of action by examining the extent to which states drew on resources from other states or from external organizations.…”

“…We focus here on understanding SEAs' decision-making about the curricular and professional resources they provided on their websites to support new standards for secondary English Language Arts (ELA). We know that SEAs turned to a wide variety of organizations for information about new standards during this period of uncertain implementation of the CCSS (Hodge, Salloum, & Benko, 2016); it is less clear, however, what factors may have influenced the organizations to which SEAs turned. For example, SEAs may have turned to SEAs within the same geographic region, or to other SEAs participating in the same assessment consortium, for curricular and professional resources to provide to teachers in their own states.…”

“…To assess ways that the adoption of CCSS standards may have influenced states' behavior around resource provision and to understand the factors leading states to link to the same organizations, we draw on an archival data set of state-provided instructional resources for secondary ELA. This data set was constructed to describe the national landscape of state-provided resources, including articles, curriculum guidelines, and lesson/unit plans, as well as their organizational sponsors (Hodge et al, 2016); here, we use it to test the CCSS theory of action at the national level. We use multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure (MRQAP), an inferential quantitative model appropriate for network data, to understand how various state attributes relate to the number of shared organizations to which states turned for information about new standards.…”