Metareflection

What assumptions did you have initially about policy?

I initially did not have very many assumptions about policy.  In policies that I did not like, I thought they should be changed, but in many cases, I did not feel empowered to do so.  When I was a student within the university setting and administration, I was a strong self-advocate; however, this changed slightly when I went from being a student at a school to being an administrator at the same school.  I felt like in my new position, I could be less of an advocate and fight for change because my actions were not simply my own; they reflected on my office in the larger scheme of the university.

Upon moving to Williamsburg and started at William & Mary Law School, I was told that I was brought in for fresh ideas and to help initiate and implement change.  Yet, I have been here for over a year, and many of the changes I have suggested are still simply thoughts, and very little, except in the programs I coordinate, have come into fruition.  Change is hard, particularly when things have been one way for so long or when there is bureaucracy to hide behind. I did not realize how entrenched William & Mary Law School is in tradition and how hard change can be when people have been in their roles for decades.   

How have these changed over the course?

I do feel more empowered to fight the good fight.  Nonetheless, I am still concerned about what I am doing as a reflection on my employer.  My policy advocacy and reflection is a good example.  I have complained to co-workers, I have talked to our accounting office, and I have advocated for a change in travel policies via an email and some reminders, yet none of these yielded tangible results.  And now I am stuck—I should be doing something more, but I am not sure if I am in the right position to be advocating to the next level up.  Could this affect my position and livelihood?  I do not think so, but I do not want to put my boss, who is wonderful, in any uncomfortable situations. This is something I need to work on, to figure out how to be navigate these waters.

I still do feel more empowered as a whole.  Furthermore, I feel like I have better tools to look at policies and analyze and interpret them.  I have learned of the many lenses in which I can consider policies.  I am more careful in looking at language and the symbolism linked to that language.  In the way I write, particularly at work with prospective students and alumni ambassadors, my language has changed.  I am more purposeful with the words that I chose and how they can possibly be inferred and altered when received. 

What have you learned?

What have I learned? —so much, and it leads to more questions to ask and answers that I want to know.  I knew very little about funding for policies and how the federal government could issues polices but is not required to fund them.  I am now intrigued by budgets and funding.  I know what SCHEV is and Goals/Top Jobs and Race to the Top.  None of these were in my vocabulary before, and I can speak intelligently about them.  I think I might even contact SCHEV for data I believe they have collected, and I can analyze for my thesis.

I have read Fowler.  While I still need to reference the book for details, I believe I understand the salient points. I understand the political system a little bit more and the political culture and while things are so hard to push through legislation. Power is huge in policy development and implementation and individual values and ideologies. When I look at how organizations work together and apart, I think about loose and tight coupling.  I consider this, particularly with local adaptation in working at a law school, tied to a larger undergraduate campus, connected with a state college system.

My viewpoint is shifting on community colleges after listening to Chris Mullin in DC.  I lack faith in the Department of Ed after visiting, but I am energized by Illana and Kelly and their passion and activism.  I know what NCLB is all about and the controversy surrounding waivers.  Common Core Standards intrigue me, but I still am a little skeptical by how the federal government is tied to similar language but says it does not endorse the CCS specifically.

How does the class make you think differently about educational leadership?

I recognize even more than before than it is incredibly hard to be a leader, and a leader needs to have the pulse on everything in their worldview.  They need to know what is coming down the pipe from their government and organizations, and they need to be in touch (particularly with K-12) how they teachers are doing and feeling.  When a policy is enacted, they need to believe in it and get buy-in—all leaders should read Fowler since Fowler believes that we have the tools for successful policy implementation, and there is no excuse for failure.  I look at these leaders with a new found respect and cut some slack (in my mind) that I did not when I encountered them and unfair policies years before (particularly in high school—but not too much slack because of course when I was a high schooler, the world revolved around me).

What actions will you take now given what you have learned?

I will work on using the tools provided to me throughout this course.  I think of projects I need to start working on at work, and there is already resistance.  I’m going to go back to Fowler and read about buy-in and what are some of the barriers.  This is going to help me with redesigning the publications at work even if communications is not super excited right now.  I need to work to get them excited, and I am not better prepared to do that.

I am going to try to sit back and reflect before I act.  I am going to try to appreciate different opinions—I loved the conversations that people had in class and when classmates cited data and results and not just anecdotes and conclusions from personal experiences. Instead of jumping to conclusions, I need to consider the lens from which I am coming from and what are other lenses I should be considering?  What is the framework? I also need to be ready for all this to change as we go through time and priorities shift.  I feel much more informed than I need in the beginning of August.  I know what I have written just skims the surface, but even in writing this, my mind is going in all different directions in what I have learned. 

I want to get more involved with high school students and college access.  Talking about that in the last class, I almost forgot how passionate I was about it when I was in the thick in it.  I lost track of that a bit, and I want to feel like I’m making a difference, and sometimes I do not feel like I am in my current role.  I want to make a difference in individual lives—I believe in college access, and I am disappointed that results are not more positive—these are the kind of policies I want to fix and help.  

PART TWO-- Book Reflection-- State Postsecondary Education Research

Four-- Tracking How Ideas become Higher Education Policy and Practice

-- How policy implementation is now and important part of policy research.  Difficulties in putting together a database to truly understand policy implementation across six states (pg. 7)

pg. 77- "the ideas that drive higher education policy are often not ideas with which higher education practitioners are actively engaged"-- powerful forces like institutional beliefs developed at a federal or state level that are enacted at the local level, are often ignored

Implementation is often disconnected from literature and research.  For example, policies like financial aid and affirmative active have strong, direct effects on colleges BUT there is little know how this happens with implementation across states.

Importance of ideas of policy implementation

• law and incentives
• role as focal points and signals

Higher education can be seen as a private rather than a public good....with this, there are shifting dynamics with merit, diversity, and financial aid

The author pushed for building a comprehensive database that would allow for cross-state comparisons of policy implementations

-one of the concerns with changes as college has become more of a private good is access-- and understanding how college access had changed for the poor under the welfare reform-- with the idea of putting poor people directly to work would lead them out of poverty, rather than providing them access to higher education  BUT each state does things a little bit differently

Workforce Investment Act (WIA)-- should be a good way with data collection across states

BUT states are not consistent and it is very decentralized between states

Question that I thought about was meaning making and what does college mean to different people, things, agencies, and states??

Looking at actual implementation

high level of access-- Rhode Island

medium-- FL, MA, WA

low-- IL, PA --IL surprising because it is said and appreciated for having liberal policies for educational access to poor-- my question-- they how is it low in actuality?? liberal policy does not translate into liberal practice

Barriers to College Access

• Devil is in the details-- recognizing that some people need more support than others (like single women with children), helping to eliminate struggles for people to gain access-- class differences
• Triumph of Work-First Idea-- "the consistent message they get is caseload reduction, enter employment, and everything else is bullshit" (pg. 91)

Lessons to learn!

- designing a study should be selected based on available data

- collaboratively create definitions!

- attention to detail!!!

Five-- Challenges to Designing Cross-state Measures on State Resources for Higher Education

-- Analysis Measuring Up:  The National Report Card on Higher Education

Using this information, policy makers can make some objective decisions!  The study asked the question of how much it cost per year to education an undergraduate student?

Finances- questions and complexities

-undergrad, grad education and research are tightly linked, especially with funding

-establishing college costs nearly impossible is fungibility of funding

Levels of Measure-- State vs. Institution
-- Jones & Paulson wanted to provide assistance to provide accurate comparative data for state policy makers to make decisions in their own states
A take away from all of this is to use good, comparable data in order to make decisions!
-Performance measures-- preparation, participation, completion
-Resource measures- K-12 resources, state and local resources
-total resources (tuition, state and local)

Because it state does things differently, finding comparable data is difficult.  State to state comparisons is hard to do with differences in emphasis across states, especially with sources of revenue.
--also, different types of institutions within states-- public vs. private and varying tuition revenues.  States with more private institutions will generally require lower levels of state funding (My thoughts-- there is more reliance on private funding since public is become less and less each year-- in order to keep state higher ed afloat for the long-term, need more private funding and grant money).

How can there be consistent measurement?  A key is participation!!! and sharing resources.
How do things relate to K-12 funding-- the more states spend on students in K-12, the more they will spend per undergrad within higher education!
-- there needs to support from start to finish :)

Agenda for future-- better data needs to be collected, and more sophisticated analysis to answer where is the money going

Six-- Developing Public Agendas for Higher Education

-- Collaborative effort of three policy organizations

Quote to start the chapter (pg. 121)-- "ask not what your state can do for your institution, but what your institution can do for your state" - G. Davies.  This quote is awful!  The state should be supporting higher education and not using higher ed to provide revenue for other expenditures!

National Collaborative for Higher Education Policy-- purpose is to test a model in developing and implementing a state public agenda for higher education-- great learning experience for future research....

State's relationship with higher ed
-- maintain assets of higher ed
-- balance and shifting with the benefits of citizens and larger society with the price of services

Higher ed is increasing becoming a factor for quality of life and well-being-- for example-- Goals VA and having 100,000 college grads-- idea is to prepare more people for economy, job market, global market, etc-- not just individually but each state and the country as a whole.

pg. 123- "building a strong, high-status system of higher education- the purely institution-centered approach of the past-- does not necessarily result in production of services and benefits most needed by the state."  BUT do the ends justify the means?
--for example- with Kentucky, the higher ed system was not at a level sufficient to best serve Kentuckians...and CA is another example
--also, regional differences within a state can disguise what the state isn't doing broadly-- Virginia an example-- NOVA versus other parts of state like SW VA

Certainly limitations but the author of chapter six found that when working with states and stakeholders, they are able to get good preliminary data....is this data self-reported from the states?  how much sharing and cooperation is really happening?
--Their solution-- a policy audit to help remove barriers both real and perceived-- real versus perceived is not a small point!

Four step process recommended

1. collecting and analyzing data
2. engaging broad range of stakeholders
3. policy audit
4. developing an action plan

Final Thoughts

The chapters in the book did a good job is presenting different information from different viewpoints but still keeping the messaging consistent...importance of engaging all stakeholders, getting "good" data to provide commonalities, and to express the importance of higher education and how it is being mitigated for a variety of reasons (work instead, higher ed used for revenue versus a common good).  This tied into what we discussed in class but also providing additional lenses to look at policy in higher education. 

PART ONE-- Book Reflection-- State Postsecondary Education Research

I read State Postsecondary Education Research.  I read the book over the course of my fall travels-- it was the perfect book to read in airports and during take-off and landing.  I just regret not summarizing each chapter earlier :(  This book was edited by Kathleen Shaw and Donald Heller, and each chapter looked at different policies or studies.

In the acknowledgements, the editors indicated that this book came together as a result of a panel on the challenges of conducting state-level policy research.

Introduction-- The Challenges of Comparative State-Level Higher Education
US is distinct because it has very limited federal oversight and control of postsecondary education.  States differ greatly in governance and control of higher ed.  Researchers become excited with these because they are really able to research and see differences and what are the best practices.  The book provides good examples of cross-state higher education policy research.

One-- Incorporating Political Indicators into Comparative State Study of Higher Education Policy 
--Examine the conceptual, methodological, and practical opportunities associated with collecting political-system data and integrating data into comparative analysis (pg. 4). Review policy innovation and literature

Most research has been focused on policy effects rather than determinants, and ignoring these political determinants can be problematic.  The framework spelled out from the authors views states as individual policy actors and agents of influence in a larger social system-- shows theory of a loosely coupled system.

Policy innovation and diffusion-- states adopt policy because of demographic, socioeconomic  and political features, and their ability to influence one another's behavior.  --innovation and diffusion

In a linear model of 500 universities over 11 years, it was found that increased representation of African Americans and Latinos in legislatures positively influenced level of minority student enrollment at public universities ( pg. 17)-- this shows by changing those who have the power and make policies really does have an effect on who policies are made for

Regulatory coordinating boards-- Lowry found that states with these boards charge lower tuition!  Something for other states to consider perhaps??  Lowry's work also saw that with the principal-agent theory, certain government boards in higher education might advance interests of some stakeholders over others (example given-- academic over elected officials).  I think this is a good thing-- should academics be held higher than elected officials?

pg 26-- much research says that a policy is a policy is a policy, meaning that they think it's the same in each state.  BUT even if states adopt identical policies, they will be enacted in very different ways!

Huge analytic challenges-- why states do what they do

Two-- Can Access to Community Colleges for Low-Income Adults be Improved?
-- looking at Bridges to Opportunity Initiative-- examined project geared at improving education in two-year sector (pg. 5)

The first line of the chapter asks, "Is it possible to develop a single model of policy change that applies across multiple and diverse states?"  I wrote no right in the book.  This case study looks at the Bridges to Opportunity Program -- the model used for the research uses a broad range of stake holders-- from local to state level.  For the policy change process, the goal is to engage key stakeholders.

pg 39-- community colleges will best be served if state agencies worked closer with workforce development agencies-- so true!!  The model uses top-down and bottom-up approaches, so it emphasized the interaction between the different stakeholders.  A huge thing is to engage these stake holders.

One example that is also an exception is the state of Ohio-- they were able to do things very quickly due to strong legislative backing.  Where with Louisiana, the community college system was already weary of legislative influence, so what happened in the past certainly affected future policies.

From the research, it was determined that one model of change would not work as a generalizable model from state to state.  States that have a more-well established community college system have a stronger change of success in adopting these policies.

Three-- The Role of Higher Education in State Budgets?
-- Role of higher education in state budgets

This chapter mirrors much of what was discussed in Fowler and in class-- state budgets use higher education as a balance wheel.  When things aren't going well, less funding is given to higher ed because they know schools can make up this revenue with tuition.  When times are good, more money is put into higher ed as to make up for the difference.  However, who is this really hurting?  I think it's hurting those paying additional tuition when personal and family finances cannot really support the increases in tuition/additional loans and debt.

pg- 57-- interesting to note-- using competing interest theory, Medicaid competes with higher education, and when corrections funding increases, so does spending in higher education.

Hovey's hypothesis suggests that in good times, higher ed appropriations will increase more than other budget categories, and this will only occur for higher ed (as compared to other budget lines).  Other potential competitions are K-12 education, corrections, and healthcare.  Results show conformity to the balance wheel model.  Looking at the data, the hypothesis is correct!! (and provides general support).  However, the balance wheel test did not work for health care, corrections, and K-12 education.  For health care and corrections, it is a linear model BUT with K-12, it is much more complicated than the balance wheel model.

Takeaways from this is that public universities need to build reserves, and include discussions of stability across years in negotiations with the state for funding.

Class Reflection

Learned from the articles

Chrispeels- very well done study looking at implementation…..a little outdated. A lot has changed in California—how is this applied differently?

-used McDonough and Elmore—used as a frame in practice

Domina—can publish an article even if it doesn’t have the outcome desired….not desirable findings are still findings in themselves

Remember--Keep trying to tie back with earlier readings!!!!

STEM questions—group work.  Again-- love my seat and group :)

IROQUOIS case study

--do intermediaries take on a strong role because there is a swirl at the top (changing in superintendents often)

Revolving superintendents—someone gets it started but someone else has to finish it

--implications for implementation

·         Voicing concern, losing buy-in

·         Poor language—not putting positive spin on it

·         Said true feelings, but new superintendent will need to clean it up

--intermediaries

·         Stronger role because need buy-in

·         New guy needs all the information

--look back to chapter for unfunded mandates—Iroquois did apply for grant.  Understand disappointment but left a mess for the person after him.

--nowhere in the article do they talk about changing the current system and questioning the status quo

Are smaller districts put at a strong disadvantage because they don’t the resources to implement the right way?

Looking at things regionally—smaller, rural districts more likely to cooperate because they don’t have a lot of other resources

Domina: What Works in College Outreach

I am a huge proponent of college outreach programs, so the results of this survey and article were a bit disheartening.  I know all community based organizations are not the best run, but Upward Bound is supposed to be one of the best.  That students in those programs were not more likely to graduate high school is sad...

I have worked with several CBOs when I did undergrad admissions, with varying organization and structure.  Some programs picked the cream of the crop to graduate high school and get into selective colleges, and some even went further to help these students through college (like One Voice).  Still other organizations take any kind of students into their organizations and help them with the college process-- as long as students are intrinsically motivated (like MOSTE).  Others work directly with colleges/universities and do a CBO/school approach to provide support during the application process, college readiness after being admitted, and then support from the school (Posse Foundation).  Granted, Posse is expensive, with One Voice having paid staff, and MOSTE comprised of volunteers- with success of the programming in the same order.  Others are schools that have a college-prep emphasis, such as Yes Prep in Houston and Green Dot in Los Angeles.  These are all charter-type schools and have very extensive outside funding.

pg. 127-- 5% of all high school students are in college outreach program.  10% of poor in these programs.  We know very little about how well these programs work and is they are successful.

pg. 132-- discusses the Quantum Opportunities Program.  In each of the sites, half the students received services and half to a control group.  I understand why there is a control group BUT if this program is a success, aren't students missing a great opportunity for their future?

Upward Bound is talked about at length, and per student, it is costly.  Not only costly but  it does not seem to be successful :(  This is terrible that students in Upward Bound are no more likely to graduate from high school than non-participants.  It also discussed Talent Search Programs (like One Voice that I worked with in LA)-- these type of organizations too do not do better for enrolling in four-year colleges.  Again, terrible -- we all want to believe in these programs, but can we?

I am facebook friends with the two groups of students I admitted with One Voice at Bucknell, and most of them are struggling-- Bucknell is not the easiest place for low-socioeconomic, minority students, especially students who do not have the strongest academic background.  However, the second group is doing better than the first.  I mandated (and by mandated-- I made the students think it was required when it wasn't-- whoops) that these students were active in a mentoring program through multicultural student services.  The combination of support to college and in college helped.  But this article is just talking about the bridge to college.

Results found that the CBOs are not successful-- or as successful as they set out to be, but programs within a school have a much stronger probability of success.  This is yet another thing that disadvantages minority and low-socioeconomic students.  Schools that have the resources for college and career centers and other outreach programs will have higher graduation rates.  The research suggests that resources devoted to outside community based organizations should be diverted to building programs within the schools, perhaps with schools like Yes Prep (the most successful that I have seen of public/charter schools).

Sunderman- Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

I found this article really interesting and wish I could have read it sooner in the semester as I did not know too much about NCLB before starting this class.

Sunderman and the introduction written by Orfield show that many problems with NCLB were very predictable, but the right people were not at the table with the passage of this law to help legislators see this.  "These unforeseen circumstances are exactly what congressional oversight and good evaluation by administrators and researchers are supposed to discover and correct." pg. 6  Neither of which happened before NCLB was enacted.

He also continuously discussed the unlawfulness of NCLB as it is seen today and in the last administration by how individual states and even districts are exempt from parts of NCLB.  Orfieldfocused on states like Florida and Texas (Bush admin), but I think it can be applied more broadly, particularly with the waivers being granted to states now with the Department of Ed (see trip reflection from DC on how the executive branch is using too much of their power and not going through the proper channels). While it seems like Orfield does have a political bend, it does somewhat speak to Kelly (WM grad) on pg. 8.

NCLB is by no means perfect.  There are plenty of problems with it, and it does need to be changed (possibly be removed) but individual states getting waivers is not the way to do.  It's sad to think more care was not put into thinking about the consequences of the law and not bringing more of the right people around the table-- I know it was the right time politically to pass an education law, but really, was this the best our country's leaders could do? Reading this article was frustrating to see that special circumstances were not taken from the get-go for ESL students and students with disabilities.  I understand the idea of the law was for all students to be held to the same high standards, but in some cases- this just can't happen.  As I'm scanning through my notes in this 60 page document, there are more and more changes made to NCLB after it was enacted.  Minor changes I can understand but more at the state and district level with implementation, not at the national level.  I just think the whole law should have been thought through better.

Looking at implementation, we could in an optimistic world that NCLB was a good idea in theory....but in practice was not fleshed out/implementation when the policy was enacted, particularly for those who are working at the ground level.  I also had questions about what it means to be a highly qualified teacher-- what did that mean? each state/district had different requirements. can the federal government really dictate this?

I don't know if common sense wasn't in place when NCLB says that there needs to be 95% participation in state tests (pg. 21).  What was the percentage for state and federal testing normally?  How can teachers/schools be responsible for attendance-- I understand why NCLB wants such a strong representation for data purposes, but is 95% possible?

With the waivers, isn't it favoring states and districts with more resources?  Places with more money who can devote time and man-power to securing these waivers? I'm sure some states and districts did a better job at negotiating their waivers with the federal government.  It's also frustrating to see how states weren't pushing for their states to be better.  Georgia for instance (pg. 44) was able to change their graduation rates targets.  In one year, it was 61.8%.  The next year, GA set their goal to be 60%.  Really?  How did this get approved?  If NCLB is meant for students to achieve higher, why is one state lower their standards and being approved by the federal government to do so?

I don't think the goals of NCLB are even close to being achieved with vague language in the law, it not being thought-out, and all these waivers.  What is its point now besides for causing headaches? It's a pretty pessimistic viewpoint, and Sunderman does provide some relief with his suggestions to improve NCLB:
-reexamine core assumptions
-reexamine mechanisms used by NCLB to improve schools
- (most important)-- include educations in open and honest debate!!

This article is dated and even more compromise has been made to NCLB-- I wonder what Sunderman would suggest now?

Fowler: Chapter 10

Implementation-- how do we actually get policies implemented??
Implementation can never be taken for granted- p. 241.  Fowler goes on to say that educators need to be actively engaged in the implementation process, as their jobs are heavily tied to policy implementation.

Who are the players?
-Formal- government officials
-Intermediaries- formal implementer delegates responsibility-- will and capacity of intermediaries is what affects successful policy implementation

Reasons why implementations cannot work in educational policy? Implementation is difficult!

1. didn't understand change
2. didn't know how to use new pedagogy
3. materials needed to establish open classrooms not available
4. culture of institution not consistent with new policy
5. teachers became discouraged and lost motivation 

Examples from 1984 study by Hiberman and Miles- p. 247

Highly successful implementations-- administrators deeply committed to new program.  new policy fit with institution

Relatively successful-- crusading atmosphere among teachers-- helped each other

relatively unsuccessful- supportive at first, offered little assistance

failures- poorly designed and leaders never really interested in implementation

With implementation, there needs to be a good amount of cognitive dissonance-- people use their previous experiences and learning to develop new schemas, but it's hard to bring something new into that schema.  They want to understand bast on past experiences, and it is up to the leaders to lead the charge to help teachers and others to learn new schemas.

Scaling up-- deliberate expansion of externally developed school-restructuring design that previously has been used successfully in smaller settings.

--internal and structural changes the hardest.  culture of many schools does not support collaborative in the way that many reforms require.  external challenges also exist with testing and individual state mandates schools must adhere to.  

How to implement a new policy?

Mobilization

Must answer three key questions in the affirmative:

Do we have good reasons for adopting a new policy?

Is the policy appropriate for our school or district?

Does the policy we are considering have sufficient support among key state holders?

Planning for implementation

Planning is essential-- and whether is is a large or small steering committee, it must include building principals and teachers.

Forward mapping

Money-- most policies supported through grants

Time

Personnel-- espeically a project director or coordinator

Space

Equipment and Materials

Stages of Implementation

Early-- first months will be rough.  be careful in deciding to midgetizing-- by making some of the policy changes smaller, one can make it less worthwhile and meaningful.

Late-- depends on if early was successful.  Decide what works, what doesn't, and eliminate the ineffective components and replace with more effective ones.

Cross-cutting themes- monitoring and feedback, ongoing assistance, coping with problems

Resistance-- self-interest, conflicts with professional values-- exit, voice, and disloyalty
Coping with resistance is key!!!

Under final points, Fowler argues that there is no excuse for failure.  But then why does it still happen if we have the tools?