Educational Policy Implementation in Shifting Political Climate

Chrispeels' article looked at policy differences in California while the CLAS policy was in place and when it was vetoed after being in place for 10 years.  CLAS stands for the California Learning Assessment Program.  After reading the article and looking back to write this reflection, a line on pg. 454 stands out to me-- "this study shows how policies contribute to both organizational change and stability."       

In discussing implementation, policies must
-maintain system orientation
-address content and process
-use natural network of teachers
-focus on improving classroom practice

--A big point of focus that was I see from this article, the Fowler reading, and class last week is that coherence and understanding is so important for educators to make a policy seem worthwhile.

Other important pieces are
-mandates
-inducements
-capacity-building
-system-changing
-hortatory
**first three stand out to me the most

As Chrispeels discusses the electoral challenges, my notes in the article say-- stupid politics-- did a shift in politics create the window of opportunity to veto the program that seemed to be working?
It seems illogical to veto a program that is having success (even if limited) simply because it doesn't fit one person's political ideology-- at least look at the program, suggest changes, rather than eliminating it completely.

The study done by Chrispeel is a two-part longitudinal study.  However, the second part of the study was based on a self-selected targeted population-- this seems like a bit of a limitation.  These people were chosen because of their knowledge and leadership, but is this an all-inclusive group??

The original bill showed a bill policy shift where the curriculum was less prescriptive, and the vision was rapidly adopted; however, the language was vague in the law.  (pg. 462) The reform initiatives were bringing CA to a more coherent policy program, but some people believed that these changes were happening fast enough.  I wonder if this was due to vague language and compromising in the passing of the law.

We discussed how teacher buy-in was necessary to enact new policies. A quote on pg. 463 shows this where it says that teachers teach what they belief in and while they might go through the motions but this isn't a glowing endorsement from their teachers on this new policy.

What I thought was really interesting is that after CLAS was abolished and there wasn't a clear direction from the state, many school districts continued with CLAS policies at the local level.  This certainly shows that there was some buy-in from local constituencies.  Pg. 468 indicates that many teachers liked these alternative assessments because they were in line with teaching in the classrooms.  87% of teachers in the school district surveyed indicated that they used CLAS like assessment into the English and language arts programs since they "made sense" to local educators.

Many argued that CLAS just needed more time for it to work-- one quote said five more years.

What caused the demise?  Chrispeels says it was four factors:
--loss of leadership in state senate and state superintendent's office
--change in schooling policies, not "real school"
--poor test performance with CA compared to national groups
--with testing, failure to develop individual student results

Overall, the study evaluated what happened in California and ideas for the future.  My take-away was that language in CLAS policies and others like it should be tightened up and then tweaked during implementation to accomplish the overarching goals but then some of the quantitative benchmarks on the national level.  While the demise of CLAS did not help California, it provides an example of the importance of language (along with politics) and sure the language is clearer and tighter for policies in the future.