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Chrispeels- very well done study looking at implementation…..a little outdated.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?

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.