Teacher Learning, Professional Community, and Accountability in the Context of High School Reform (original) (raw)
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Tensions in Teacher Development and Community: Variations on a Recurring School Reform Theme
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2012
Background/ContextConducted in the fourth-largest urban center in the United States, this research depicts how different reform initiatives were introduced to one middle school context over the decade from 1999 to 2009.Purposes/Objectives/Research Question/Focus of StudyThe study focuses on teachers’ experiences of three reform endeavors and how tensions in teacher knowledge and community developed as a consequence of each. The study's overall purpose is to contribute the often-overlooked teacher perspective to the curriculum, teaching, and school reform literatures.SettingThe setting for the research is a middle school located in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States. The campus's social narrative history parallels the city's development. The school currently serves some of America's richest and poorest youth.Population/Participants/SubjectsNineteen educators, including several main teacher participants as well as some supporting teacher and admin...
Reflections on Reform: A Former Teacher Looks at School Change and the Factors that Shape It
This paper discusses literature on the factors that contribute to and detract from reforms being implemented in schools from the perspective of a former teacher. The effects of school culture, the emotional and relational aspects of teaching and the change process, the importance of professional development, the need for time in teachers' professional lives, and school leadership are analyzed. Also considered are the reasons various school reform efforts succeed or fail. The paper also considers the impact of social and political factors on schools and discusses the effects of "best practice" research on teachers' decisions to change.
2004
Abstract The current wave of school reform demands high levels of accountability from districts and from individual schools. The accountability is measured in terms of student achievement. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 demands that each state report student proficiency levels and hold schools accountable for student progress. How students increase achievement is left to the districts and to the schools. There is a large body of evidence that links student achievement to teacher professional development, although the linkage may be indirect. There is also a large body of evidence that links the quality of teacher professional development to the structure and culture of the school. The research in organizational learning links professional development to the creation of learning communities that support shared decision-making, a supportive environment for experimentation, collaboration among peers and supportive leadership. The school principal is a key component in the creation of learning communities. However, there is very little work done that examines the practices that principals use to create environments that support professional learning in an era of high stakes accountability. This study seeks to uncover the practices that elementary school principals utilize that balance the demands of accountability with the creation of support learning environments. To uncover these practices, this study will utilize a multi-case study of schools identified as having supportive environments for professional learning. The case study is situated in a large suburban school district in a mid-Atlantic state under a state mandated accountability program. To determine which schools to study, supervisors will be surveyed to generate a list of schools that support professional learning from a pool of 78 schools. Four schools will then be selected that vary in achievement scores and socio-economic demographics. A case study approach utilizing interviews will gather evidence of the practices that principals use the support professional learning. The data will be categorized using a guiding conceptual framework developed from a review of the literature on organizational learning, principal leadership and teacher professional development. These conditions include the district effects, beliefs of the school, the school culture, school decision-making structures and planning strategies. In addition, this study will identify and categorize the actions that principals utilized to support professional learning in an era of high-stakes accountability. The identification of the practices principals use to support professional learning is significant because accountability and student achievement impact virtually every school in the country. The study will add to our knowledge about the effects of accountability, leadership and the development of environments that support learning.
2015
Recent school reform movements have demanded high levels of accountability from districts and from individual schools. The accountability was measured in terms of student achievement. Current research linked student achievement to teacher professional development. Evidence also suggested that the quality of teacher professional development was impacted by the structure and culture of the school. The research in organizational learning linked professional development to the creation of learning communities that supported shared decision-making, a supportive environment for experimentation, collaboration among peers and supportive leadership. The school principal was identified as a key component in the creation of learning communities. The purpose of this study was to uncover the practices that elementary school principals utilized that balanced the demands of accountability with the creation of supportive learning environments. This study utilized a multi-case study of schools ident...
School Reform on the Inside: Teacher Agency at one Philadelphia Middle School
Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, 2003
Few educators would deny that school reform is complex business, especially in large urban districts like Philadelphia. On many levels, diverse voices compete to forward particular visions of improved schooling; true, in every wave of reform, some calls for change are heard louder than others. In the current political climate, calls for accountability and standards have received the lion's share of attention. Michael Apple writes, "The seemingly contradictory discourse of competition, markets, and choice on the one hand and accountability, performance objectives, standards, national testing, and national curriculum on the other have created such a din that it is hard to hear anything else" (p. 231). Yet, moving beyond media accounts and political rhetoric into the world of classrooms, teachers, and students, alternative voices are sometimes heard. As schools and classrooms are intersections of political, institutional, and sociocultural histories and contexts, the practices therein reflect a diversity of visions of schooling. Moreover, schools are populated with educators with their own histories, cultural understandings and expectations, and personal-professional goals, many of which may run counter to institutional forces behind school practice. Thus, far more complicated than the debates around policy and practice in the formation and institutionalization of reform policy is the reform's life (and, often, eventual death) in the classroom. This classroom-life is also, I would argue, far more interesting and important for those concerned with school improvement.