Barriers to District-Level Educational Reform: A Statewide Case Study of Minnesota School Superintendents

• In Event: Bolstering Educational Quality: The District’s Role in School Reform

Abstract

Researchers are challenged by the wealth of literature about the process of educational change, yet reforming education to resolve serious achievement issues continues to be portrayed as insurmountable. The purpose of this study was to analyze within the Public Educational Leadership Project (PELP) Coherence Framework (Childress, Elmore, Grossman, and Johnson, 2007) factors preventing one state’s district level leadership from implementing national reform efforts. A major focus of this study is to understand how the larger systemic educational reform efforts that are intended to bring about district level system change are being enacted. The preliminary results from this study revealed four prominent barriers impacting school reform efforts, mandates, lack of funding, federal requirements and tenure.

Authors

• Candace Raskin, Minnesota State University - Mankato

• Courtney Stewart, University of Montana