Flexibility, Capacity, and Adaptability: Local Reconciliation of Competing Policy Demands

• In Event: Against the Tide: From the Margins to the Mainstream

Abstract

Objectives
This paper will explore how local authorities in Canada and the USA reconcile policy objectives that are both individually challenging and collectively difficult to reconcile. In both jurisdictions, central planners frequently create initiatives that inadvertently pull implementers in contradictory directions. In particular, no two initiatives offer more crosscutting currents of divergent principles than standards-based accountability and the inclusion and enhanced participation of students with special educational needs (SEN). While the former presses local school boards to adhere to greater levels of standardization, the later calls educators to diversify their pedagogy and permit a more diverse group of students to access mainstream content.
Two projects, one in Ontario and one in New Hampshire, both sought to facilitate greater participation and achievement for students with SEN within mainstream curricula as well as cultivate greater collaboration between general and special educators. These projects are ambitious and difficult, as mainstream educators have expressed concerns about the impact of inclusion on curriculum and overall performance (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1998). Growing accountability pressure only exacerbates these concerns.
Framework
McLaughlin (2006; 1998) and others (Coburn, 2001; Fullan & Pomfret, 1977) have argued that the most effective approach in implementing change emphasizes flexibility over fidelity. These authors encourage policymakers to recognize that not only do local actors need to alter their practice in response to policy, but also that the policies themselves must be open to adaptation and change within guiding principles that are both broad and clear. An under-explored aspect of this theory of mutual adaptation, however, is the experiences of districts who must inevitably implement multiple efforts concurrently, and in the process adapt the polices and their own practice to work coherently.
Data and Methods
This comparative, mixed-methods study comprises four case studies of local authorities, two each from Ontario and New Hampshire. The study describes two projects that harnessed local initiative (and permitted liberty in implementation), built capacity in teachers and local leaders, and attended deliberately to professional culture and collegiality. It draws lessons from both the processes that local professional cultures underwent as well as the influence that macro political elements can have in fostering local initiative. In particular, the cases utilize interviews from all levels of each project— coordinators, superintendents, principals, and teachers—to explore the role that local actors played in planning the projects and reconciling multiple demands. The quantitative data include effect size analysis of standardized achievement gaps, creating a confirmatory and complementary backdrop for the qualitative data (Desimone, 2009).
Significance
Central planners face profound challenges mandating and implementing multiple, concurrent initiatives. Schools and districts, however, demonstrate that through attention to flexibility, capacity, and local adaptability, they are able to do what central authorities cannot: reconcile multiple, competing demands and work towards greater achievement for all students. These projects employed local coalitions and learning communities, consultants in monitoring and support roles, and clearly articulated values. Together, they demonstrate that allowing districts time, support, and the influence of local priorities can improve performance and provide a model for system-wide improvement.

Author

• Matthew James Welch, Boston College