Approaching “Better” as a Rorschach Test: How Preexisting Reform Dispositions Influence the Implementation of More and Better Learning Time in Colorado

• In Event: Implementing More and Better Learning Time: Understanding the Actors, the Stage, and the Setting

Abstract

The Ford Foundation’s ‘More and Better Learning Time’ (MBLT) initiative was designed to help schools leverage time in order to achieve three goals: to extend evidence-based academic instruction and personalize learning; to expand learning opportunities in-, after-, and out-of-school; and to establish collaboration with schools and community partners (Ford Foundation, 2013). The initiative was also designed to build capacity in order to address the paucity of opportunities for communities in concentrated poverty (Ford Foundation, 2013). Although Ford’s approach to equity-minded reform is plausible, how it actually plays out is an empirical question and may be quite nuanced, particularly since it is set at the national level and must be interpreted and eventually implemented within local ecosystems (O’Connor, 1995; Connell & Kubisch, 1998).

This paper explores the dispositions of the Ford-funded supporting team of organizers, conveners, brokers, educators, and community partners that influence the implementation of Ford’s MBLT initiative in Colorado. In particular, we focus on different views about what constitutes “better.” As we discuss, these disparate reform dispositions highlight the importance of the local ecosystem in the implementation of equity-minded reforms (Berman & McLaughlin, 1978). They also inform the efficacy of MBLT’s sustainability.

The “zone of mediation” (Welner 2001) within the MBLT’s Colorado ecosystem is shaped, in part, by the policy actors who serve as mediators between the Ford Foundation, communities, districts, and schools (Warren, 2005). In addition, pre-existing concurrent reforms influence the incentives, dispositions and approaches mediators carry with them into the implementation process. We thus study and analyze the state ecosystem in terms of policies and trends that will shape implementation. We also consider how the disposition of major stakeholders and participants align or misalign with Ford’s approach to MBLT.

Our data come from analyses of documents and from semi-structured interviews with key policy actors in the state. These data suggest that that there is substantially less alignment on the “better” learning time than on the “more.” Diminished fidelity arises because of normative and political differences (see Oakes, 1992) as well as localized and conflicting policy pressures (see Holme, Carkhum, & Rangel, 2013). Colorado’s concurrent, pre-existing reforms (e.g., teacher evaluations and merit pay based on measured student) and trends (e.g., shrinking budgets, charter schools and innovation schools, and blended learning) have pushed or adapted the reform to the Colorado context.

When asked what ‘more’ and ‘better’ learning time looks like in schools, our interviewees tended to conceptualize these seminal tenets of MBLT through their pre-existing reform dispositions, as evidenced by prior responses.

Prior research examining the implementation process for equity-minded reform has highlighted daunting obstacles (Welner, 2001). The research into MBLT implementation in Colorado teases out some of those obstacles. It illustrates the discord that can affect the fidelity of a reform initiative, describing how mediators are adapting Ford’s MBLT philosophy, especially pertaining to “better” use of time in schools, within the local ecosystem and amid the simultaneous implementation of other reforms.

Authors

• Joshua Jared Prudhomme, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Kevin G. Welner, University of Colorado - Boulder