Between Design and Implementation: Testing School Reform Practices within a Continuous Improvement Context

• In Event: 66.080 - Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: 66.080-7 - Implementation: Insights From the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools

Abstract

Previous approaches to implementation and scale up have been hindered by lack of buy-in (Datnow, Hubbard, & Mehan, 2002; Glennan, Bodilly, Galegher, & Kerr, 2004; Nunnery, 1998), and little consideration for local school context the stakeholders’ perspectives most affected by the innovation (Elmore, 1996; Fullan, 2001; Stringfield & Datnow, 1998). Years of conventional implementation of “off the shelf” innovations show that implementation does not take hold in long-term, sustainable ways when externally designed programs, policies and practices are implemented with little regard for stakeholders’ perspectives, school structures, and organizational programming and priorities (Cooley & Kohl, 2006). Researchers are engaged in developing a unique model of design, implementation and scale up that addresses perennial challenges to implementation.
This paper investigates initial implementation efforts from stakeholders’ perspectives on facilitators and barriers to implementation of a non-cognitive innovation (students taking ownership and responsibility for their own learning) to improve low-performing high schools. The innovation was designed, developed and implemented in a tripartite collaboration among district and school-level personnel, researchers, and curriculum developers. This study asks, How do the facilitating conditions and implementation supports in the innovation schools effect initial implementation? How might school context within and across the sites (i.e. policies, programs, practices) have influenced implementation?
Data come from intensive fieldwork (semi-structured stakeholder interviews, classroom observations of implementation efforts, and student and teacher focus groups) conducted in three innovation schools. Preliminary findings on initial implementation in the three innovation schools highlight challenges and supports that participants reported. Our cross-case analysis provides evidence of the challenges, opportunities, district and school-based initiatives and supports that may support implementation. Most participants who were interviewed were unfamiliar with the innovation, but responded positively when learning details about its core characteristics and goals. Participants provided evidence that baseline levels of the innovation’s targeted outcomes are low, suggesting that the innovation might offer an unmet need. There are also district and school-based initiatives and supports that may support implementation. Participants across the three schools indicated that successful implementation would entail cultural changes that span beyond two pairs of lessons for each component of the innovation and might include embedding innovation practices more broadly. Participants articulated their perspectives on the will, capacity, and beliefs about the innovation as well as the school and district contexts.
Initial analyses center on efforts to use a continuous improvement model to test, refine and implement an innovation designed in collaboration between school and district design team members, curriculum developers, and researchers. We identify key barriers and facilitators to implementation from the perspectives of stakeholders in the schools. Findings regarding contextual and organizational elements that shape variations in levels of implementation will help us determine strengths and opportunities for improvement of our design and implementation model. Furthermore, findings will enhance and refine extant knowledge in the field more broadly about structural and cultural conditions within organizations that influence implementation of innovations.

Authors

• Katherine Taylor Haynes, Vanderbilt University

• Mollie Rubin, Vanderbilt University