Coherent District Reform: A Three-Pronged Approach

• In Event: 66.077 - Systems Thinking in Individual-, School-, and District-Level Change, Innovation, and Policy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to enhance our understanding of districts that are implementing sustainable professional learning in data-driven decision making to improve student achievement. I apply the data-informed leadership framework to the analysis of qualitative data gathered in a case study of 2 urban school districts in California. I argue that whole district reform is possible in ways that increased student achievement results on standardized tests across these two districts. Findings indicate that the interface between: (1) focus on data-driven decision making, (2) systemic and comprehensive professional learning, and (3) distributed leadership led to consistent student achievement gains over a 3-5 year period.

Author

• Miriam Deborah Ezzani, University of North Texas