Standards, Assessment, and Teacher Evaluation: How Principals and Teachers "Craft Coherence" Among Multiple Accountability Policies

• In Event: Can't We All Get Along? Conflicting Perspectives, Racial Politics, and the "Human Side of Reform"

Abstract

This study explores how principals and teachers in three high-poverty elementary schools in a large urban district respond to two reforms: the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and teacher evaluation. As educators confront multiple policies, they negotiate the meaning of these policies with their own beliefs and goals for teaching and learning (Anagnostopoulos & Rutledge, 2007; Booher-Jennings, 2005; Coburn, 2001, 2005; Diamond & Spillane, 2004). In this study, I build on Honig and Hatch’s (2004) conceptualization of “bridging” and “buffering” to understand how principals and teachers respond to multiple accountability policies and how the nature of their response influences teachers’ practice.

Rather than viewing policy coherence as something that is inherent in a set of reforms, Honig and Hatch (2004) argue that leaders must actively engage in a process of “crafting” coherence among the multiple policies they face. During this process of negotiation, educators may “bridge” or make connections between policies and their work as a school or “buffer” themselves from policies by responding only superficially or not at all (Honig & Hatch, 2004). Given the high-stakes associated with failing to comply with accountability policies, educators are likely to connect to these policies by integrating them in their structures and work processes (Rutledge, Harris, & Ingle, 2010). In this study, I extend Honig and Hatch’s conceptualization of “bridging” and “buffering” to the work of teachers. Scholars argue that both teachers (Coburn, 2001; Cohen, 1990; Spillane, Reiser, & Gomez, 2006) and principals (Anagnostopoulos & Rutledge, 2007; Coburn, 2005) influence policy implementation as they interpret the implications of policy for teachers’ practice.

This study uses a comparative case study approach (Yin, 2009) to understand how principals and teachers (educators) in high-poverty elementary schools in a large urban district develop distinct responses to the same accountability policies. The participants in my study are four administrators and 26 teachers in three schools. In total, I conducted 44 interviews, 14 meeting observations, and 17 classroom observations. I used multiple data collection methods and sources and triangulated patterns across these sources (Maxwell, 2012). In addition, I used matrices to examine cross-case patterns, looking for themes and variation in how educators responded to policies (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

The use of the teacher evaluation framework seemed to encourage educators to focus on executing particular pedagogical approaches deemed “effective” by the framework and viewed by educators as aligned with the new standards. Educators in two schools defined their goals for meeting the new expectations for teachers and students in terms of general pedagogy (e.g., higher-level questioning). By contrast, educators at the third school “bridged” to strongly held theories of adult and student learning, including specific approaches to teacher collaboration and students’ literacy development. Only in this third school did observations reveal widespread alignment between policy goals and teachers’ practice. My findings suggest that transforming teaching and learning requires educators to move beyond surface level connections between policy and school goals to developing well-articulated theories for the educational change process.

Author

• Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education