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

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Educational researchers have explored a number of reasons for the persistent gaps between policy and practice. This symposium will build upon that work and consider new perspectives on educational policy implementation. Two of the papers included in this symposium suggest that reforms can succeed if they create coherence, build collective infrastructure, marry top-down and bottom up approaches, and enable opportunities for teachers to bridge new policies with existing practices. The other two papers do not deny this possibility, but suggest that such efforts are greatly complicated by longstanding chasms among policymakers, practitioners, and communities; in particular, they find that efforts at reform are impeded by racial politics and the absence of political empathy and social perspective-taking.

Sub Unit

• Division L - Educational Policies and Politics / Division L - Section 9: Policy Implementation and Going to Scale

Chair

• Jal David Mehta, Harvard University

Papers

• The Role of Empathy and Social Perspective-Taking in the Implementation of State Reform Policies - Renee Rinehart; Jal David Mehta, Harvard University

• Standards, Assessment, and Teacher Evaluation: How Principals and Teachers "Craft Coherence" Among Multiple Accountability Policies - Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education

• Race, Class, and Interagency Collaboration in Tennessee's Achievement School District - Joshua L. Glazer, The George Washington University; Diane Massell, University of Michigan

• In Search of Scale: Expanding Lesson Study Beyond a Volunteer Network - Candice Bocola, Harvard University

Discussant

• Jonathan A. Supovitz, University of Pennsylvania