68.034 - Encouraging Compliance Without Mandates: The Challenge of Take-Up in a New State-Sponsored Education Initiative

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

While the education literature has addressed the difficulty of implementation at scale, there is little attention to the stage prior to program implementation, that of program take-up. This symposium will examine program take-up of a voluntary state-wide initiative in Tennessee to improve teaching quality, the Instructional Partnership Initiative (IPI). As with many other improvement initiatives, principals and teachers ultimately determine whether to implement IPI. It is important to understand why educators choose to adopt certain programs and what policymakers can do to encourage the take-up of an effective initiative. This symposium includes four papers examining take-up of the Instructional Partnership Initiative during its first year of state-wide rollout and speaks to the broader challenge of scaling up state-wide initiatives.

Sub Unit

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

Chair

• Nate Schwartz, Tennessee Department of Education

Papers

• From Pilot to Scale-Up: The Challenges of Take-Up in a State's Rollout of a New Initiative - Ellen B. Goldring, Vanderbilt University; Susan Kemper Patrick, Vanderbilt University

• If You Build It, Will They Come? Encouraging Take-Up of State Initiatives Through Extended Outreach and Symbolic Incentives - Mary Elizabeth Laski, Brown University; John Papay, Brown University; Eric Taylor, Harvard University; John H. Tyler, Brown University

• Knowledge, Flexibility, and Persuasion in Program Adoption - Marisa A. Cannata, Vanderbilt University; Jason A. Grissom, Vanderbilt University

• Principals' Decisions on Take-Up: Weighing Perceived Costs and Benefits - Michael Alan Neel, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College; Mollie Rubin, Vanderbilt University

Discussant

• James P. Spillane, Northwestern University