Recrafting Coherence at the Intermediary Level

• In Event: 79.015 - Recrafting Coherence in the Era of Common Core

Abstract

This paper explores efforts by four intermediary organizations (IOs) operating in one large, urban school district to craft coherence for member schools in response to the district’s adoption of rigorous college-and-career standards.

IOs “occupy the space between at least two other parties and primarily function to mediate or manage change in both those parties” (Honig, 2004, p. 83), ideally situating them to support coherent micro-systems of schools within a larger district context (Cohen & Mehta, 2017; Barletta et al., in press). Given their position, IOs can create the educational infrastructure necessary to bridge rigorous instructional expectations with teaching and learning in schools and buffer schools from conflicting or detrimental policy signals (Cohen & Mehta, 2017; Honig & Hatch, 2004).

This comparative case study (Merriam, 2014) draws from a three-year Spencer-funded study of networks for school improvement in a large urban district. Researchers conducted elite interviews with 12 central office leaders and staff and 61 leaders and staff of intermediary organizations. Finally, we observed over 100 hours of IO-led professional development. Our sample includes two charter management organizations (CMOs) supporting charter schools within the district and two nonprofit school support organizations (SSOs) working with a select group of traditional public schools in the district.

We found all IOs in our sample were attempting to craft coherence for member schools by providing infrastructure to support the implementation of rigorous standards. However, their strategies varied based on their sectorial positions. Operating outside the district, CMOs have direct authority over their schools and provide full-service supports (e.g., hiring, curriculum and instruction, budgeting, operations). Thus, both CMOs had the ability to “go it alone” (Honig & Hatch, 2004, p. 24), fully buffering their schools from policy shifts in the district environment. With schools successfully buffered from district demands, CMOs focused on interpreting and filtering state-level policies around standards and accountability for member schools. Both created robust educational infrastructures to bridge these policy messages with a highly rational centrally-defined vision of instructional improvement, including: scripted daily lessons, interim assessments, CMO-led professional development for teachers and principals, and routines around frequent school-level coaching and monitoring.

SSOs operate within the district, providing more narrowly focused instructional and operational supports. Unlike CMOs, SSOs have no authority over their schools, which report to and receive supports from multiple district intermediaries and central office staff. Given the porous nature of SSOs’ systems, SSOs cannot buffer their schools from district policy shifts. To create coherent infrastructure, SSOs learned to bridge with other IOs in the district environment to coordinate efforts towards instructional improvement and, when necessary, advocate for their vision of improvement in an effort to “shape terms of compliance” (Honig & Hatch, 2004, p. 24).

By shifting the discussion of bridging and buffering to the intermediary level, our paper is one of the first to explore how IOs operating in the same district policy context leverage their sectorial positions to craft coherent micro-systems of schools in response to more rigorous instructional expectations.

Authors

• Megan Duff, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Angela Lyle, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Priscilla Wohlstetter, Teachers College, Columbia University