Design-Based School Improvement in California Schools and Districts

• In Event: Design-Based School Improvement: Perspectives From Chile, the United States, and Germany

Abstract

The RPP has been in existence for four years in a California public school district comprised of 30 schools, three of which are pilot schools. The research methodology includes action research (Coghlan & Brannick, 2007) involving participant observation in faculty meetings and district-wide groups, periodic reflective interviews, and district-wide surveys. Not atypical for a so-called low-performing school district serving disadvantaged students, the district responds to political and performance pressures by adopting a stream of new programs and initiatives that have generated overload and implementation fatigue (Hess, 1999; Payne, 2008). In this context, the design-based approach deliberately presented itself not as another separate program, but as a problem-solving logic that can be applied to programs already underway. Thus, on the one hand, the RPP nudges schools to identify urgent and shared problems of practice specific to schools. On the other hand, the RPP works on district-adopted programmatic initiatives and encourages district leaders to develop a coherent theory of action connecting chosen solutions to perceived school needs.

Analysis of the data reveals the following patterns. At the district level, one year of co-design between researchers and district leaders has reduced the number of initiatives and created a consistent, if still vague, strategic focus: anchoring teachers’ lessons in culturally responsive deeper learning practices. It was found that the iterative problem solving was not possible at the school level in the absence of minimal stability afforded by a more predictable strategic environment.

At the school level, starting from shared problems of practice while immersed in a district-adopted initiative has proven to be a difficult balancing act that plays out differently depending on school capacity. In Schools A and B, instructional leadership teams had the internal capacity to design and deliver their own professional development (PD) sequence according to the district focus on deeper learning. However, the PD did not appear to motivate teachers to experiment with their classroom practices. In the logic of adoption-training-implementation-monitoring, school instructional leaders had offered training, expected implementation, and called for more monitoring when implementation was found lacking. Meanwhile, the RPP research partners aimed to help the school forge a better connection between the district focus on deeper learning practices and urgent problems of practice that teachers may be motivated to address in the classroom. If district leaders’ theory of action was valid, the solution of deeper learning ought to overlap with teachers’ felt urgencies, but this remains uncertain. At School C, meanwhile, instructional leaders did not manage to organize their own PD. The district focus therefore made a weak impression. In this case, the RPP’s focus was on a collective process through which faculty could identify shared and urgent problems of practice while at the same time developing collective efficacy and trust. The coming challenge of the RPP will be to initiate processes of finding shared and urgent problems of practice at the school level and to better connect district leaders’ theories of action to these school-level urgencies.

Authors

• Corrine Aramburo, University of California - Berkeley

• Elizabeth A. Zumpe, University of Massachusetts - Lowell