Rural Districts' Priorities and Decision Making Around Curriculum and Instruction Before and During COVID-19

• In Event: Provision of Curriculum and Remote Instruction in the United States During COVID

Abstract

Objective. We present a case-comparison study to explore rural school districts’ priorities and decision-making regarding curriculum and instruction in the wake of COVID-19 school closures.

Theoretical Framework. This study leverages two theoretical frames, cultural-historical activity theory (Engeström, 2001) and opportunity mapping (Hogrebe & Tate, 2012; Tate, 2008), to examine the complex instructional and curricular choices faced by school districts nationwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rooting this study in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) allows a window into the social and relational aspects of sensemaking and decision-making at the district level. Opportunity mapping situates our analyses in how the contexts of place and history mediate patterns of (uneven) resource and funding distribution as constraints on decision-making within rural districts.

Methods and Data Sources. For this study’s second phase, we have recruited a purposive sample of districts representing fringe, distant, and remote rural areas (according to NCES urbanicity codes). Participants of interest had district leadership experience and decision-making authority around curriculum and instruction.

We drew upon data from the American Instructional Resources Survey (Diliberti et al., 2020) and COVID-19 survey (Hamilton et al., 2020) data on focal districts to form a baseline understanding of district context and to inform the development of the focus group and interview protocols. Using focus groups and semi-structured interviews, we layered in thick descriptions of district leaders’ decision-making to understand the relationships between urbanicity, poverty, distribution of resources, and adoption of curricular materials across rural districts.

We used an inductive analytic strategy for our qualitative case comparison (Ragin & Amoroso, 2011) to attend to: (1) what decision-making processes looked like pre-pandemic and during school closures; (2) what priorities and trade-offs were involved in districts’ curricular and instruction decisions and practices; (3) how district leaders weighed curricular standards alignment in their pandemic response; and (4) the social dimensions of district leaders’ decision-making during a global crisis.

Results. Preliminary findings from the surveys revealed some of the challenges faced by district leaders in responding to the crisis, particularly around instructional format and support. These inform the next phase of our study, where we explore how a subset of rural district leaders are approaching the 2020 school year. The subset includes districts known to use standards-aligned materials, representing 11 states from all geographic regions of the United States.

Significance. The full impacts of the rapid shift to all-remote and hybrid remote/face-to-face instruction formats during spring 2020 will continue to unfold with the start of the next school year. Our preliminary findings could make visible some of the emergent challenges and successes experienced by district leaders in responding to the pandemic-related school closures, toward a deeper understanding of the kinds of resources needed to better support rural districts with remote instruction and decisions going forward. As Tate (2008) emphasizes, examining “how we come to understand the interdependencies of the social, cultural, and economic institutions in our communities and how they relate to education processes and outcomes” is a critical component of our civic responsibilities as educators and education researchers.

Authors

• Alisa Reith, Northwestern University

• Mark LaVenia, EdReports

• Lauren Weisskirk, EdReports