Putting Networks in Context: How Networks for School Improvement Foster Coherence Within Complex Environments

• In Event: Organizing Networks to Accelerate School Improvement in Pursuit of Equitable Educational Opportunity

Abstract

Purpose:
This paper analyzes the strategies improvement networks leverage to manage complex, and often conflicting environmental pressures. We further explore the implications of variation in network approaches to environmental management for their ability to craft network coherence.

Conceptual Framework:
Considerable literature explores the strategies school, district, and system leaders leverage to manage contested educational environments and craft coherent systems (Cohen et al., 2014; Forman et al., 2017; Fullan & Quinn, 2016; Johnson et al., 2015). Network hubs are ideally situated to support coherent niches of schools within their broader contexts (Cohen & Mehta, 2017). Further, environmental management is particularly important in improvement networks given the many systems and organizations that place demands upon hubs and member schools, including: local districts, charter management organizations, other school support networks, state education agencies, federal education policies, and in our particular cases, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). To do so, network leaders strategically leverage a range of strategies that selectively bridge their network with or buffer them from (Honig & Hatch, 2004) environmental demands.

Data Sources and Modes of Inquiry:
We utilized a sequential mixed methods design (Creswell & Plano Clark) to purposefully select eight networks for longitudinal cross-case analysis (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014) based on variation in their network development as captured by the Network Health Survey from 2019-2021. Using a structured template to guide our analysis, we then utilized a range of qualitative and quantitative data to support within- and cross-network analysis aimed at describing strategies NSI leveraged to manage shifting environmental demands, including: network proposal documents, notes generated in monthly check-ins between network leaders and BMGF program officers, formative evaluation reports, and both closed- and open-ended survey items.

Results:
Networks used a range of bridging and buffering strategies for environmental management that varied both by network type and environmental conditions. Bridging strategies included: Pulling the environment in by hiring district and other local personnel to work in the network; shaping the terms of compliance by attempting to influence and/or adapt district expectations around curriculum and instruction; adding peripheral network structures to the network hub, including individuals and small teams explicitly tasked with managing local relationships. NSI also employed buffering strategies such as symbolically adopting external demands by leveraging district mandates around meeting structures or data usage but focusing those structures on network goals and activities.

Overall, instructional networks engaged in more intensive and consistent bridging strategies than other network types. Further, new environmental pressures introduced by the pandemic led many network hubs to increase their reliance on strategies to buffer their networks from surrounding dysfunction by expanding supports within their network. Further analyses will explore the implications of variation in network approaches to environmental management for member perceptions of network coherence.

Significance:
As described in the prior paper, internal structures, routines, and relationships are crucial to realizing improvement. However, they are likely insufficient if networks are not also attuned to and managing the complex local environments in which their work is embedded, in particular among those networks focused on improving classroom instruction.

Authors

• Megan Duff, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Zoltners Sherer, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Lin Russell, Vanderbilt University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anthony S. Bryk, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
  Non-Presenting Author