Tracing Historical Commitments to Creative Policy Negotiation within Internationals Network Public School

• In Event: Beyond Dreaming: Realizing the Promise of Educational Equity for Immigrant Youth

Abstract

This paper explores how core commitments of the INPS model related to creative policy negotiation have been shared over time by leaders within the INPS network. Much has been written related to the so-called “unintended consequences” of nationalist and neoliberal policy regimes for schools serving immigrant youth including the increased dropout and pushout of these students and the narrowing of curriculum, hyper surveillance and marginalization of teachers (Menken, 2006). Since the early days of the first INPS school in New York City, leaders have challenged incoherent policies and worked collectively with faculty to develop humanizing practices that respond to the needs and identities of their multilingual newcomer immigrant students.

Perspectives

Drawing on the anthropology of policy, this paper explores how policies are “peopled” by actors who adapt, adopt and resist them (Ball, 1993; Shore, Wright, and Però, 2011). It considers how leaders work to “craft coherence” between external policy mandates and the internal communities of their schools (Honig & Hatch, 2004; Spillane et al., 2002; Jaffe-Walter, 2008). Further, it considers how approaches to creative policy negotiation are learned in new sites, considering what Klein and Riordan (2008) refer to as the fidelity challenge in scaling up school designs.


Methods & Data

This paper draws on multiple case studies focused on the structures and practices that account for INPS schools’ positive outcomes which include observations, interviews and focus groups with leaders, teachers and students (Jaffe-Walter, 2008; Jaffe-Walter & Villavicencio, 2023). In addition, this paper draws on recent interviews with leaders within the INPS network who have spent their careers working in the schools to better understand the sharing of knowledge within the network.

Preliminary Findings

Since the inception of the first INPS school in 1985, leaders have engaged educators in dialogues about the design of school structures and practices. Rather than accepting the logic of existing local and state policies, leadership looked to the school community to create structures that allowed for more responsive education for multilingual newcomer youth including project-based work, heterogeneous student grouping and extensive time in the school week for collaboration.
An analysis of case study data collected over time in INPS schools reveals numerous examples of creative policy negotiation including: creating a school-based hiring option, obtaining waivers from high stakes standardized tests to allow for performance-based assessments, creating a teacher-initiated inquiry process to replace standardized teacher evaluations. While findings suggest that creative policy negotiation is a core value within INPS schools, it has largely remained implicit and shared through the enculturation of culture carriers or leaders who are enculturated to INPS values by working within and across INPS schools.

Significance

Reflecting on different instances of creative policy negotiation within INPS schools over time, this paper explores questions such as: How have generations of leaders within the INPS network learned and passed down commitments to creative policy negotiation? What solidarities and relationships make this work possible and what factors limit it? How are implicit values related to creative policy negotiation shared across geographies?

Author

• Reva Jaffe-Walter, Montclair State University