Developing District Coherence: Supporting Factors and Obstacles in the Multiyear Systems Coherence Collaborative, 2013–2015

• In Event: Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Approaches to Sustaining District-Wide Improvement: Curriculum, Organizational Coherence, and Data Use

Abstract

Recent research suggests that an essential component of district improvement is the central office’s ability to achieve coherence between district, school, and classroom activities (Johnson, Marietta, Higgins, Mapp, & Grossman, 2015; Honig, 2010). In 2012, four California school districts and a team of leadership consultants established the Systems Coherence Collaborative (SCC) as a district-led improvement effort. Seeking to create an alternative to existing top-down models of systems transformation, the collaborative worked to develop organizational coherence in service of districtwide improvements to teaching learning. Using interview (n=56), focus group (n=57) and survey responses (n=1038) collected between 2013-2015, we identify district conditions and aspects of the initiative’s design and implementation that enabled or constrained leaders’ efforts in building greater district coherence.

Authors

• Mary G Briggs, University of California - Davis

• Kelsey Krausen, University of California - Davis

• Thomas B. Timar, University of California - Davis