Innovative State Education Policy Change: Examining the Evolution of an Instructional Reform in North Carolina

• In Event: Redesigning Educational Systems: Influences and Practices Around Structural Changes in U.S. Education

Abstract

With federal education policy under the Every Student Succeeds Act giving more autonomy back to states and encouraging multiple measures to define student success, new policy windows are opening for innovative state reforms that capture holistic learning outcomes for students. This critical case study of global education in North Carolina illustrates how a coalition came together to enact one such instructional reform. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework to analyze 26 interviews and over 140 policy documents, findings revealed that a broad alliance of government and non-governmental actors coalesced around four major policy objectives that ultimately became state policy. Effective strategies that coalition members identified as catalyzing policy change included incremental will-building, setting a vision and following through, and creating hubs.

Author

• Ariel Tichnor-Wagner, ASCD