A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Introduction

To get some sense of why teachers have chosen the patterns of practice they report, we examine responses to questions we asked about influences on practice and on the degree to which teachers felt they had a say in making curricular decisions in their school and classroom. There we see that teachers do believe that they have been influenced by state policy instruments such as assessments and curricular frameworks, but that these state influences are by no means the only influences on practice, or even the most important influences. Teachers report that their own knowledge and beliefs about the subject matter and their students, for example, generally have a larger influence than state policies. Some of the interview responses suggest that teacher knowledge and beliefs are in turn influenced by national educational movements and by teachers' involvement in capacity building activities.

Given that possible connection, it important to consider what opportunities for further learning are available to these teachers. We conclude the chapter with an analysis of teachers' reports on where they go for further information and what sorts of learning activities they have recently undertaken. We see that, in comparison to a representative national sample, many more of these teachers have opportunities for inservice activities. We illustrate this participation in capacity building with examples taken from our interview data.

Our study was designed to examine local practices and perceptions in districts with a reputation for active involvement in state education reform. Activity in such "reform districts" indicates the role state systemic reform plays in districts thought to be at the forefront of change. These districts are, in a sense, success stories. By looking at such reform districts, and similarly selected schools within these districts, we get a better sense of how those moving in directions consistent with systemic reform see the contributions of state policy to their attempts to build local capacity and improve student learning.

To characterize activity and perceptions in these reform districts, we supplement interview data with responses on a survey given to each of the classroom teachers we interviewed. The surveys were intended to complement the teacher interviews, giving information that could be followed up in the interview, complementing general responses in the interviews with specific questions, and making some inquiries in standard formats that would ease comparisons between our sample and other studies examining practice, policy, or capacity building. (For the most part, these other studies focused on mathematics, rather than on language arts.) Some questions on our survey were, for example, modeled on questions used in nationally representative surveys such as the National Education Longitudinal Study. This comparison is especially useful, because it allows interpretations in comparison to responses by a more representative group of teachers.

The studies that we use for comparison are: National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 First Follow-up [1990] Teacher Questionnaire (NELS88F1), the Schools and Staffing Survey 1990-91 (SASS), the NSF 1993 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education--Mathematics Questionnaire (NSF93MQ), the School-Based Management Project (SBMP), and Reform Up Close (RUC).

• NELS88F1 surveys the teachers of students who were 8th graders in 1988, so were typically 10th graders in 1990, the year of this survey. This is a large sample (around 25,000 students), selected to be nationally representative of students in this cohort. The items we adapted were from the mathematics version of the teacher questionnaire.

• SASS is an integrated survey of public and private schools, school districts, principals, and teachers, concerning school work force and teacher supply and demand. It is designed to be nationally representative, with a large sample of elementary (about 16,854) and secondary (29,851) teachers. For comparison to our elementary school sample (mostly 4th-grade teachers), we used the 15,320 SASS responses from teachers in elementary schools who did not teach departmentalized subjects. For comparison to our middle school mathematics sample (primarily 8th-grade teachers), we used responses from high school teachers whose major teaching subject was either general mathematics or elementary algebra (a total of 2,017 teachers). For comparison to our middle school language arts sample, we used responses from high school English teachers, whose major teaching subject was in areas such as reading and literature (a total of 4,695 teachers).

• NSF93MQ is a national representative survey (6,000 teachers within 1,250 schools). For comparison to our elementary school sample, we used responses from teachers whose grade level was categorized as 1-4 (about 100 teachers). For comparison to our middle school mathematics sample, with used responses from teachers whose grade level was categorized as 5-8 (also about 100 teachers). Items concerning instructional content and organization, and perception of influence were adapted for our survey.

• RUC is a study of secondary school (grade 9 through 12) mathematics and science in six states, 12 districts, and 18 schools, with a special focus on influences on the content of instruction. Although the higher grade level does not make content comparisons to our survey possible, it is informative to examine what teachers in this study reported about the influences of factors such as state assessment and state objectives on their instruction. Sample size for secondary school mathematics teachers was about 160.

• SBMP samples both high school and elementary levels, with a major focus on the link between school governance and "innovative" practice. Teachers' responses were collected from seven states and from Australia. About sixty-five elementary mathematics teachers are selected for our comparisons. Given that our objectives are to investigate teacher capacity, it is informative to examine the time that mathematics teachers spent on various topics in mathematics instruction.

[Chapter 4 Summary]

[Reported Practice]