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

Systemic Reform - October 1996

The Dimensions of Capacity

Capacity refers to the power, ability, or faculty for doing some particular thing.⁷ Within the context of systemic reform, capacity is the ability of the education system to help all students meet more challenging standards. We saw in the preceding chapter that many of the teachers in our sites have begun to change their practice in the directions set out by the reforms. Yet even in these schools and districts, which were chosen because they are actively undertaking reform, teachers' instructional practices do not yet meet national standards. Why? According to our respondents, these teachers are hindered in part by their own and the system's still limited capacity to make the desired changes.

Logically, if the capacity of a system is insufficient for accomplishing a desired goal, that capacity may be increased in a variety of ways: 1) by enhancing the capabilities and improving the performance of the workers (e.g., individual teachers); 2) by adding additional resources to the system (in the forms of personnel, materials, and/or technology); 3) by restructuring the ways in which work is organized; and/or 4) by restructuring the ways in which services are delivered.

Most capacity-building strategies in education today are targeted on individual teachers and are designed to enhance their knowledge and to improve their instructional skills through the provision of workshops and university courses. This strategy is based on the propositions that professional development should focus on the growth, competence, and advancement of individual teachers; that if teachers are regularly exposed to new ideas about pedagogy and subject matter, they will improve practice on their own; and that the best source of knowledge for improving teaching is university-generated research (Corcoran, 1995). Yet in a paper commissioned for this study, Little (1993) argues that this model of capacity building--which she calls the "training model"--is incompatible with current education reforms in curriculum, assessment, the teaching profession, and the social organization of schooling. While professional development based on a training model may work to introduce "technical" aspects of reform, or to strengthen a repertoire of classroom practices, it cannot promote the necessary growth in teachers' knowledge base, nor does it expand teachers' opportunities to learn, experiment, consult, and evaluate their practice.

Our data and that of other researchers suggest that the traditional model of professional development reflects a limited conception of the dimensions of teacher capacity necessary to support and sustain instructional reform. This model also ignores the role of the school and other communities of practice in teacher learning and educational improvement. In this section we present a framework for thinking about the nature of teacher and organizational capacity in the context of educational reform. This framework is organized around three central themes supported both by prior research and by data from this study.

⁷ Oxford English Dictionary, (2nd ed.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
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[Chapter 6: Capacity Building and Systemic Reform]

[Theme 1: Teacher Capacity Is Multidimensional and Evolving]