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

Theme 3: Organizational Capacity, like Individual Capacity, Can Be Galvanized and Nurtured Through Infusion of Ideas and Perspectives from Outside its Ranks.

We found in each of these reforming sites, and at all levels of the system, a rich infusion of ideas from outside the immediate organizational context, ideas that provided inspiration, insights, and alternatives to the individuals and groups involved in the reforms. In some cases the relevant ideas were focused on process and structure or on generic philosophies about instruction. For example, the notion of the family structures in middle school, the use of portfolios and performance-based assessment, and the concept of teacher as coach would all seem to fit this category. In other cases, the ideas brought in were directly related to content and content-based instruction. Use of the NCTM standards in mathematics and literature-based reading instruction and process writing approaches in English language arts represent these content-oriented influences. What is significant here is that in no case in this study did these ideas emerge spontaneously out of instructional practice at the school site.

One could argue, of course, that these ideas are simply "in the air" as they have become part of the general professional conversation about instruction and reform. Thus, the similarity among the three states in terms of their reform direction in the areas of mathematics and language arts can be attributed to the more general influence of national trends in disciplinary associations and other professional endeavors. Teachers and local administrators were also often part of this professional sea change, having become swept into it on any one of a number of currents, including individual study, attendance at meetings, participation in specific project, and so forth.

Our data suggest, however, that for these reform ideas to take hold in a school or district, there needs to be a specific conduit--one that not only brings in the ideas but helps to link them to the specific realities of that specific context. In every single case, respondents could point to an individual or group of individuals who served as such a conduit. In the two Vermont districts, for example, it was the curriculum coordinator who initiated the reforms in mathematics, as it had been the Vermont Writing Project that had brought in process writing some years earlier. The curriculum coordinator worked as an individual outside the schools to meet directly with the teachers primarily responsible for the portfolio assessment in their schools. Curriculum coordinators and other outside individuals played similar roles in the other districts in this study. In other instances, change came about when an individual in the school attended a conference or became engaged in a project and brought the ideas from that work back into the school itself. This was the case in the junior high in one California district, for example, where the principal attended a conference of the California League of Middle Schools, became intellectually engaged in the model of the middle school, and then initiated the conversion of the junior high to reflect this model.

In the examples above, the external influence provided the initial impetus or direction of the reform. However, the four California schools and the Professional Development School (PDS) in Michigan suggest that the usefulness of external perspectives extends well beyond the initial stages of reform. These five schools were by far the most actively reforming organizations in this study. And in each case, respondents pointed to the significance of on-going, systematic, and focused input into their reform efforts from an outside source.

In the Michigan PDS and one of the California elementary schools, for example, the local university had developed a long-standing partnership with the school. University personnel met regularly with the staff or groups of teachers to assist in their planning, to model effective practice, and to foster evaluation and reflection on that practice. A similar situation existed in the CA2 middle school through an inter-segmental program (ISP) of the University of California (UC). Coaches had worked with staff at this school for a period of over eight years, engaging teachers in curriculum development, assessment, and instructional improvement across grades and departments, consistent with the California frameworks in math and language arts.

The other two schools were engaged in specific reform movements and receiving coaching as part of those efforts. The elementary school in CA2 enjoyed on-going assistance as part of Project 2061, through the district-based Project 2061 network and through a project consultant who worked with the staff specifically in the area of documentation. Meanwhile, one of the CA grade level networks, the California League of Middle Schools, provided consistent support and direction for the other middle school, which regularly sent teams of teachers and administrators to its conferences. This school also benefitted from its involvement in California's restructuring initiative (SB 1274) and the on-going coaching that accompanied that involvement.

In each of these schools the input from outside sources provided additional perspectives on the practices and progress of the schools that would not be available by relying solely on internal staff. Respondents attributed the usefulness of this input to the fact that it was consistent over time and that it was site-based, professional, and focused on the reform objectives set out by the school. Although the particular relationship between external influences and the school community took different forms in each of the schools, they all seemed to reflect what Huberman has termed an "open collective cycle" of professional development. In this model, the collaboration of a group of teachers--generally across schools but conceivably within the same school--is aided by periodic conceptual inputs and consultation from external sources. According to Huberman (1995), the open collective cycle provides opportunity for individuals to develop heightened degrees of professional competence through the availability of "stimulation, challenge, and feedback about one's performance, along with support for efforts to acquire new skills" (p. 218). According to our respondents, such would seem to be an apt description of the coaching relationships in each of these five schools.
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[Theme 2: Individual Capacity Interacts and Is Interdependent with Organizational Capacity]

[Systemic Reform as Capacity Building]