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For such to happen, however, requires a fundamental change in orientation from the "top-down" mandates characteristic of the education bureaucracy to one in which all work is designed and evaluated with an express goal of enhancing capacity. Organizations and other actors in the "Third Sector"--universities, museums, professional associations, professional development providers--can and will obviously play a major role in accomplishing this goal. They are both resources and partners. As important as these players are, however, our data suggest that their impact on improved learning for all students will necessarily depend on what happens within the system itself and more specifically on whether the system has developed through its multiple levels and sub-units not only the necessary knowledge and skills of teachers but also the commitment and organizational capacity to move towards the more challenging standards.
The previous section provided several examples of ways in which the sites in this study were incorporating capacity building into their overall reform strategies. Too often, however, these attempts appeared piecemeal and short-term. Our data suggest that what is needed is a coherent and strategic approach to capacity building--one that takes into account individual learner needs and goals, school needs and goals, and district and state needs and goals, not just for the immediate initiative but for the long term. Only in this way can systemic reform's promise of "top-down support for bottom up reform" be fully realized.
A key target in addressing resource needs will be that of expanding available time to school personnel. Almost to a person, our respondents identified time as the most critical requirement for these reforms to succeed--time for teachers to collaborate in planning and assessing their instruction, time for both teachers and administrators to participate in learning opportunities outside the school, and time for the reforms to mature without their falling prey to fickle or accountability-minded policy makers ready to halt reform if student test scores do not rise immediately. Providing additional time costs money. Should additional funding become available, using it to provide time for professional development would seem a worthy and wise investment. In addition, as existing resources are reallocated to align more with reform goals, a substantial portion should be redirected to time for professional learning. Finally, freeing up schools and districts to restructure and reconfigure schedules so as to provide time for collaboration and learning is possibly the most cost effective means of providing at least some of the additional time required. Given the importance of this goal, we would suggest a combination of all of these approaches.
Another critical way to extend resources and build long-term support for the reforms is through partnerships. Each of our sites was engaged in developing partnerships to extend learning opportunities and provide knowledge. In Vermont, this was an integral component of the reform strategy and a major focus of the State Commissioner's work. In Michigan, the reform has in fact been centered in external organizations, such as the state's professional associations, its mathematics and science centers, and the private Michigan Partnership for New Education. The example of the California district described above shows how a district may extend its resources through partnerships with local universities and museums as well. Even at the school level we found respondents bringing in resources from the outside, as one teacher sought help of city planners when teaching a geometry replacement unit in which students designed and built a scale model of a "polyhedroville" or another organized a panel of experts from the community to whom students would present their work for comment and evaluation. Such utilization of outside resources and the development of on-going partnerships can be an effective way of extending the material and intellectual resources available for school reform and a means of developing the base of support needed to maintain the reform direction over the long haul. Of course, building and maintaining such partnerships over time will be an on-going challenge for all concerned.
One final note on resources seems to be in order. Systemic reform, at least in theory, suggests a more effective and strategic approach to the allocation of resources to improve instruction. Such resource allocation within an overall strategy for systemic reform was not the focus of this study and is an important area for further research. However, we would be remiss if we did not point out that some of our schools lacked some of the very basic resources necessary for effective instruction: space for libraries and even classrooms, personnel, computers and calculators--even rulers and paper. It may be that more equitable and purposive allocation of existing resources will remedy many of these shortages. However, it is also quite possible that helping all children reach more challenging standards may require greater overall financial investment in education and thus greater public commitment to the future. Engendering such commitment is a major challenge indeed.
The entry points to education reform were thus many and diverse for these teachers. We identified three advantages to the availability of these multiple entry points. First, they allow teachers to be introduced to reform ideas through an area of interest to them, on a topic with which they are generally comfortable, and in non-threatening ways. Second, they also accommodate teachers' multiple interests and concerns, some of which are based in the disciplines, others of which revolve around their students and school. Third, this diverse set of activities responds to where teachers are on the learning curve and to their multiple and changing levels of commitment and focus. For example, one-day workshop on manipulatives may not significantly increase a teacher's knowledge of math concepts, but it could pique her interest in new instructional techniques and in learning more about new ways of teaching mathematics. Meanwhile, more extensive and collaborative opportunities to deepen her knowledge and skills over a period time are available through summer institutes, networks, or long-term collaborative projects.
While potentially beneficial to teachers, multiple professional development opportunities pose several challenges to schools and policy makers. First, when teachers are involved in many different activities, it is sometimes difficult to link them into a coherent whole in the classroom or at the school site. Second, on the district level, one school may be focused on science, another on early literacy, and another on mathematics. What is the effect when students move from one school to another or when students from these three schools move on to the middle schools? California has tried to address these two potential problems by imbedding a consistent view of teaching and learning in all of its reform efforts--frameworks, grade-level documents, and teacher and school networks. Teachers report that this consistent vision helps. However, our data suggest that a more proactive strategy, particularly at the district level, is required to overcome the inherent fragmentation posed by the variety of opportunities and providers. Finally, one faces the challenge of quality control. How does the education community ensure that these learning experiences are of high quality?
Moreover, how the public is involved and to what end also seem important. Often in the reform literature the need for public involvement is expressed simply in terms of garnering political and public support (i.e., getting "buy-in") without attending to the substantial public learning inherent in such an endeavor. Not only do school people need to increase their knowledge and skills and sometimes alter dispositions and self perceptions to improve student learning; so must parents and the general public. This implies that as the orientation within the school system changes to one of fostering learning for all concerned, so must the relationship between educators and the general public.
Public forums of the sort organized by Vermont educators, or the "visioning" committees established by one of our districts, may be one way of gaining input while educating the public about the direction and goals of the reforms. Media may be another. However, according to the Public Agenda Foundation (Johnson and Immerwahr, 1994), it is to teachers that parents ultimately listen. This suggests that the heart of public (or at least parent) learning may rest primarily with the school. Another form of capacity needed by teachers and schools, therefore, may be the ability to talk to and involve parents in their improvement efforts.
We now take a different but we believe equally important perspective to argue that no matter what happens within the system to develop that capacity, no matter how knowledgeable and effective our teachers and schools become, the goals of standards-based reform will remain elusive if we do not also address the diminishing capacity of communities to support and care for our youth.
We say this in recognition that the goals of this reform movement are not simply to improve student outcomes in the aggregate but to do so for all our young people. It was apparent in the data from these states, districts and schools that many of their students face personal, social, and economic traumas that engage them not only in a struggle for learning but a daily struggle for survival itself. We have no ready answer to the challenge of addressing such stark realities, but in recognition of its importance, we close this chapter with the words of one of our middle school teachers who was only too aware of it implications:
We need a huge creativity--a blurring of the line between school and society. Especially for our kids who don't succeed academically because their energies are devoted to surviving socially.... [Some of these kids] need more exposure to things without having to worry about their alcoholic mom or whatever. And doing things on site is not enough. For instance, a few years ago we had a very talented teacher here who built a darkroom and got kids involved in photography. It was a wonderful on-site program. But now, five years later, every one of those kids is dead.We have to go beyond wonderful constructivist programs.
[Chapter 7: Implications of Study Findings for Policy and Research]