The myth of school improvement : more than a decade of reform in one school and what it suggests about the American school improvement project
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- For more than a decade, state and federal accountability policies have operated on the assumption that the school organization may improve continuously over a period of time, whether by adopting the behaviors of effective schools or by implementing Comprehensive School Reform. This dissertation takes a critical look at the problem of school improvement by documenting what happened at a California K-8 school from its origins in 1992 through 2008. The featured case was established as a developmental, multiage program and for ten years participated as a leadership site in the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC). Drawing on institutional and organizational theory, this study uses a longitudinal, process-sequencing approach to document what happened inside the school. Multiple instances of principal turnover, episodes of major teacher turnover and policy changes affected the school's identity, organizational boundaries, curriculum and instruction and routines and relationships. Over time the school was isomorphic with its environment, changing in response to changes in district, state and federal regulatory policies, with certain events having path-dependent consequences for the school's trajectory. Under state and federal accountability policies individual schools are held responsible for improvement; this case illustrates how these same policies shifted significant decisions and authority over curriculum and instruction to the district and state levels. School principals were instrumental in establishing a tone of trust by making and breaking decision-making agreements and structures, but these structures were increasingly symbolic in nature. This case thus suggests limits to ideals such as school leadership, data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement, and raises questions about the notion of school capacity. Given continuous churn in policies and people comprising a school, the concept of school improvement deserves revaluation. Additionally, the study contributes to theory about schools as loosely-coupled systems, suggesting that tighter administrative control over schools does not necessarily make the system more tightly coupled. Finally, I argue that school improvement has become institutionalized across the field, but churn in the policies and people that comprise a school may make the school organization a meaningless unit of change.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2013 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Moore, Aurora |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Education. |
| Primary advisor | McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin |
| Thesis advisor | McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin |
| Thesis advisor | Bridges, Edwin M |
| Thesis advisor | Callan, Eamonn |
| Thesis advisor | Labaree, David F, 1947- |
| Advisor | Bridges, Edwin M |
| Advisor | Callan, Eamonn |
| Advisor | Labaree, David F, 1947- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Aurora Cavallario Wood Moore. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the School of Education. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2013. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2013 by Aurora Moore
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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