Districts' experiences balancing inclusion, accountability, and change: Mixed-methods case studies of implementation in Ontario and New Hampshire

Districts' experiences balancing inclusion, accountability, and change: Mixed-methods case Studies of implementation in Ontario and New Hampshire Matthew James Welch Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Andrew Hargreaves Most policies and initiatives in education travel the same, well-worn path: they are designed high above the ground by elected leaders or by public officials in departments and ministries of education. These ideas soon become projects for districtlevel leaders and school-level staff to implement. The process of implementation is often a challenge for local educators. When schools are asked to implement several initiatives concurrently, these difficulties can be compounded. This is especially true when schools try concurrently to include students with special needs and to meet the targets of highstakes accountability programs (McLaughlin & Thurlow, 2003; Ramanathan, 2008). This study examined two multi-level and multi-district projects that were unique in their objective and designs. Each fostered complementary restructuring and reculturing of school districts. These two projects—Essential for Some, Good for All (ESGA) in Ontario and NH Responds (NHR) in New Hampshire—sought to facilitate greater participation and achievement for students with special needs as well as to cultivate greater collaboration between general and special educators. The dissertation is comprised of four mixed-methods case studies across the two jurisdictions, looking at two districts in each country as the units of analysis. Interviews with participants from all three levels—policy and planning, district, and school—were accompanied by effect-size analysis taken from quantitative achievement data to assess achievement gaps before and after each project. Ultimately, the study proposes a workable theory for the field of policy design and implementation that would facilitate simultaneous engagement with multiple, competing policies, in particular balancing the inclusion of students with special educational needs and mechanisms for standards-based accountability. Districts’ Experiences Balancing Inclusion, Accountability, and Change 1 CHAPTER 1 Problems with Implementation In The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform, the late Seymour Sarason writes that change in schools is difficult because many efforts fail to confront “existing power relationships” and other local cultural conditions as part of their plans (Sarason, 1990, p. 5). More recent work by Honig and Hatch (2004) has argued that attempts to make the process of change more coherent often fail to assist local actors in the “continual process of negotiating the fit between schools' variable external demands and internal circumstances” (p.18). Obstacles to successfully implementing school reforms frequently include issues of structural intractability (Tyack & Tobin, 1994), vague purposes (Fullan, 2006), lack of local capacity (Elmore, 2004), active teacher resistance (Evans, 2001), and insufficient input from teachers (Bailey, 2000). Such complicating factors create common problems for the process of implementation, which occur as reforms work their way down a hierarchical policy chain (Datnow, 2006). The intent of policies and the work of schools are often disconnected, and the manifestations of initiatives in schools are often different from their intentions and in conflict with other concurrent reforms (Coburn, 2001; Little, 2002). Efforts to offer local actors more voice in the process of change often neglects to build the capacity of those educators to utilize the full range of tools at their disposal (Honig & Hatch, 2004). This disconnect between broader political goals on one hand and the varied priorities of schools on the other is referred to as policy’s “implementation” problem, where the macro intentions of policy planners often exist in tension with the micro desires, needs, and capacities of local educators (M. W. McLaughlin, 1998). Districts’ Experiences Balancing Inclusion, Accountability, and Change 2 Implementation of new efforts is difficult because school-based educators are often forced to “allocate resources to competing demands” and engage in a process of “reconciliation of past practices and current innovations” (Frank & Zhao, 2005, p. 204). In most studies of implementation and change, rigid reforms designed far from schools fail to manifest themselves as intended because they do not “anticipate the inherently local personalities, events, and crises” within schools, while schools ignore or abandon imposed changes (M. W. McLaughlin & Berman, 1975, p. 3). The most rigid efforts often fail due their inability to blend the policy’s overarching vision with flexibility and discretion for local actors to employ initiatives in their own contexts (Thompson, 2006). Milbrey McLaughlin’s (1998) later work argues that difficult schoollevel factors include the uncertain level of enthusiasm from individual teachers for a given reform, as well as the degree to which local conditions and attitudes support or “engender competing pressures and define constraints” for future action (p.72). The problem with implementing most reforms, in short, is the wrong balance of control between the bottom and the top (Fullan, 2006) and too little attention to how new projects will work with existing conditions (McLaughlin, 1998). More recent policies related to accountability have exacerbated friction between policymakers and local educators. This is especially true in more affluent, industrialized Western contexts like Ontario, Canada and several corners of the United States. In the US, change agents that assume they can push schools to achieve collective responsibility and increased achievement for more students through force have confronted a historical culture of autonomy and a host of local complexities (Elmore, 2004). In Canada, various Districts’ Experiences Balancing Inclusion, Accountability, and Change 3 educational changes have similarly suffered from a lack of flexibility or appropriate balance between pressure and support (Fullan, 1992). From the school-level perspective, implementing new reforms can perhaps be summarized as a study of capacity and will, where “‘will’ refers to teachers’ motivation to change their practice to carry out reformers’ recommendations while `capacity’ concerns educators’ ability to practice in ways recommended by reformers” (Spillane, 1999, p. 144). Leading impactful and lasting change requires attention to both, especially when policies seek to alter teachers’ community of practice, or the collectively constructed norms and boundaries of a workplace. Lack of capacity or will might each prevent a district, school, or teacher from implementing a proposed change. More recent efforts in some jurisdictions, such as Ontario, Canada, and New Hampshire, USA, have sought to accompany pressure for performance with capacitybuilding support and respectful dialogue with local professionals. Hargreaves and Shirley (2009) laud such developments as positive, arguing that simply adding resources without guidance (First Way) or employing pressure without support (Second Way, as currently done in the US) are each flawed strategies. Ontario’s current Third Way strategy, combining pressure and support, marks progress, but leaves much to be desired by way of teacher voice and variety in demonstrating progress. Hargreaves and Shirley remind readers that teachers’ local, collective sense making is an essential factor in successful reform efforts and, therefore, should be taken into account in more advanced reforms. This study will examine two reforms that attempted to address Hargreaves and Shirley’s concerns in the process of reform, but offering support, opportunities for teachers’ input, Districts’ Experiences Balancing Inclusion, Accountability, and Change 4 and attention to teachers’ capacities and professional cultures. A Different Kind of Study for a Different Kind of Project This study employed a framework based in studies of implementation. However, the study was different from most in the field and the projects that were objects of study were themselves out of the ordinary. Studies of implementation often focus on a single policy or initiative (Cohen, 1990; Datnow & Castellano, 2000; Gross, Giacquinta, & Bernstein, 1971; Kyle Jr, Bonnstetter, & Gadsden Jr, 1988; Pressman & Wildavsky, 1973; Spillane, 1999). Schools, however, are complex environments, where the focal reform must often coexist and, occasionally, compete with other policy and community demands (Bishop, 1930; Coburn, 2001; Coburn & Stein, 2006). Individual reforms often conflict with the realities of everyday teaching and school life, such as schedules and interruptions to the teaching environment (Gross, et al., 1971; Kennedy, 2005; Thompson, 2006). Preexisting reforms constitute only one of the many obstacles that an initiative might encounter, especially when attention and resources have been devoted elsewhere (Louis & Miles, 1990). Simultaneous reforms may also create philosophical contradictions for teachers by promoting competing theories for compliance and student success (M. J. McLaughlin & Thurlow, 2003; Ramanathan, 2008). This study will examine several districts’ attempts to reconcile two concurrent policy demands: high-stakes accountability based on standardized assessments and the inclusion of students with special educational needs in conventional classrooms with same-age peers. In particular, the study will examine two different jurisdictions and their implementation of two projects meant to help local actors more effectively reconcile Districts’ Experiences Balancing Inclusion, Accountability, and Change 5 inclusion and accountability policies. These projects attend to both will and capacity, incorporating teacher participation and supporting individual and collective change. The two efforts are unique, in part because they aspire to help local actors reconcile multiple, conc