Title: Performance management and school reform
Description: Research suggests that in order for school planners to attain the improvement in student learning most seek, they must influence instructional practice in the classroom. Ironically, this same research suggests that classrooms have proven impervious to outside influence (even to school planners). Many factors contribute to the impenetrable nature of the classroom, including a lack of explicit connection between reform ideas and classroom practice as well as unproductive but pervasive school norms. Still, some initiatives clear these barriers and improve student learning. This research focuses on four schools and their attempts to do just that. This study, conducted near a large urban center in the Southern United States, discusses how school planners at four large, urban, secondary schools (two middle, two high schools), in an attempt to connect initiatives to classroom instruction, adopted Performance Management (PM) systems. Through Performance Management principles, school planners provided teachers with data that could help them improve their teaching. Additionally, planners used PM principles to improve transparency in teaching and the internal accountability of the schools. The findings suggest the following PM principles were important to the work of instructional improvement: (1) Providing explicit and vigilant focus on the classroom in all school planning efforts; (2) Equipping teachers with data they trust and need; (3) Connecting Performance Management elements to the daily work of teachers; (4) Providing timely, frequent, and easily-accessible assessment results through formal feedback loops; (5) Strategically publishing assessment results to promote collaboration and collective responsibility.

The research concludes with a discussion about the various findings throughout the study and implications for school planning efforts. Such commentary is based on the participating schools' early steps and stakeholders' reflections on how those early steps facilitated, and sometimes hindered, improvement in classroom practice. "School Planners" are defined in this study as district and school stakeholders with goal-setting stewardship in a school. These include, but are not limited to teachers, teacher leaders, school and district administrators, school boards, community councils, and PTAs.
Subjects: School improvement programs, Case studies, School management and organization, Educational planning, Educational change
Places: United States