back to list of Papers
back to list of Papers
What Has Been Learned About Systemic Reform?
NISE Forum
February 24, 1997
Susan Fuhrman
My remarks will focus primarily on the process of standards-based systemic reform. I trust that other speakers will address the accumulating evidence on the effects of these reforms. For example, we know that many teachers are at least aware of new policy directives and are favorably disposed toward them. In some schools and districts, important changes in teacher practice, such as increased use of real books and stories instead of basal texts, and more "hands-on" activities in science, have been noted. CPRE researchers saw positive effects on 4,800 students in transition high school math courses linked to ambitious NCTM-like standards. Students in California's Math A courses and New York's Stretch Regents courses were much more likely than general-track students to complete a minimal college-preparatory sequence by the end of high school. And students in transitional math classes posted better achievement test scores than students in general math (though they still lagged behind students in college-preparatory math classes). We are also finding that professional development directly linked to the course content has contributed to changes in practice and improved student achievement.
My choice to focus on the process of enacting and implementing standards-based reforms reflects my background in political science, but it is also appropriate to the current state of reform development. The reforms are not yet in place in most states and districts; they are still under development. Their story is still being written. Further, many of the most important challenges facing reformers, as well as lessons about the progress of these reforms, concern the difficulties associated with the reform process and politics.
I will focus on 7 lessons about the progress of standards-based reform. I draw primarily on CPRE research in nine states (CA, CT, FL, GA, KY, MN, NJ, SC, TX) and 25 districts between 1990 and 1995. ( Massell , Kirst and Hoppe 1997).
1. Standards-based reforms continue to make progress, despite changes in leadership and political turbulence. Although there was opposition to the reforms in each of our states, particularly in the 1994-1995 period, they were not dismantled. Despite the vocal, and often virulent, objections of religious conservatives who asserted that standards interfered with the prerogatives of families and of antigovernmental forces who saw standards as infringements on the authority of local schools, standards development continued. In well-established American tradition, new reforms, such as charter schools, were developed to respond to those who advocated devolution, and they were simply added to the books while standards reforms continued to be developed and implemented. Political rhetoric focused on the newer reforms while under the surface, and more quietly than when they were originally championed, standards documents, new assessments and related policies were promulgated and the slow process of classroom implementation began. Standards policies were modified in response to opposition, as noted below, but the idea of standards-based reform continued to be robust.
2. Much of the continuing momentum behind standards-based reforms can be traced to the activity of non-governmental forces. Professional associations, networks and collaborations, some national and some state-specific, were important sources of support and expertise. For example, standards developers at both state and district levels drew on national documents and examples from other states. Sometimes non-governmental organizations provided revenues. This is the case in eight districts undertaking standards-based reforms with the help of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Certainly, the associations and partnerships enhanced the legitimacy of standards-based reforms. Most national or regional gatherings of education policymakers became occasions to highlight the record of states and districts considered in the lead in these reforms and to draw implications from their experiences. These meetings, and the diversity of groups--from unions to business leaders--supporting standards-based reforms, were very reinforcing.
3. The federal government was an important source of support. Goals 2000 funds were useful in many states, particularly for subsidizing professional development. The standards framework of the Improving America s Schools Act appeared to lend greater legitimacy to state efforts, but it was just taking shape when we were last in the field. We have plans to examine its influence over time. In the context of this Forum, the critical contributions of the National Science Foundation s Statewide Systemic Initiatives must be noted. The SSI in seven of our nine states (CA, CT, FL, GA, KY, NJ and TX) was responsible for developing the math and science standards. And the SSI can sometimes be credited with giving standards reforms an essential boost. For example, Georgia s subject-matter revisions in most areas had been stalled for years, but thanks to the SSI, work in mathematics and science progressed.
4. That support for standards reforms came from many sources was essential for its political survival, but the very diversity of supporters made achieving coherent direction for education more difficult. Standards were supposed to represent agreement on what students should know and be able to do, but the many sources of standards--national associations, local and state development committees, new specifications developed by test publishers--frequently varied in instructional vision. Policymakers and educators are drawing on multiple sources in developing their own versions of standards, and an important topic for future research is the coherence of the resulting products. For example, contrary to the fears of conservative critics, local educators were not circumscribed by state standards. In most cases, they used state frameworks as only one source of their own standards and found state standards too vague to be really useful. They developed their own frameworks, using many examples and models.
5. An additional reason to worry about the coherence of emerging standards documents is the trend toward adding the basics back into state standards. Part of the political and public opposition to standards centered on the new fangled notions of learning and pedagogy incorporated in early standards documents. The new approaches seemed to threaten traditional skills and common-sense notions of what school was about--reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, etc. To respond, many states sought more balance in their frameworks, for example, by incorporating phonics into language arts standards that previously had a whole language orientation. Similarly, emerging state assessments were modified to add multiple-choice items back in and to include norm-referenced as well as criterion-referenced components. Will balance mean more thoughtful integrations of approaches or simple aggregations, with traditional practices on one page and new ideas on another? Future research should attend to this question.
6. Early on in the standards reform movement, it became clear that the work of standards- based reform is extremely demanding. The idea of making change in virtually every aspect of policy--curriculum, assessment, teacher preparation, professional development--not just at once but in a coordinated fashion so they all linked to standards represented a huge challenge to a political system that was expert in incremental, disjointed change. Over time, the overwhelming demands of standards based reform have become even clearer, as has the need to sequence reform components to make them manageable and feasible. Teachers are furious when new assessments come on line before the standards, to which they are supposedly tied, are developed and before any curricular materials are available. They are even angrier when such new assessments are incorporated in accountability systems that carry consequences. Yet such disconnects in sequencing are not uncommon, at the state and district level. As we look at the states we studied, it seems that some of the states that took more incremental, more step-by-step approaches to reform have had less upheaval than some of the previous reform leaders--one reason may be that the incremental states were able to be more deliberate about each step and plan more carefully about how to bring things on line.
7. The most important factor influencing the progress of reform development and ultimately whether standards reforms can support meaningful changes in teaching and learning is the capacity of the system. Capacity is essential at every level. States must manage complex processes of standards development that balance public and professional input, choose or create assessments that balance needs for adequate information for parents and teachers and the desire to model good instruction through challenging items; revise licensing systems; support schools and districts in curriculum development and professional development, and this is just some of what is required. Districts must do much of the same, focusing on daily support to schools going about the difficult process of improving instruction. Teachers and administrators must develop new approaches to teaching and learning, while frequently managing new site-based governance policies and developing ways of relating to one another and to parents. Parents are expected to support new, more challenging expectations for their children, understand and respond to new, very complex accountability systems, and see that schools are supported with adequate resources. Everyone needs help.
There are some signs that the need for greater capacity is recognized. For example, Connecticut, Florida and Minnesota were among the states actively revising their teacher certification processes to support more challenging visions of instruction. Many states have orchestrated or supported teacher networks that group teachers by grade level or subject in order to provide continuing support; some states and districts are facilitating school access to reform designs and technical assistance.
But capacity-building efforts to date are dwarfed by the need and undercut by omissions and contradictions. For example, in our states, state and local central agencies continue to be downsized. At the state level, a number of agency budgets were cut by about 25% during this period, coming on top of earlier cuts during the 1980s Little has been done to see to the quality of professional development available to teachers. The prevailing mode is to push money down to the school or district (that is, where the state is making a new investment in professional development at all) assuming that demand for professional development will be generated by new standards and assessments and that the demand will in turn generate supply. This turns out to be true; suppliers do show up. But much of what is available is of very low quality, and few places have tried to develop criteria to guide selection of professional development providers or to educate consumers about good choices. And, finally, a crying need is for curriculum and materials, reflecting the standards, that can be used for daily instruction. Increasingly, teachers themselves are questioning the romantic notion that day-to-day curricula should be developed by collaborative school or department level groups. They have neither the energy nor desire to create from whole cloth when others might have invented very usable and good materials. We need better methods of sharing what is available and more attention paid to development.
Systemic reform has proven to be both hardy and difficult. Challenges multiply, but the basic logic has enormous appeal and staying power. It is important to act on the lessons we are learning about the challenges, for example, by supporting more extensive efforts to develop and disseminate excellent curricula. It is also important to keep tracking the results. Evidence of positive effects will be critical to the reform s staying power over time. We must show that the hard work is worth it.
References
Massall, D., Kirst, M.W., and Hoppe, M. (1997). "Persistence and Change: School Reform in Nine States." Unpublished manuscript. Philadelphia, PA: Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania.