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Although multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems have gained popularity in the United States, few studies have examined their implementation or how they are shaped by organizational context. New Orleans provides a strategic case to examine the enactment of a state teacher evaluation policy in a highly decentralized setting with variation in organizational context. Utilizing a multiple case study approach, we analyzed documents and interviews in eight case study schools. We found that schools varied in their responses to teacher evaluation—in ways that were reflective, compliant, and/or distortive—and that the type of response was not associated with governance model, school authorizer, or level of autonomy. Instead, shared instructional leadership and structures for frequent collaboration appeared to facilitate more reflective responses.

Purpose: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represents a notable shift in K-12 accountability, requiring a more comprehensive approach to assessing school performance and a less prescriptive approach to intervening in low-performing schools. In this article, we seek to leverage the experiences of California’s CORE (California Office to Reform Education) waiver districts to better understand what it means to implement an ESSA-like system. Specifically, we examine educators’ attitudes about CORE’s accountability system, how it was implemented, and its intermediate outcomes. Research Methods: We use a multiple, embedded case study design, examining the implementation of CORE’s accountability system across all six CORE Districts. We draw on interviews with CORE staff ( n = 4), district leaders ( n = 6) and administrators ( n = 29), and school principals ( n = 15); observations of CORE meetings (42 hours); and documentation. Findings: We find strong buy-in for CORE’s accountability system and considerable adaptation of its key elements. District administrators also reported challenges with achieving reciprocity in collaborative activities, and limited capacity, validity concerns, and policy misalignment constrained implementation. Reported effects on practice and learning indicate CORE efforts were a work in progress. Implications for Research and Practice: This research suggests lessons about what it means to be “data-driven” in a multiple-measures accountability era and raises questions about how to facilitate school improvement. While efforts to motivate change via test-based measures, sanctions, and prescribed interventions in prior accountability eras may not have yielded all the expected positive results, our study indicates that a shift to multiple measures, greater flexibility, and locally determined capacity-building efforts brings its own set of challenges.

School reconstitution, a turnaround strategy that prescribes massive staffing turnover, is expected to result in more committed and capable school staff and innovative practices. However, little evidence supports this assumption. We use quasi-experimental designs to assess the impact of reconstitution on student achievement and teacher mobility, finding that reconstitution affected teacher mobility and improved student achievement in the first year of the reform, with continued but smaller impacts in the out years. We draw on mutual learning theory to conduct an exploratory analysis of reform implementation. We find that initial re-staffing and strategic planning may have promoted balance between exploring new and exploiting existing knowledge. Over time, however, balanced, mutual learning was not sustained.

Purpose: A common strategy used in school improvement efforts is a mandated process of formal planning, yet little is known about the quality of plans or the relationship between plan quality and implementation. This mixed-methods article investigates plan quality, factors associated with plan quality, and the relationship between plan quality and implementation, drawing on the first 3 years of a Los Angeles Unified School District school improvement initiative that relied on formal school planning. Research Design: Our research team rated all 206 school plans submitted to the district in the first 3 years of the initiative and drew on surveys of applicant teams and principals implementing the plans. We use these data in descriptive analyses to explore relationships between plan quality and various inputs and outcomes. We also utilized school- and system-level qualitative data to contextualize and explain our findings. Findings: We find that, although average plan quality was relatively low throughout the reform, quality increased during the first phase of the initiative but decreased in the second phase. The two critical elements of the reform intended to drive plan quality, competition and technical support, were negatively or not associated with higher quality plans. However, we find positive relationships between plan quality and reported implementation outcomes in the first phase of the reform, but not in the second. Conclusions: We explore possible explanations for these patterns using qualitative case study and interview data. In the conclusion of the article, we discuss the implications for future school improvement initiatives and research.

This chapter describes a rigorous model for analyzing multiple case study data that advances both evaluative and theoretical goals. Specifically, this approach, which we refer to as DIVE, involves cyclically analyzing case-ordered meta-matrix displays to uncover patterns in the data. The DIVE approach assists researchers in conducting complex thematic analyses, and provides a more structured approach to identifying patterns across multiple sites and/or dimensions of analysis, making visible the relationships among various categories and constructs of interest across cases. The chapter draws on two published empirical studies to demonstrate how to operationalize theoretical constructs, utilize matrices, and situate cases in theoretically informed displays. The chapter also recommends ways to address validity concerns and to use technology to facilitate analysis.