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The continuous improvement (CI) approach to systems change has rapidly spread across education policy circles in recent years and has been hailed as a promising means to achieve educational equity and social justice. CI’s highly routinized, scientific process for improving efficiency and productivity is a somewhat unexpected means to pursue equity. To understand this puzzle, I examine the use of CI to promote equity through two qualitative, multilevel case studies. I draw on institutional theory to understand how CI has integrated logics of racial equity and performance, and how local actors have improvised novel approaches. This analysis illuminates the complex institutional dynamics at play with CI implementation and identifies the challenges and promise of using CI to promote educational equity.

Background/Context School leaders are central to state and district human-capital reforms (HCRs), yet they are rarely equipped with the skills to implement new evaluation, professional development, and personnel data systems. Although districts increasingly offer principals coaching and training, there has been limited empirical work on how these supports influence principals’ HCR-related practices. Purpose Drawing on a two-year, mixed-methods study in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), this article examines the role of principal supervisors in HCRs. We ask: What role did principal supervisors (Instructional Directors [IDs]) play in the implementation of human-capital reforms? What did high-quality coaching on the part of IDs look like in this context? Research Design Our two-part analysis draws upon survey and interview data. First, we conducted descriptive analyses and significance testing using principal and ID survey data to examine the correlations among principals’ ratings of ID coaching quality, ID coaching practices, and principals’ implementation of HCRs. Second, we conducted in-depth interviews, using a think-aloud protocol, with two sets of IDs—those consistently highly-rated and those with mixed ratings—who were identified using principals’ reports of coaching quality. Following interview coding, we created various case-ordered metamatrix displays to analyze our qualitative data in order to identify patterns in coaching strategy and approach across IDs, content, and contexts. Findings First, our survey data indicate that receiving high-quality coaching from IDs is correlated with stronger principal support for and implementation of HCRs. Our survey findings further illustrate that IDs support a wide range of principals’ HCR activities. Second, our think-aloud interviews with case IDs demonstrate that coaching strategy and approach vary between consistently highly-rated and mixed-rated coaches: Consistently highly-rated IDs emphasize the importance of engaging in, or defining HCR problems as, joint work alongside principals, while mixed-rated IDs often emphasize the use of tools to guide principal improvement. We find that, on the whole, the consistently highly-rated IDs in our sample employ a nondirective approach to coaching more often than mixed-rated coaches. Conclusions These findings contribute to a growing literature on the crucial role of principal supervisors as coaches to improve principals’ instructional leadership and policy implementation. While exploratory, this study offers the first steps toward building greater evidence of the connections between high-quality coaching and policy implementation, and it may have implications for the design and implementation of professional development for principal supervisors and the selection and placement of supervisors with principals.

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 article examines parent engagement in a Los Angeles portfolio district reform. Based on data from a 3-year study, we use the lens of democratic theory to examine the design and implementation of mechanisms seeking parent input in the selection of plans to operate low-performing and new schools. We find that despite significant efforts to move toward a more deliberative model over time, the process remained primarily interest-based in most cases, due in large part to structural constraints, limited access to information, and mistrust. The article concludes with implications for policy, practice, and research.

School accountability and improvement policy are on the precipice of a paradigm shift. While the multiple-measure dashboard accountability approach holds great promise for promoting more meaningful learning opportunities for all students, our research indicates that this can come with substantial challenges in practice. We reflect upon the lessons learned from our recent research on the CORE districts’ use of multiple-measure data dashboards. Our research indicated that a shift to greater flexibility and locally determined capacity building efforts brings its own set of challenges. Building on this foundation and drawing upon the expertise of a central practitioner-leader, we explore these issues through one promising case: the use of these multiple-measure accountability systems in one CORE district, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). OUSD’s approach suggests that districts have substantial agency to help modify the mindsets of practitioners and the community, by modeling the values of inquiry, openness, and flexibility. By loosening the reigns, districts can give school stakeholders the space and authority to meaningfully manage their own accountability and improvement.