15 results on '"Desimone A"'
Search Results
2. 'Boots on the Ground': The Authority-Power Dynamic of Regional Service Centers in the Standards Era
- Author
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Pak, Katie, McLaughlin, Jillian, Saldívar García, Erica, and Desimone, Laura M.
- Abstract
The current context of standards-based reform has positioned regional service centers (RSCs), intermediary governmental agencies that support state policy implementation in local districts, as a critical source of professional development (PD). In this article, we ask how a governing body that districts often interact with during challenging reform processes manages maintain strong relationships with district and school staff, and thus maintain their image as trustworthy experts on standards implementation. We explore these questions using data from 108 interviews of state, district, and regional administrators in education agencies in Ohio, Texas, and California over a three-year period. We illustrate that by providing districts with (a) differentiated support specific to their unique needs, (b) materials and tools consistent with state content standards, and (c) expertise in supporting students with disabilities and English learners in standards-based environments, RSC staff become, in the words of one state leader, the state's trusted "boots on the ground." [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED616594.]
- Published
- 2021
3. From Buy-In to Specificity: The Evolution of Standards-Based Reform Implementation in Two States
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Comstock, Meghan, Edgerton, Adam K., and Desimone, Laura M.
- Abstract
Using state-representative surveys of teachers and 94 interviews with state leaders and educators from 2016 to 2019, the authors examine perceptions of the policy environments for instructional content standards in Texas and Ohio and their association with teachers' practice. They find that Texas teacher perceive their policy environments for standards implementation to be stronger than Ohio teachers. Yet, teachers in both states reported the same key challenges to implementation. Further, early on in implementation, teachers' buy-in for the standards predicted their implementation of standards-emphasized instruction, yet specificity of district resources for standards implementation predicted standards-emphasized instruction in 2019. Findings suggest a need for districts to balance top-down resources with ongoing opportunities for educators to adapt resources to suit their students' needs.
- Published
- 2021
4. Designing Instructional Coaching: Suggestions for Supporting Teachers' Professional Learning for the 21st Century
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Woulfin, Sarah L., DeSimone, Laura, and Stornaiuolo, Amy
- Abstract
Coaching is a popular and high-leverage instrument for instructional reform. Coaching holds potential to accelerate teacher learning and school improvement. Linking results from current research, we portray how coaching benefits from robust infrastructure. This article offers three design recommendations that leaders can implement to optimize coaching: (1) identify infrastructural resources; (2) align coaching with instructional priorities and standards; and (3) ensure coaches have the knowledge they need, particularly in relation to the local context. We share insights on how educational reformers and leaders can re-set systems and optimize coaching to accelerate learning and change.
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- 2023
5. An Integrative Approach to Professional Development to Support College- and Career- Readiness Standards
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Pak, Katie, Desimone, Laura M., and Parsons, Arianna
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Though scholars agree that professional development (PD) is a key mechanism for implementing education policies that call for teacher change, and that PD generally needs to be content-focused, active, collaborative, coherent, and sustained, the application of this framework has yielded mixed results. In this qualitative study, we employed structured interviewing methods to explore how district leaders across five states are implementing college- and career- readiness (CCR) standards across the United States by creatively adapting and integrating the features of this PD framework in order to meet the demands of this mandated educational policy. We illustrate a revised model for how 70 district officials are conceptualizing these features of PD to support CCR standards-based learning.
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- 2020
6. Connecting Policy to Practice: How State and Local Policy Environments Relate to Teachers' Instruction
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Comstock, Meghan, Edgerton, Adam K., and Desimone, Laura M.
- Abstract
Background/Context: Instructional policy aims to shift the nature of teaching and learning. Decades of policy studies have highlighted the challenges inherent in these aims and the conditions necessary to support such change, including a robust infrastructure to support teacher learning. Further, teachers themselves must perceive and experience their policy environment to be supportive of calls to shift instruction. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In this study, we examine the connection between teachers' perceptions of their policy environments and their instructional practices over time, in the context of college-and-career-readiness (CCR) standards implementation. While conducted in the context of standards implementation, our findings apply to supporting instructional change through policy more broadly. Setting: We examine implementation of CCR standards in two unique state contexts: Texas and Ohio. These states represent important differences in demographics and in their approaches to CCR standards implementation over time. Research Design: We use a convergent mixed-methods design that draws on state-representative teacher survey data at two points in time (allowing for a trend analysis to understand how teachers' perceptions and experiences evolve), longitudinal interview data with state education leaders, and interview data with educators in one case study district in each state. Data Collection and Analysis: Surveys measured teachers' perceptions of their policy environments, as well as their self-reported instructional practices. Interviews focused on understanding state- and district-level policies, guidance, and resources, and educators' enactment of standards. Survey analysis included descriptive analysis of patterns over time and hierarchical linear modeling. To unpack broad-based survey patterns, we coded qualitative data and developed assertions based on emergent patterns. Findings/Results: We found that Texas teachers agreed more strongly than Ohio teachers that their policy environment had aligned, specific, and stable resources, as well as accountability mechanisms in place. Specificity of guidance and resources for standards implementation predicted teachers' use of standards-emphasized instruction in 2019. These patterns reflected each state's approach to policy implementation: a robust state-level infrastructure for guidance and support in Texas, compared with fewer state-developed resources in Ohio in favor of local control. Still, aspects of teachers' local context--in particular, lack of infrastructure for ongoing, embedded professional learning--limited teachers' ability to engage in state-developed guidance. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our study offers enduring lessons about how to establish the policy conditions necessary to support teachers to change instruction. Findings suggest a need for states to develop resources that clarify instructional shifts for teachers, and districts must balance these top-down resources with ongoing opportunities for educators to adapt resources to suit their students' needs.
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- 2022
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7. Mind the Gaps: Differences in How Teachers, Principals, and Districts Experience College- and Career-Readiness Policies
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Edgerton, Adam Kirk and Desimone, Laura M.
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Critics of standards-based reform often cite an accountability policy environment that disproportionately affects teachers compared with principals and district officials. We directly examine this disproportionality. In our three study states of Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky, we use survey analysis to understand how policy environments for district officials, principals, and teachers differ. We find that in all three states, teachers report experiencing significantly more accountability than do principals. Teachers in every state also report significantly lower authority toward their state's standards. In Texas, these authority gaps predict less coverage of English language arts standards. [This is the in press version of an article published in "American Journal of Education" (ISSN 0195-6744).]
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- 2019
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8. Successes and Challenges of the 'New' College- and Career-Ready Standards: Seven Implementation Trends
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Desimone, Laura M., Stornaiuolo, Amy, Flores, Nelson, Pak, Katie, Edgerton, Adam, Nichols, T. Philip, Plummer, Emily C., and Porter, Andrew
- Abstract
This study identifies seven major trends in how states and districts are implementing college- and career-ready standards for general education students and for two special populations often the target of education policy--English language learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities (SWDs). We draw on state-representative teacher, principal, and district surveys in three states--Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas--and case studies in nine districts. We ground our study in the policy attributes framework, which suggests implementation is stronger the more specific, authoritative, powerful, consistent, and stable a policy is. We find states are being less prescriptive in their policies surrounding the standards and are including fewer or less forceful rewards and sanctions (power). Local districts are providing more detailed, standards-aligned professional development (specificity) and supporting materials to guide teachers' standards implementation (consistency). Districts are using "softer" power mechanisms instead of the "strong" rewards and sanctions of earlier waves of reform. This results in higher buy-in (authority) but creates challenges for districts in providing the necessary supports for teachers. In ELL policy, two national organizations are providing much of the specificity and consistency for standards implementation, and they do this through mechanisms of authority rather than through power mechanisms. For SWDs, implementation support is focused on compliance, and the enduring tension between standardization and individuality persists. Creative district approaches and moderate to high levels of authority hold promise for this wave of college- and career-ready standards. [This paper was published in "Educational Researcher" v48 n3 p167-178 Apr 2019 (EJ1212759).]
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- 2019
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9. How Do States Implement College- and Career-Readiness Standards? A Distributed Leadership Analysis of Standards-Based Reform
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Pak, Katie and Desimone, Laura M.
- Abstract
This study examines the implementation of college- and- career- readiness content standards in Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas through the lens of distributed leadership theory, and determines the affordances and challenges of this distributed leadership through the lens of policy attribute theory. Data sources are 66, hour-long interviews of state and district administrators across the three states collected from Spring 2016 to Spring 2017. Based on distributed leadership and policy attribute theories, state leaders exhibited similar behaviors regarding the distribution of instructional leadership to regional, district, and organizational leaders to add specificity to the CCR standards, at the expense of compromising the consistency and power of the reform. This distribution of leadership is thought to contribute to the authority of the reform, though this authority is made tenuous by the instability of educational policies at the national and state levels. This analysis highlights the need to examine the implementation of education policy using leadership frameworks, and to leadership relationships between the state their regional and district partners. [This article was published in "Educational Administration Quarterly," 2018.]
- Published
- 2018
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10. Teacher Implementation of College- and Career-Readiness Standards: Links among Policy, Instruction, Challenges, and Resources
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Edgerton, Adam K. and Desimone, Laura M.
- Abstract
Using state-representative teacher surveys in three states--Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky--we examine teachers' implementation of college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards. What do teachers report about the specificity, authority, consistency, power, and stability of their standards environment? How does their policy environment predict standards-emphasized instruction? Do these relationships differ for those who teach different subjects (math and English Language Arts [ELA]), different grades (elementary or high school), different populations (English Language Learners [ELLs], students with disabilities [SWDs]), and in different areas (rural, urban, or suburban)? We found elementary math teachers taught significantly more standards-emphasized content than elementary ELA teachers, whereas secondary ELA teachers taught significantly more standards-emphasized content than secondary math teachers. Teachers of SWDs and rural teachers taught significantly less of the emphasized content. In all three states, we found greater buy-in (authority) predicted increased emphasized content coverage among ELA teachers but not among math teachers. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED593919.]
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- 2018
11. Standards Implementation in Texas: Local Perspectives on Policy, Challenges, Resources, and Instruction
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Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), Edgerton, Adam, Desimone, Laura M., and Yang, Rui
- Abstract
The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) examines how college- and career-ready standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. The Center studies elementary and high school math and English Language Arts (ELA) standards, and has a special focus on understanding implementation and effects of CCR standards for English Language Learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities (SWDs). This analysis examines select data from a survey administered to districts, principals, and teachers in the state of Texas during the spring of 2016. A stratified random sampling technique was designed to ensure the sample was representative of districts in Texas. Forty-two Texas districts completed the survey. In every sampled elementary school, two fifth-grade math teachers, two fourth-grade ELA teachers, one SWD teacher, and one ELL teacher were sampled. In high schools, two ELA teachers and one teacher in each of the following specialties or subjects: SWD, ELL, algebra, algebra 2, and geometry were sampled. The three math subjects were chosen because they are the most common high school math courses, thus including them maximizes the number of high school target course responses obtained. Researchers wanted to identify math classes enrolling students who were likely to be required to take the state mathematics assessment. Fifty three districts were identified. Of those, 42 agreed to participate and completed the survey. This is a 79.2% response rate. In total, 149 principals (or designated staff) out of the 211 eligible principals completed the principal survey in Texas, for a response rate of 70.6%; and 603 out of 1,089 sampled teachers responded, for a response rate of 55.4%. These analyses help answer the following C-SAIL implementation research questions: (1) To what extent is the policy system specific, consistent, authoritative, powerful, and stable, at the state, district, and school levels; (2) What is the nature and quality of support and guidance at the state, district, and school levels (e.g., challenges and resources); and (3) How are teachers changing the content they cover, and how does this differ for the subjects of ELA and math as well as for teachers of ELLs, teachers of SWDs, and for elementary and high school teachers?
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- 2017
12. Teacher Implementation of College and Career-Ready Standards: Challenges & Resources
- Author
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Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), Edgerton, Adam, and Desimone, Laura
- Abstract
Roughly seven years have passed since the majority of states adopted college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards. Some states adopted the Common Core State Standards while others adopted their own versions of CCR standards. Because teachers are the primary implementers of CCR standards, we wanted to understand the challenges they face in using the standards in the classroom, the resources they find to be most helpful, and their attitudes toward the standards. This brief examines these issues using 2016-2017 survey data from Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky. Questions answered in this brief include: (1) What challenges do teachers face in implementing CCR standards? (2) What resources do teachers find helpful in implementing CCR standards? and (3) To what extent do teachers think that the standards are appropriate, rigorous, and flexible?
- Published
- 2017
13. How Do States Implement College- and Career-Readiness Standards? A Distributed Leadership Analysis of Standards-Based Reform
- Author
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Pak, Katie and Desimone, Laura M.
- Abstract
Purpose: Our primary purpose is to examine the implementation of college- and- career- readiness content standards in Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas through the lens of distributed leadership theory, and to determine the affordances and challenges of this distributed leadership through the lens of policy attribute theory. Research Methods/Approach: We analyze data from 66 hour-long interviews of state and district administrators across the three states collected from Spring 2016 to Spring 2017. Using a deductive coding approach, we developed themes around distributed leadership as they pertain to the five attributes of policy implementation: specificity, consistency, authority, power, and stability. Findings: Using the distributed leadership and policy attribute theories, we find similar trends in state leaders distributing instructional leadership to regional, district, and organizational leaders to add specificity to the college and career readiness standards at the expense of compromising the consistency and power of the reform. This distribution of leadership is thought to contribute to the authority of the reform, though this authority is made tenuous by the instability of educational policies at the national and state levels. Implications: We highlight the need to examine the implementation of education policy using leadership frameworks and to understand leadership relationships between the state their regional and district partners. We extend the use of the distributed leadership theory beyond the K-16 level and the use of policy attribute theory to showcase where state actors can strengthen their reform initiatives. [The grantee submission for this article is ED589658.]
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- 2019
- Full Text
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14. How is Policy Affecting Classroom Instruction? Evidence Speaks Reports, Vol 2, #14
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Center on Children and Families at Brookings, Edgerton, Adam, Polikof, Morgan, and Desimone, Laura
- Abstract
Five-plus years into the experiment with new "college- and career-ready standards" (of which Common Core is the most notable and most controversial example), we know little about teachers' implementation and the ways policy can support that implementation. This paper uses new state-representative teacher survey data to characterize the degree of standards implementation across three states--Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas. We also investigate teachers' perceptions of the extent to which the policy environment supports them to implement the standards. We find a great deal of variation in perceptions of policy, with Ohio teachers perceiving policy to be less supportive than Kentucky or Texas teachers. Teachers in all states are mostly implementing the content in new standards, but they are also teaching a good deal of content they should not--content that has been deemphasized in their grade-level standards. Perceptions of policy do not explain much of the variation in instruction, contrary to our theory. If greater attention is not paid to supporting teachers to implement the standards and reduce coverage of deemphasized content, we worry the standards will not have much effect. Contains an appendix.
- Published
- 2017
15. Ethnic Disparities in Cervical Cancer Survival Among Texas Women.
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Coker, Ann L., DeSimone, Christopher P., Eggleston, Katherine S., White, Arica L., and Williams, Melanie
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ABUSE of minority women , *SOCIAL conflict , *ETHNIC relations , *CANCER in women , *DIAGNOSIS of diseases in women , *WHITE women , *DEMOGRAPHIC surveys , *STATISTICAL hypothesis testing - Abstract
Objective: The aim of this work was to determine whether minority women are more likely to die of cervical cancer. A population-based cohort study was performed using Texas Cancer Registry (TCR) data from 1998 to 2002. Methods: A total of 5,166 women with cervical cancer were identified during 1998–2002 through the TCR. Measures of socioeconomic status (SES) and urbanization were created using census block group-level data. Multilevel logistic regression was used to calculate the odds of dying from cervical cancer by race, and Cox proportional hazards modeling was used for cervical cancer-specific survival analysis. Results: After adjusting for age, SES, urbanization, stage, cell type, and treatment, Hispanic women were significantly less likely than non-Hispanic White women to die from cervical cancer (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] = 0.69; 95% CI [confidence interval] = 0.59–0.80), whereas Black women were more likely to die (aHR = 1.26; 95% CI = 1.06–1.50). Black and Hispanic women were more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage than White women. Black women were significantly less likely to receive surgery among those diagnosed with localized disease ( p = 0.001) relative to both White and Hispanic women. Conclusions: Relative to non-Hispanic White women, Black women were more likely to die of cervical cancer while Hispanic women were less likely to die; these survival differences were not explained by SES, urbanization, age, cell type, stage at diagnosis, or treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
- Full Text
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