Search

This project is part of the American School District Panel (ASDP), a research partnership between the RAND Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (CRPE). This report concludes research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. This report provides a possible explanation for why lackluster student test scores continue and why school systems struggle to implement and scale targeted student supports. Significant findings in this report include: (1) A crisis in the quality of classroom teaching is, leaders say, diverting time and resources away from targeted supports for students and toward improving classroom instruction; (2) Leaders report less day-to-day chaos, but unexpected challenges in staffing and teacher development have curtailed recovery efforts. As a result, their COVID recovery plans have been difficult, if not impossible, to carry out; (3) Plans for tutoring and other customized help have been undone by leaders' need to build (or rebuild) teachers' core skills; and (4) Millions of dollars and the best of intentions and efforts notwithstanding, leaders are struggling to overcome challenges to providing baseline services to students. [For the preceding report, see "Navigating Political Tensions over Schooling: Findings from the Fall 2022 American School District Panel Survey" (ED626297).]

The exact cause of teacher shortages is unknown. Some experts argue that shortages are localized, while others say that the lack of teachers is due to low unemployment and other factors. Regardless, school systems face big challenges with their teacher workforce, including finding enough teacher candidates and retaining the teachers they have, as well as filling specialized positions. These challenges require school systems to make changes to the role of the teacher. This brief identifies eight categories of strategies that school systems are using to reimagine their teacher workforce, then assesses the extent to which large and urban districts have adopted these strategies. Of the 100 large and urban school systems examined for this brief, 97 had strategies to address workforce challenges. But fewer than one in three of those districts were pursuing workforce strategies the authors would define as new or imaginative--and most focused on recruiting more candidates.

This brief is one in a series aimed at providing K-12 education decision makers and advocates with an evidence base to ground discussions about how to best serve students during and following the novel coronavirus pandemic. It addresses one central question: What changes in central office systems are likely to support principals in leading for equitable, high-quality teaching and learning? In order to answer this question, the brief breaks down the issue into two points: (1) Principal leadership is essential to equitable, high-quality teaching and learning; and (2) Central offices formed at the turn of the 20th century to handle business and regulatory functions; only in the past 20 years have they been called on and supported to lead for high-quality teaching and learning. Not surprisingly, then, support for principals' equity-focused instructional leadership typically requires fundamental shifts in specific central office systems. Based on these points, the brief provides five strategies to consider and three strategies to avoid.

Many studies have documented a large decline in students' mathematics achievement during and after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The question facing school districts now is how to help students recover. Since fall 2020, RAND researchers have repeatedly surveyed and interviewed district leaders who are members of the American School District Panel (ASDP). A small portion of these data collections have focused on mathematics. In this report, the authors use these survey and interview data to build a national picture of how school districts across the country were approaching mathematics during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. They draw on a framework describing coherent instructional systems to motivate and organize this report. This report is a first look at district leaders' perspectives on some, but not all, of the enabling conditions and components that make up a coherent mathematics instructional system. The findings from these survey items can contribute to the national conversation about how best to help students recover unfinished mathematics learning.

School district leaders nationwide aspire to help their schools become vibrant places for learning--where students have meaningful academic opportunities and develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Historically, though, school district central offices have been ill-equipped to support such ambitious goals. A new wave of research suggests that central offices have a key role to play in creating the conditions that make deeper learning possible, and they can do so by making deliberate efforts to align the work of each and every part of the school system to a set of common priorities. This paper addresses the following questions: (1) Why should district central office leaders make performance alignment a key part of their efforts to help all students learn deeply?; and (2) What, more specifically, does performance alignment entail, and how might district leaders move in that direction? This paper: (1) identifies several challenges that district central offices often face when they try to support the improvement of teaching and learning districtwide; (2) describes how pioneering districts are pursing performance alignment; and (3) recommends specific strategies that can help school districts to realize deeper learning at scale. Findings and observations point to the need for a fundamental redesign of most central office functions, as well as some major departures from business-as-usual for most, if not all, central office staff, especially those in human resources, curriculum and instruction, and principal supervision. Such reforms can be challenging, but they are likely to be necessary for school systems to realize deeper learning in all schools and for all students. A table of Data Sources is appended. [For the Executive Summary, see ED560757.]

School district leaders nationwide aspire to help their schools become vibrant places for learning--where students have meaningful academic opportunities "and" develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, the ability to communicate effectively, and other deeper learning capacities that are essential to success in later life. Historically, though, school district central offices have been ill equipped to support such ambitious goals. This executive summary discusses the following: (1) deeper learning and its connection to central offices; (2) why the change to facilitate deeper learning is difficult for central offices; (3) how central offices can support systemwide deeper learning; and (4) recommendations for engaging central office staff members in redesigning their roles. [For the full report, see ED560756.]

This project examines how eight state education agencies engaged the charge of improving their lowest-performing schools. The states examined are among the most active and intentional in this regard. In many ways, they are at the leading edge of what could eventually become 50 different experiments in performance management. By focusing on states at the forefront of the turnaround effort, the authors hope to identify promising paths that SEAs can follow as they shift the focus of their departments away from ensuring compliance and toward managing for improved performance. This report begins by briefly discussing prior research on the role of state agencies in supporting struggling schools. It then identifies the logic of school reform that guides their processes. Importantly, all of the states examined here start from nearly the same point, a federally defined set of steps by which they are bound, and they share certain elements of change. For example, they all used data to guide their work, restructured their organizations, and embraced the principles of transparency and clarity in communicating their intentions. They established a sense of urgency to build momentum for reform, leveraged the threat of federal requirements, and relied upon strong leadership, though in differing manners and to differing degrees. Finally, the report examines the overall strategic visions that guide SEAs' efforts to improve schools. These visions represent the greatest variation in terms of how SEAs approach school improvement. Undergirding these strategies are very different theories of action and expectations about the role of local education agencies (LEAs). It is too early to identify one strategic approach that is best in all situations. Each was implemented only recently and is embedded in a particular set of circumstances. Interestingly, they all share a common implicit assumption that enough administrative, teaching, and school leadership talent--either in terms of individuals or organizations--can be developed or recruited to support the reform effort. While the overall prognosis is uncertain as to the best transformation path, it is clear that any approach relies on recruiting enough talent to drive the effort. New Jersey Department of Education Organizational Charts 2010 and 2011 are appended. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables and 36 footnotes.)

Over the past 15 years, charter schools and teachers unions have battled in state legislatures, the courts and the media. But with increasing frequency, the two groups are facing each other in the everyday operation of schools. This report summarizes the opinions expressed at a meeting of local state, and national leaders from both the charter school and teachers union communities convened to begin to answer questions such as: (1) Will on-the-ground experiences change charter schools or unions? and (2) Will existing conflicts only spread, or will direct experience lead to some moderation within each party? The meeting was held on May 20, 2006 at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, DC. The report makes the case that if relations are to improve, three things are needed. First, to help ground the discussion in facts, we need better evidence about the charter school teaching force and the impact of chartering on issues that matter to teachers. Second, more exemplars and models of effective union-charter partnerships can help show how important problems can be solved. Finally, both groups could engage in confidence-building measures to demonstrate their desire to make progress, not just give the appearance of openness. Appended are: (1) Participants; and (2) Agenda Questions.

In the past eight years, Chicago has created an excellent charter school model with help from across the city. Mayor Richard Daley supported the reform, Chicago Public Schools developed a thoughtful and proactive approval process, business and civic leaders championed the movement and provided technical support, and teachers and community groups accepted the challenge of opening new schools. All deserve credit for the success to date. Renaissance 2010 will dramatically alter the landscape for Chicago's charters during the next five years. Hopefully, all of these actors can pull together again and make the Renaissance 2010 initiative an equally historic success. There are challenges ahead, but there is also more than enough capacity in the "city of big shoulders" to tackle this one. This report examines the history and future of charter schools in the "Land of Lincoln" and how they are being used to spur education reform, reach underserved populations, and reinvigorate urban areas. It also recommends changes at the state level to boost the chances of success for Chicago's Renaissance 2010 plan. [This report is a product of the 21st Century Schools Project.]

This report summarizes main results from a national study of how leaders in urban school district central offices fundamentally transformed their work and relationships with schools to support districtwide teaching and learning improvement. All three study districts had been posting gains in student achievement and credited their progress, in part, to efforts to radically change their work at the central office level. The authors aimed to understand more specifically what these central offices were doing. The study breaks new ground in educational research by uncovering the daily work practices and activities of central office administrators as they sought not just to make the central office more efficient but also to transform the central office into a support system to help all schools improve the quality of teaching and learning. The findings reveal that leaders in these systems, first and foremost, understood what decades of experience and research have shown: that districts generally do not see districtwide improvements in teaching and learning without substantial engagement by their central offices in helping all schools build their capacity for improvement. Central offices and the people who work in them are not simply part of the background noise in school improvement. Rather, school district central office administrators exercise essential leadership, in partnership with school leaders, to build capacity throughout public educational systems for teaching and learning improvements. The districts in this study were attempting to heed those lessons by engaging in an approach to central office change the authors call "central office transformation." Central office transformation is a far cry from central-office-administration-as-usual. This approach to reform: (1) Focuses centrally and meaningfully on teaching and learning improvement; (2) Engages the entire central office in reform; (3) Calls on central office administrators to fundamentally remake their work practices and their relationships with schools to support teaching and learning improvements for all schools; and (4) Constitutes an important focus for reform in its own right. (Contains 3 tables, 6 figures and 23 footnotes.) [This paper was written with the assistance of Elizabeth Matson, Liza Pappas, and Bethany Rogers.

Background/Context: Some school districts across the country have begun to convene principals in professional learning communities (PPLC) as a strategy to help principals develop as instructional leaders, and they have designated executive-level central office staff to lead the PPLCs. Extant research suggests the promise of PPLCs for supporting principal development but raises significant questions about what central office leadership of such PPLCs entails and if central office administrators are up to the task. Purpose/Research Questions: This paper examines the following questions: To what extent are the central office administrators who run PPLCs actually doing so in ways consistent with the goal of supporting principals' learning to strengthen their instructional leadership? What conditions help or hinder them in the process? Research Design: We explored these questions with an embedded, comparative, qualitative case study of six PPLCs convened by central office administrators in one urban district. We used a conceptual framework, derived from socio-cultural learning theory, to help us identify and understand central office administrators' practices in the PPLCs. Our data sources primarily included direct observations of 105 hours of PPLC meetings, supplemented with 46 semi-structured interviews and reviews of more than 150 documents. Findings: We found that the central office administrators varied in how they participated in the PPLC meetings, particularly in terms of the extent to which they engaged in the teaching practices identified in our conceptual framework. The central office administrators who most frequently engaged in those practices were also the central office administrators we associated with such positive results as their principals' engagement in progressively more challenging instructional leadership activities during PPLC meetings, and principals' detailed reports of the value of the PPLC meetings to their development as instructional leaders. Key mediators of central office administrators' participation in the meetings include their executive-level positions, other central office staff and principal demands, the availability of professional development, and their own orientations to the work. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that central office administrators are able to buck institutional trends and productively lead PPLCs provided (1) they come to the work with a teaching rather than directive or managerial orientation, and (2) central offices intentionally create other conditions to foster their success. Future research should aim to further understanding of principal learning in PPLCs and how central office and other leaders can productively facilitate the process.