Thomas Hatch

Crafting Coherence: How Schools Strategically Manage Multiple, External Demands

“Policy coherence” is an often cited but seldom achieved education policy goal. We argue that addressing this policy-practice gap requires a reconceptualization of coherence not as the objective alignment of external requirements but as a dynamic process. This article elaborates this re-conceptualization using theories of institutional and organizational change and empirical illustrations from literature on school reform and education policy implementation. We define coherence as a process, which involves schools and school district central offices working together to craft or continually negotiate the fit between external demands and schools’ own goals and strategies. Crafting coherence includes: schools setting school-wide goals and strategies that have particular features; schools using those goals and strategies to decide whether to bridge themselves to or buffer themselves from external demands; and school district central offices supporting these school-level processes. This definition suggests new directions for policy research and practice.

The Differences in Theory That Matter in the Practice of School Improvement

School improvement efforts often create controversies and conflicts that can make success difficult if not impossible to achieve. This article suggests that differences in the theories of action held by different people and organizations involved in reform efforts may be a critical source of these conflicts. An analysis of the first 2 years of the ATLAS Communities Project—a collaboration of the Coalition of Essential Schools, Education Development Center, Harvard Project Zero, and the School Development Program—shows how differences in the theories of action of these organizations contributed to significant disagreements over a number of key issues related to the process of change, the nature of the curriculum, and the shape of personal and organizational development. As a result, despite considerable funding, broad initial agreements, and good relationships at the highest levels, it was extremely difficult to make decisions and carry work out in a collaborative and efficient manner.

Incoherence in the System: Three Perspectives on the Implementation of Multiple Initiatives in One District

This article examines what it takes for principals, district administrators, and members of improvement programs in one district to deal with the demands and expectations of multiple improvement initiatives. Their experiences demonstrate that many of the tasks of coordinating initiatives are not part of formal job descriptions, and they are taken on in addition to more explicit responsibilities for which incentives and rewards are much clearer. Furthermore, the additional demands of coordination have to be pursued within the same basic conditions of a turbulent environment, limited time, and inadequate personnel and funding that contribute to the need for multiple initiatives in the first place.

Innovation at the Core; R&D

Improving classroom practice requires more than simply having good ideas. Educators must focus on developing technical, human, and social capital both inside and outside schools.

Getting Beyond the “One Best System”?

Amid the growing debates over the globalization of schooling, the United States seems both to embrace and to defy the idea that there can be one model for education. Despite the absence of a national curriculum and despite significant control of education located in school districts, researchers and policymakers in the United States typically lament the limited number of distinct and successful approaches to education. Some have suggested that the striking lack of variation across schools reflects a de facto “one best system” that governs school operations and instruction (Tyack 1974). At the same time, states and districts have pursued several significant and arguably systematic efforts to support the development of alternative educational approaches that reflect the needs and interests of local communities. For example, since the 1970s, the creation of magnet schools has been a popular means of instituting distinctive instructional goals and pedagogies to meet the needs of particular students, employers, and others (Blank, Levine, and Steel 1996). In recent years, the advent of charter schools and small schools reflects a renewed enthusiasm for developing schools that are free from many of the constraints of state and district bureaucracies and more responsive to the concerns of local community members (Bulkley and Fisler 2002; Clinchy 2000; Nathan 1996).

Le leadership en des temps incertains. Pratiques clés pour les chefs d’établissement aux États-Unis

Cet article s’interesse aux pratiques fondamentales de direction dans la gestion des environnements interne et externe des etablissements publics aux Etats-Unis. Apres avoir pris en compte la recherche sur les liens entre le leadership pedagogique et les resultats des eleves, les auteurs s’interessent plus precisement aux raisons qui sous-tendent les actions des chefs d’etablissement, au travers du prisme du leadership comme activite cognitive. Enfin, les auteurs soulignent l’importance du leadership transformationnel ou leadership centre sur la justice sociale, une tendance recente qui implique que les chefs d’etablissement œuvrent a davantage d’egalite et d’excellence dans leur pratique professionnelle.