Short‐term policy support for long‐term school change: a dilemma for reform‐minded practitioners

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Abstract
This paper questions the ability of a reform policy of five years’ duration to create the conditions necessary for practitioners to sustain change. California's school restructuring initiative challenged schools to transfer authority to teachers and to demonstrate that every student could succeed in learning. Analysis of this progressive policy is based upon the ‘best‐case’ experiences of an exemplary elementary school staff. After five years, the teachers are just developing the ability to confront the volatile issues of race and social class that surfaced in their inquiries into persistent disparities in student achievement. Using theories from institutional analysis of organizations, the paper argues that withdrawal of policy support means weakening of the regulative, cognitive and normative legitimacy for the goals and processes of change. Fixed‐term policies which invite radical reform thus leave schools vulnerable to the tradition‐reinforcing institutions that remain after the initiative has ended.

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