The authors analyze the nation‐state as a worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes, developing four main topics: (1) properties of nation‐states that result from their exogenously driven construction, including isomorphism, decoupling, and expansive structuration; (2) processes by which rationalistic world culture affects national states; (3) characteristics of world society that enhance the impact of world culture on national states and societies, including conditions favoring the diffusion of world models, expansion of world‐level associations, and rationalized scientific and professional authority; (4) dynamic features of world culture and society that generate expansion, conflict, and change, especially the statelessness of world society, legitimation of multiple levels of rationalized actors, and internal inconsistencies and contradictions.

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World society and the nation-state

This article examines the effects of professional development on teachers’ instruction. Using a purposefully selected sample of about 207 teachers in 30 schools, in 10 districts in five states, we examine features of teachers’ professional development and its effects on changing teaching practice in mathematics and science from 1996–1999. We found that professional development focused on specific instructional practices increases teachers’ use of those practices in the classroom. Furthermore, we found that specific features, such as active learning opportunities, increase the effect of the professional development on teacher’s instruction.

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Effects of Professional Development on Teachers’ Instruction: Results from a Three-year Longitudinal Study

Recent research on the relationship between instructional policy and classroom practice suggests that teachers interpret, adapt, and even transform policies as they put them into place. This paper extends this line of research, using an in-depth case study of one California elementary school to examine the processes by which teachers construct and reconstruct multiple policy messages about reading instruction in the context of their professional communities. Drawing primarily on institutional and sensemaking theory, this paper puts forth a model of collective sensemaking that focuses on the ways teachers co-construct understandings of policy messages, make decisions about which messages to pursue in their classrooms, and negotiate the technical and practical details of implementation in conversations with their colleagues. It also argues that the nature and structure of formal networks and informal alliances among teachers shape the process, with implications for ways in which messages from the policy env...

Collective Sensemaking about Reading: How Teachers Mediate Reading Policy in Their Professional Communities:

This meta-analysis reviews research on the achievement effects of comprehensive school reform (CSR) and summarizes the specific effects of 29 widely implemented models. There are limitations on the overall quantity and quality of the research base, but the overall effects of CSR appear promising. The combined quantity, quality, and statistical significance of evidence from three models, in particular, set them apart. Whether evaluations are conducted by developers or by third-party evaluators and whether evaluators use one-group pre-post designs or control groups are important factors for understanding differences in CSR effects. Schools that implemented CSR models for 5 years or more showed particularly strong effects, and the benefits were consistent across schools of varying poverty levels. A long-term commitment to research-proven educational reform is needed to establish a strong marketplace of scientifically based CSR models.

Comprehensive School Reform and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

The leading school reform policy in the United States revolves around strong accountability of schools with consequences for performance. The federal government's involvement through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 reinforces the prior movement of many states toward policies based on measured student achievement. Analysis of state achievement growth as measured by the National Assessment of Educational progress shows that accountability systems introduced during the 1990s had a clear positive impact on student achievement. This single policy instrument did not, however, also lead to any narrowing in the black-white achievement gap (though it did narrow the Hispanic-white achievement gap). Moreover, the balck-white gap appears to have been harmed over the decade by increasing minority concentrations in the schools. An additional issue surrounding stronger accountability has been a concern about unintended consequences related to such things as higher exclusion rates from testing, increased drop-out rates, and the like. Our analysis of special education placement rates, a frequently identified area of concern, does not show any responsiveness to the introduction of accountability systems.

Does School Accountability Lead to Improved Student Performance

This analytic essay draws on research about the effectiveness of current education policies as well as observations about developing policy systems in a number of states. The chapter begins with several observations about policy and school-level success, examines current barriers to school improvement and proposes a design for a systemic state structure that supports school-site efforts to improve classroom instruction and learning. The structure would be based on clear and challenging standards for student learning; policy components would be tied to the standards and reinforce one another in providing guidance to schools and teachers about instruction. Within the structure of coherent state leadership, schools would have the flexibility they need to develop strategies best suited to their students. The systemic school reform strategy combines the ‘waves’ of reform into a long-term improvement effort that puts coherence and direction into state reforms and content into the restructuring movement.

Systemic school reform

After briefly reviewing the unequal opportunities outside schools that contribute to the disparities in educational achievement, attainment, and various indicators of adult success, this chapter zeroes in on addressing inequities within K-12 education. We argue that disparities within the educational system are the product of institutional structures and cultures that both disenfranchise certain groups of students and depress quality overall. Systemic causes require systemic solutions, and we envision a three-pronged systemic remedy: a continuous improvement approach for addressing the quality of educational opportunities for underserved students as well as of the system as a whole; targeted high-leverage interventions consistent with the overall approach but focused on key transition points and needs; and stronger connections between schools and other institutions and systems affecting the development and well-being of children and youth. We then outline a change strategy that incorporates both pressure and support for improvement from three distinct but interacting sources: government and administrative policy (federal, state, and local); professional accountability and networking; and collective engagement of parental, community, and advocacy organizations. We end the chapter with a consideration of recent developments in California and the degree to which they lay the groundwork for moving an equity agenda in the state.

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Quality and Equality in American Education: Systemic Problems, Systemic Solutions

School Reform and Equal Opportunity: An Introduction to the Education Symposium

As in the case of outcome accountability, CI focuses on the application of data to identify where things are not working—and particularly where they are not working for traditionally underserved students. For example, the reporting of student outcomes disaggregated by historically significant subgroups has been a main contribution of Title I legislation since 1994. Indeed, in our earlier work on standards-based reform, we assumed that an outcomes-based approach to accountability would in fact engender continuous improvement. We were wrong. We now see at least four fundamental differences that distinguish a CI approach from an accountability-based approach.

Opportunity for All: A Framework for Quality and Equality in Education

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Marshall S. Smith

Papers

Systemic school reform

Quality and Equality in American Education: Systemic Problems, Systemic Solutions

School Reform and Equal Opportunity: An Introduction to the Education Symposium

Opportunity for All: A Framework for Quality and Equality in Education

Equality and Quality in U.S. Education: Systemic Problems, Systemic Solutions. Policy Brief.