Are resources and demands from accountability policies productive? How leaders build district capacity in response to school turnaround policy
Abstract
Purpose
As school districts evolve in their ability to actively support schools and educators, they must simultaneously contend with external policies that create additional demands on time and resources. This includes accountability policies aimed at increasing district and school capacity. This study uses Malen and Rice’s (2004) dual dimensions of capacity building to look at how district and charter leaders responded to the demands of Michigan’s Partnership Model, a district-based approach to school turnaround, focusing on how they tried to build capacity in response to the policy and whether and why these capacity building approaches were perceived as productive.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 out of 29 Partnership leaders between October 2019 to March 2020 in the second year of policy implementation. Data were analyzed using a combination of index-coding and thematic analysis.
Findings
Most leaders perceived the resources associated with the reform as useful, but the productivity of capacity building efforts was limited because some resources were not adequately matched to what they perceived as a core problem: the recruitment and retention of teachers. Engagement with the reform resulted in building informational and social capital because it fostered collaboration and continuous improvement processes, but leaders perceived technical partnerships as more productive than community partnerships.
Originality/value
Turnaround reforms like the Partnership Model that increase resources for districts and schools likely offer a better chance at success than those that simply focus on accountability threats without accompanying support because they give leaders new opportunities to coordinate and align resources, processes and ideas.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the many people who gave their time in support of this work, including research participants and those who provided technical and research support such as Dr. Sandy Waldron and Dr. Jason Burns. I would also like to thank Dr. Katharine Strunk, research partners at MDE (Dr. William Pearson and Dr. Gloria Chapman) and researchers and staff at Michigan State University’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) for their collaboration and assistance.
Funding: I would like to thank the Michigan Department of Education (No.180000000795) for funding the research reported in this study. Results, information and opinions represent the analysis, information and opinions of the author and are not endorsed by or reflect the views or positions of grantors, MDE or any employee thereof. All errors are my own.
Citation
Torres, A.C. (2024), "Are resources and demands from accountability policies productive? How leaders build district capacity in response to school turnaround policy", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-10-2023-0248
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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