Working on Coherence Wherever the Twain Shall Meet How Teachers Contribute to Policy Coherence Through Adaptive Responses To Related Demands of Evaluation and Professional Learning Community
Teacher quality is a perennially fertile field for education reformers. Among teacher quality policies, two of the more highly touted and widely adopted are state-mandated systems of teacher evaluation and formalized models of teacher collaborative teams, often known generally as professional learning communities (PLCs). Indeed, despite a substantial divergence in policy design and implementation process, many districts and schools have by now routinized the annual re-enactment of evaluation and PLCs policies, thereby engendering a recurring challenge of “crafting coherence” (Honig and Hatch, 2004). Teachers in particular, both individually and in PLCs, must fashion responses to disparate demands, which interact to affect but not determine those responses. How teachers respond holds important implications, not only for the iterative implementation and effects of potentially incoherent policies such as PLC and evaluation, but also for larger teacher and school improvement efforts and outcomes.This explanatory multiple case study in two public high schools investigates teacher agentic responses to dual teacher quality demands within distinct but related PLC/evaluation structures applying a structure-agency perspective (Coburn, 2016). It addresses the following research questions: (1) How, if at all, do teachers adapt their agentic responses to performance evaluation and professional learning community demands as they respond to the structures of both; and (2) how, if at all, does the relationship between structures of performance evaluation and professional learning community shape teachers’ adaptive responses?Results show that teachers generally compartmentalize their respective responses to PLC and evaluation demands. Importantly, however, periods of compartmentalization are punctuated at points in the evaluation process. Punctuation occurs when structural opportunities open for teachers to advantageously adapt their response to one demand to serve their response to the other demand. Although teachers vary in the timing and form of punctuation, four identifiable types of adaptive responses emerge from teacher agentic action within the related structures administrators implement. A typology of these strategies is proposed based on the placement of each along two intersecting dimensions. When teachers employ the strategies, they can reduce the cost of evaluation engagement, while increasing the value of PLC participation. At the same time, teachers were in effect able to enhance the coherence of their responses.Further results show that related PLC/evaluation structures are characterized by a design orientation--primarily commitment or control (Rowan, 1990)—and a goal orientation--primarily external or internal relative to the PLC/evaluation structures. One case high school implemented related structures with control-external orientations, the other commitment-internal. It is these paired orientations as implemented that can significantly influence when and how teachers may use certain adaptive response strategies.The implications of these findings are discussed, including those that involve the application of structure-agency theory in education policy research, the understanding of how coherence may be crafted in routine, multiple policy implementation at the “street level,” and for the work of policy makers, practitioners, and researchers.
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- In Collections
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Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Copyright Status
- In Copyright
- Material Type
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Theses
- Authors
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Zuschlag, Dirk Frederick
- Thesis Advisors
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Jacobsen, Rebecca J.
- Committee Members
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Frank, Kenneth A.
Bowman, Kristine L.
Torres, Alfred C.
- Date Published
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2021
- Subjects
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Education and state
- Program of Study
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Educational Policy - Doctor of Philosophy
- Degree Level
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Doctoral
- Language
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English
- Pages
- 234 pages
- Permalink
- https://doi.org/doi:10.25335/b4jb-sq14