Guiding Principles and Resources

Our Guiding Principles - How We Work

We use systems-based and collaborative approaches to help our clients - state departments of education, districts, and schools - identify factors that are influencing their ability to engage in effective and sustainable improvement efforts. Through a collaborative process of information analysis, data exploration and collective sense-making, we jointly identify innovative strategies for improving public education and construct an implementation road map for translating those strategies into practical and meaningful actions. Our work ranges from designing and conducting rigorous evaluations of policies and strategies to facilitating intensive and ongoing strategic planning sessions focused on collective sense-making and developing actionable strategies to meet client needs and goals.

In our work, we carefully analyze and consider individual, organizational, and contextual factors as they lead to and open windows of opportunity for mobilizing and enacting innovative change.

We access and leverage individuals' perspectives and knowledge as a key source of the expertise and energy needed to advance innovative change.
We strive to develop a coherent policy environment that enables districts and schools to engage in sustainable improvement.
We examine and consider how different levels of the education system interact with each other and in relation to client goals and objectives.
We consider how existing relationships with the surrounding community influence efforts to engage in sustainable improvement.
We explore and use emerging technologies and networks as means to support innovative and transformational change.

Research Base as the Foundation for our Work

District and School Improvement

Systems Design and Policy Analysis

An overview of the research base that provides the foundation for our work

Our district and school improvement approach, protocols, and strategies are based upon a range of education and policy oriented literature.

Childress, S., Elmore, R., and Grossman, A. (2006). How to manage urban school districts. Harvard Business Review, 84(11), 55-68.

Corcoran, T., Fuhrman, S. H., & Belcher, C. L. (2001). The district role in instructional improvement. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(1), 78-84.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2003). Enhancing Teaching. In William Owings and Leslie Kaplan (Eds.), Best Practices, Best Thinking, and Emerging Issues in School Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Elmore, R.F. (2000). Building a New Structure for School Leadership. Albert Shanker Institute

Fuhrman, S., Clune, W.H., & Elmore, R.F. (1988). Research on education reform: Lessons on the implementation of policy. Teachers College Record, 90(2), 237-257.

Hatch, T. (2001). Incoherence in the system: Three perspectives on the implementation of multiple initiatives in one district. American Journal of Education, 109, 407–437.

Honig, M, & Hatch, T. (2004). Crafting coherence: How schools strategically manage multiple, external demands. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 16-30.

Knapp, M.S., Copland, M.A., & Talbert, J.E. (2003). Leading for Learning: Reflective Tools for School and District Leaders. Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. http://depts.washington.edu/ctpmail/PDFs/LforLSummary-02-03.pdf

Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D., and McElheron-Hopkins, C. (2006). The development and testing of a school improvement model. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 17(4), 441-464.

Martin-Kniep, G. (2007). Developing Learning Communities that Learn Lead and Last: Building and Sustaining Educational Expertise: San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Massell, D. (2000). The District Role in Building Capacity: Four Strategies. Policy Briefs. Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania. http://www.cpre.org/Publications/rb32.pdf

McLaughlin, M. & Talbert, J. (2003). Reforming Districts: How Districts Support School Reform. A Research Report. Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. http://depts.washington.edu/ctpmail/PDFs/ReformingDistricts-09-2003.pdf

Rorrer, A., Skrla, L, & Scheurich, J. (2008). Districts as institutional actors in educational reform. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(3), 307-358

Spillane, J. Distributed Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

St. John, M. & Stokes, L. (2008). Lessons to be Learned from the National Writing Project, Inverness Research Inc. (Link)

Systems Design and Policy Analysis

An overview of a few of the key research, policy, and theoretical documents (all continuously evolving) that informs and grounds our work are listed below.

Argyris, C., and Schon, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading:MA: Addison-Wesley.

Coburn, C.E. (2001). Collective sense-making about reading: How teachers mediate reading policy in their professional communities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(2), 145-170.

Dwyer, C. (2005). Leadership Capacities for a Changing Environment: State and District Responses to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Providence, RI: The Education Alliance at Brown University.

Elmore, R.F. (1980). Backward mapping: Implementation research and policy decision. Political Science Quarterly, 94(4), 601-609.

Fullan, M. (2005). Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

Gigerenzer, G. & Selton, R. (2001). Rethinking rationality. In G. Gigerenzer & R. Selton (Eds.), Bounded rationality: The adaptive toolbox. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hannaway, J. & Woodroffe, N. (2004). Policy Instruments in Education. Review of Research in Education, 27, 1-24.

Hargreaves, D. (2003). Working Laterally: How Innovation Networks Make an Education Epidemic.

Leedom, D. (2001). Final report: Sense-making symposium. Command and Control Research Program, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence. Vienna, VA: Evidence Based Research. Inc. (Link)

Lusi, S. (1997). The role of state departments of education in complex school reform. New York: Teachers College Press.

McLaughlin, M.W. (1987). Learning from experience: Lessons from policy implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9, 171-178.

O’Day, J. (2002). Complexity, accountability, and school improvement. Harvard Educational Review, 72(3), 293-329.

Ogawa, R.T., & Bossert, S.T. (1995). Leadership as an organizational quality. Educational Administration Quarterly, 31(2), 224-243.

Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline. New York: Doubleday.

Spillane, J.P., Reiser, B. & Reimer, T. (2002) Policy Implementation and Cognition: Reframing and Refocusing Implementation Research. Review of Educational Research, 72(3), 387 431.

Stone, D. (2002). Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

Vera, D., & Crossan, M. (2004). Strategic Leadership and Organizational Learning. Academy of Management Review, 29(2), 222-240.

Weick, K. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Sage Publications

Wise, A. (1984). Why education policies often fail: The hyperrationalisation hypothesis. In J.J. Prunty (Ed.), A critical reformulation of education policy analysis. Geelong, Victoria, Australia: Deakin University Press..