Standards Deviation: How Schools Misunderstand Education Policy

by James P. Spillane

Overview

What happens to federal and state policies as they move from legislative chambers to individual districts, schools, and, ultimately, classrooms? Although policy implementation is generally seen as an administrative problem, James Spillane reminds us that it is also a psychological problem.

After intensively studying several school districts' responses to new statewide science and math teaching policies in the early 1990s, Spillane argues that administrators and teachers are inclined to assimilate new policies into current practices. As new programs are communicated through administrative levels, the understanding of them becomes increasingly distorted, no matter how sincerely the new ideas are endorsed. Such patterns of well-intentioned misunderstanding highlight the need for systematic training and continuing support for the local administrators and teachers who are entrusted with carrying out large-scale educational change, classroom by classroom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674043923
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	220
File size:	629 KB

About the Author

James P. Spillane is Professor of Human Development, Social Policy, and Learning Sciences, at Northwestern University.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments 1. Making Education Policy Here, There, and Everywhere 2. Doing Standards: Content and Context 3. Interactive Policymaking 4. Making Policy, Making Sense 5. Resources for Sense-Making 6. The Schoolteacher and Interactive Policymaking 7. Policy in Practice 8. Implementation Reconsidered Appendix: Research Methods References Index