A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Systemic Reform: Perspectives on Personalizing Education - September 1994

Policies: Supporting Change

How change is supported through policy can make the work of those implementing the change more or less difficult. Good policies can make people more flexible, and they can clarify directions and priorities, help focus people, and validate whatever is going on.

Focus on Policies

The focus of policies should be on the people and activities that put the change into action. Questions that must be asked include: If policies are not in place to support those kinds of things, what policies need to be in place? What kinds of linkages are there and what linkages need to be developed? How will finances be found to actually make the necessary changes? The goal of policies should be directed toward whatever it takes to develop the desired outcomes, given the social reality of various systems.

Generally, when we are discussing policy issues, we are talking about administration and organizational linkages. What has been said about change as it affects people, practices, and processes now takes another turn as we consider what it takes to support and maintain strategies related to all of the above. This can be discussed at a number of levels -- the school, the district, the state, and the nation. The conditions for success remain the same at all levels: administrative support is vital to change, and policy decisions make and break change efforts.

Learning to Support Local Schools

The issue for upper administration (district, board, ministry, state, national) is learning to support local schools in their efforts: " ...in other words, how to make demands on, support, encourage, empower, enable, and build a strong local school" (IMTEC, 1992). Supports within the system must be built around the real needs of the schools in development. One of those supports is assessing necessary linkages beyond the school that contribute to the school's work. Another support is developing easy relationships across the system.

Learning to Support System-wide Initiatives

Policy can support system-wide initiatives and learning as well as local projects. Fullan and Hargreaves (1991) make a number of recommendations for school systems: (1) develop more trust and ability to take risks as a system, especially in the selection, promotion, and development process; (2) foster increased interaction and empowerment in the system; (3) give the curriculum content back to schools; and (4) restructure administration to meet current needs. Such recommendations emphasize the need of systems to develop connectedness and real empowerment -- the sharing of power with students, with teachers, and with principals. Rosenholtz (1989), in studying what makes a difference in the capacity of schools to deal with change, found that "moving" schools to action placed a great deal of emphasis on the selection of good personnel and on learning opportunities for all. Moving districts to action might mean considering the same criteria. Collaborative cultures may emerge in such schools, but they still require support at the district level, in the spirit of interactive professionalism laced with cross-school and cross-district contact.

Teachers, parents, and students are more likely to develop commitment and collaboration around issues of local interest. Whether the solution to local concerns comes from the inside or from the outside, the process and the potential power of interaction across levels remains the same. The task of local districts is to "...set goals and standards to provide funds, research and resource materials and the means to achieve those goals" (Fullan & Hargreaves, quoting Michelle Landsberg, 1991, 103). The specific goals, once the frame- work is established, become an agenda for the school.


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[Processes: What Makes Change Work] [Table of Contents] [The Use of Assessment in Change]