Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-68ccn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T19:59:27.874Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Why Focus on Implementation in Education Reform?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

Colleen McLaughlin
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Alan Ruby
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

There is constant pressure on governments and policymakers globally to raise the standard of education and to develop the appropriate curriculum and pedagogies to enable students to fit the world they will enter post-school; there are also international comparisons. There is a body of scholarship in the leadership field on change and reform, largely focused on the processes and ways of working. The policy and academic world have also focused on these matters, largely in the form of theoretical discussions or critical debates about issues of transnational work, school effectiveness or school improvement. There has been less focus on the implementation of reform or change. This chapter synthesises the literature on implementation in the fields of public policy and education and reviews existing thinking and scholarship on reform and implementation. The authors identify the common understandings, different approaches and gaps in the field, thus providing a rationale for the book and for the choice of case studies.

Type
Chapter
Information
Implementing Educational Reform
Cases and Challenges
, pp. 1 - 16
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, E. L. (2004) Aligning Curriculum, Standards & Assessments: Fulfilling the Promise of School Reform, CSE Report 645. Los Angeles: National Centre for Research on Evaluation, Standards & Student Testing, University of California.Google Scholar
Berman, P. and McLaughlin, M. W. (1974). Federal Programs Supporting Educational Change Vol.1., A Model of Educational Change. Santa Monica: Rand.Google Scholar
Bradach, J. L. (2003). Going to scale: The challenge of replicating social programs. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 1:1, 1925.Google Scholar
Browne, A. L. and Wildavsky, A. B. (1983). What should evaluation mean to implementation? In Pressman, J. L. and Wildavsky, A. B. (eds.) (1984) Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland, 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 181205.Google Scholar
Datnow, A. and Stringfield, S. (2000). Working together for reliable school reform. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 5:1–2, 183204.Google Scholar
Elmore, R. E. (1979). Backward mapping: Implementation research and policy decisions. Political Science Quarterly94:4, 601–16. doi:10.2307/2149628CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elmore, R. E. (1996). Getting to scale with good educational practice. Harvard Educational Review, 66:1, 127.Google Scholar
Fullan, M., Quine, J. and McEachen, J. (2018). Deep Learning: Engage the World, Change the World. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.Google Scholar
Hall, G. E. (1992). The local educational change process and policy implementation. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 29:8, 877904.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hargreaves, A. and Goodson, I. (2006). Educational change over time? The sustainability and nonsustainability of three decades of secondary school change and continuity. Educational Administration Quarterly, 42:1, 341.Google Scholar
Hopkins, D., Stringfield, S., Harris, A., Stoll, L. and McKay, T. (2014). School and system improvement: A narrative state-of-the-art review. School Effectiveness and School Improvement: An International Journal of Research, Policy and Practice, 25:2, 257–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jayawardena, D. L. U. (1983). Free trade zones. Journal of World Trade Law, 17, 427–44.Google Scholar
Jochim, A. (2018). School improvement grants: Failures in design and implementation. In Greene, J. P. and McShane, M. Q. (eds.) Failure Up Close: What Happens, Why It Happens, and What We Can Learn From It. Lanham: Rowan and Littlefield, pp. 5570.Google Scholar
Lytle, J. H. (2002). Whole-school reform from the inside. Phi Delta Kappan, 84:2, 164–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Majone, G. and Wildavsky, A. B. (1979). Implementation as evolution. In Pressman, J. L. and Wildavsky, A. B. (1984). Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland, 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 163–80.Google Scholar
McDermott, K. A. (2006). Incentives, capacity, and implementation: Evidence from Massachusetts education reform. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART, 16:1, 4565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonnell, L. (2004). Politics, Persuasion & Educational Testing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, M. W. (1987). Learning from experience: Lessons from policy implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9:2, 171–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLaughlin, M. W. and Mitra, D. (2001). Theory-based change and change-based theory. Going deeper and going broader. Journal of Educational Change, 2:4, 301–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oates, T. (2017). A Cambridge Approach to Improving Education. Cambridge: Cambridge Assessment.Google Scholar
Odden, A. (1991a). The evolution of education policy implementation. In Odden, A. (ed.) Education Policy Implementation. Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 112.Google Scholar
Odden, A. (1991b). New patterns of education policy implementation and challenges for the 1990’s. In Odden, A. (ed.) Education Policy Implementation. Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 297327.Google Scholar
Peurach, D. J. (2016). Innovating at the nexus of impact and improvement: Leading education improvement networks. Educational Researcher, 45:7, 421–29.Google Scholar
Peurach, D. J. and Glaser, J. L. (2012). Reconsidering replication: New perspectives on large scale school improvement. Journal of Educational Change, 13:2, 155–90.Google Scholar
Pressman, J. L. and Wildavsky, A. B. (1984). Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland, 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
RAND Corporation. (2018). Implementing Education Reforms to Enhance School Performance. The RAND Blog. Available at: www.rand.org/blog/2015/11/implementing-education-reforms-to-enhance-school-performance.html (accessed 18 January 2019).Google Scholar
Robinson, V., Bendikson, L., McNaughton, S., Wilson, A. and Zhu, T. (2017). Joining the dots: The challenge of creating coherent school improvement. Teachers College Record 119:August, 144.Google Scholar
Sahlberg, P. (2016). The global educational reform movement and its impact on schooling. In Mundy, K., Green, A., Lingard, B. and Verger, A. (eds.) Handbook of Global Education Policy. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 128–44.Google Scholar
Spillane, J. P., Reiser, B. J. and Reimer, T. (2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational Research, 72:3, 387431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stringfield, S. (1995). Attempting to enhance students’ learning through innovative programs: The case for schools evolving into high reliability organizationsSchool Effectiveness and School Improvement6:16796.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stringfield, S., Reynolds, D. and Schaffer, E. (2012). Making best practice standard – and lasting. Phi Delta Kappan 94:1, 4550.Google Scholar
Supovitz, J. A. (2008). Implementation as iterative refraction. in Supovitz, J. A. and Weinbaum, E. H. (eds.) The Implementation Gap: Understanding Reform in High Schools. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 151–72.Google Scholar
Weiss, C. H., Murphy-Graham, E., Petrosino, A. and Gandhi, A. G. (2008). The fairy godmother – and her warts: Making the dream of evidence-based policy come true. American Journal of Evaluation, 29:1, 2947.Google Scholar
World Bank. (2017). Special Economic Zones: An Operational Review of Their Impacts. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank. (2018). World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education’s Promise. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×