No abstract

A comparison of three urban school systems suggests that district offices can influence teaching through professional development. District leaders can structure their programs to provide coherent and content-focused professional development. The district orientation (vision, emphasis on professional development, use of human resources) set by the dominant coalition of leaders-including but not limited to the superintendent-in each district influenced the coherence and content focus of the professional development programs. District differences in their organizational capacity affected coordination and planning of professional development. The district with the most coherent focus on helping teachers develop deeper knowledge about select subject areas had the greatest teacher-reported influence on teaching practice.Organizational theory suggests great pessimism about the potential of school districts for supporting educational improvement. The traditional view is that educational organizations-and school districts in particularare loosely coupled organizations where the main resources for central leadership are insufficient to penetrate the isolation of the classroom (Bidwell, 1965;Weick, 1976). The great variation in how midlevel district bureaucrats 413