Connecting Policy to Practice: How State and Local Policy Environments Relate to Teachers’ Instruction

Abstract

Background/Context: Instructional policy aims to shift the nature of teaching and learning. Decades of policy studies have highlighted the challenges inherent in these aims and the conditions necessary to support such change, including a robust infrastructure to support teacher learning. Further, teachers themselves must perceive and experience their policy environment to be supportive of calls to shift instruction. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In this study, we examine the connection between teachers’ perceptions of their policy environments and their instructional practices over time, in the context of college-and-career-readiness (CCR) standards implementation. While conducted in the context of standards implementation, our findings apply to supporting instructional change through policy more broadly. Setting: We examine implementation of CCR standards in two unique state contexts: Texas and Ohio. These states represent important differences in demographics and in their approaches to CCR standards implementation over time. Research Design: We use a convergent mixed-methods design that draws on state-representative teacher survey data at two points in time (allowing for a trend analysis to understand how teachers’ perceptions and experiences evolve), longitudinal interview data with state education leaders, and interview data with educators in one case study district in each state. Data Collection and Analysis: Surveys measured teachers’ perceptions of their policy environments, as well as their self-reported instructional practices. Interviews focused on understanding state- and district-level policies, guidance, and resources, and educators’ enactment of standards. Survey analysis included descriptive analysis of patterns over time and hierarchical linear modeling. To unpack broad-based survey patterns, we coded qualitative data and developed assertions based on emergent patterns. Findings/Results: We found that Texas teachers agreed more strongly than Ohio teachers that their policy environment had aligned, specific, and stable resources, as well as accountability mechanisms in place. Specificity of guidance and resources for standards implementation predicted teachers’ use of standards-emphasized instruction in 2019. These patterns reflected each state’s approach to policy implementation: a robust state-level infrastructure for guidance and support in Texas, compared with fewer state-developed resources in Ohio in favor of local control. Still, aspects of teachers’ local context—in particular, lack of infrastructure for ongoing, embedded professional learning—limited teachers’ ability to engage in state-developed guidance. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our study offers enduring lessons about how to establish the policy conditions necessary to support teachers to change instruction. Findings suggest a need for states to develop resources that clarify instructional shifts for teachers, and districts must balance these top-down resources with ongoing opportunities for educators to adapt resources to suit their students’ needs.

“The Good Struggle” of Flexible Specificity: Districts Balancing Specific Guidance With Autonomy to Support Standards-Based Instruction

“…These cycles of feedback and adaptation supported teacher investment in the standards. This is consistent with previous work that identified the importance of opportunities for teachers to adapt resources to their individual students’ needs (Comstock et al, 2022).…”

“…Another limitation of our work was our focus on teacher views of alignment through interviews; triangulating sources with administrative data and observations would be useful. Future work might also investigate the associations of the attributes with instruction and student learning (see Comstock et al, 2022; Desimone, 2013; Edgerton & Desimone, 2018, 2019; Hill & Desimone, 2022). Finally, our work cannot support causal inferences about the relationships of the policy attributes with desired outcomes; future work could leverage experimental or quasi-experimental designs to test the relative and interactional influence of the attributes—to continue to move in the direction of understanding thresholds and how policies work collectively to support implementation.…”

“…Studies of standards efforts in the past decade have described state and district initiatives as well as how teachers perceive policy (Spillane, 1999; Stecher et al, 2008), but few have provided systematic data to compare experiences across states or linked policy perceptions and key inputs to teachers’ reported instructional changes. Notable exceptions are a study that found standards-based reform policies resulted in teachers focusing more on struggling learners and student understanding (Desimone, 2013), findings that higher principal and lower teacher authority for standards resulted in instruction less aligned to standards (Edgerton & Desimone, 2019), and analyses that showed the provision of more guidance specificity and resources increased standards-aligned instruction (Comstock et al, 2022). Given previous scholarship showing that behavior is influenced by teacher and leader perceptions of their policy environment (Hamilton et al, 2007; Loeb et al, 2008), we focus on how education actors in five districts perceive standards implementation policies in their local contexts, using the five dimensions of the framework to see nuances in stakeholders’ perceptions of the policies.…”

Changes that stick

“…Providing teachers with clear, detailed guidance in policy language, curriculum materials, or professional learning can help them implement new practices with fidelity (Comstock, Edgerton, & Desimone, 2022). However, a common complaint among teachers is that too-specific guidance does not allow for creativity, autonomy, and innovation (Datnow & Castellano, 2000).…”

“…Those policies allow teachers to learn the content at a reasonable pace, integrate it with their instruction, and adjust to find what works best in their classrooms. We examined the policy environment of districts over the course of several years and found that teacher perceptions of the strength and supportiveness of their policy environments strengthened over time (Comstock, Edgerton, & Desimone, 2022). One elementary teacher described the benefits of seeing a districts' investment in new priorities: "This district has put a lot of money into [professional development] and it's been district-wide.…”