State educational agencies in an uncertain environment: Understanding state provided networks of English Language Arts curricular resources

Abstract

Rapid adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Race to the Top (RTTT) competition, and backlash around these policies created widespread uncertainty among state educational agencies (SEAs). SEAs may have not had a clear direction about how to support standards implementation in a new context, and therefore, may have looked to their professional networks, their geographic neighbors or other highly regarded SEAs, or other sources for information and resources to guide their decisions about where to send teachers for information about standards. Drawing on institutional theory (Meyer Rowan, 1977) and isomorphism specifically (DiMaggio Powell, 1983), we posit that coercive forces (primarily due to RTTT application and CCSS status) as compared to mimetic and normative forces influenced the organizations to which SEAs turn for curriculum materials. Using Multiple Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure and a data set of over 2,000 state-provided resources for secondary English Language Arts teachers from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., we indeed found that coercive forces had a relationship with shared organizational ties, demonstrating that RTTT application and CCSS adoption influenced resource provision.

The Common Core State Standards Initiative as an Innovation Network

“…Using a policy networks approach, education researchers have produced a growing body of research on the rise, spread, and implementation of CCSS in American education. This research describes how a small group of policy entrepreneurs influenced the problem formulation and agenda setting stages of the CCSS initiative (e.g., Kornhaber et al, 2014;Kornhaber et al, 2017), how these same policy entrepreneurs then mobilized resources from private foundations and the federal government to orchestrate uptake of the CCSS by states (Kornhaber et al, 2016;LaVenia et al, 2014;Layton, 2014;McGroarty & Robbins, 2012), how these policy entrepreneurs also worked with advocacy groups and think tanks to support and defend the CCSS initiative at various stages of the policy process (Kornhaber et al, 2017;McDonnell & Weatherford, 2013a, 2013b, 2016, and how state education agencies cooperated with nongovernmental service providers as the CCSS initiative moved to the policy implementation stage (Hodge et al, 2016;Moffitt et al, 2018;Russell et al, 2015;Salloum et al, 2020).…”

The Common Core State Standards Initiative as an Innovation Network

“…Using a policy networks approach, education researchers have produced a growing body of research on the rise, spread, and implementation of Common Core State Standards in American education. This research describes how a small group of policy entrepreneurs influenced the problem formulation and agenda setting stages of the CCSS initiative (e.g., Kornhaber, Griffith, & Tyler, 2014;Kornhaber et al, 2017); how these same policy entrepreneurs then mobilized resources from private foundations and the federal government to orchestrate uptake of the CCSS by states (McGroarty & Robbins, 2012;Layton, 2014;LaVenia, Cohen-Vogel, & Lang, 2014;Kornhaber, Barkauskas, & Griffith, 2016); how these policy entrepreneurs also worked with advocacy groups and think tanks to support and defend the CCSS initiative at various stages of the policy process (McDonnell & Weatherford, 2013a;McDonnell & Weatherford, 2013b;McDonnell & Weatherford, 2016;Kornhaber et al, 2017); and how state education agencies cooperated with non-governmental service providers as the CCSS initiative moved to the policy implementation stage (Russell et al, 2015;Hodge, Salloum, & Benko, 2016;Moffit et al, 2018;Salloum, Hodge, & Benko, 2020). The goal of this paper is to extend policy networks research on the CCSS initiative by shifting the focus away from examining the CCSS as a case of policy change occurring within a large, national policy community and toward an examination of the CCSS as a case of instructional reform taking place within the K-12 school improvement industry more broadly conceived.…”