The Eye of the Beholder: Superintendent Perceptions of State Systemic Reform

Since their inception, one of the major conceptual bases for standards-based reforms has been the notion of alignment. In a local sense, alignment means that in order to improve student achievement and learning, school districts need to have clear standards of attainment with which their curriculum and accountability measures must align. At the state level, this notion of alignment or coherence refers to the state-developed policies that comprise its accountability system. In the most basic way, this would entail two main elements—the content standards themselves and the assessments used to evaluate school and student performance. As with the local level, this notion of alignment is paramount and the logic straightforward: the greater the degree of alignment and coherence between the state standards policies and the assessment measures, the greater the power (strength) of the accountability system, and thus, the greater the likelihood of seeing significant improvement in student outcomes. Following closely on this alignment issue is that of policy strength or impact. Again, the logic is straightforward: in essence, the bigger the stick, the greater the motivation to act and improve. Thus, it seems reasonable to believe that states that evince high-impact, high-coherence policies should also evince more activity at the local level and, ultimately, greater gains in outcomes for students. This study attempts to investigate the first part of this proposition by examining superintendents’ perceptions of state policy strength or impact in two states, one that exhibits what can be termed high impact policies (New Jersey) and the other that exhibits relatively low impact policies (Pennsylvania). Previous work has examined the intent of systemic reform policy formation in both of the states, searching for intended policy outcomes and explicating the means by which each state hoped to achieve the desired ends (Prestine, 2003). This study now moves to the next step: an examination of the perceptions and understandings of the first-line implementor of such policies—superintendents. A brief background review of two key factors, systemic school reform and policy implementation issues, is presented here as a means to orient the findings from this study.