The common focuses of strategic action identified in the case study literature include:
District-wide sense of efficacy. Superintendents and other district-level leaders in academically successful school districts evince a strong belief in the capacity of school system personnel to achieve high standards of learning for all students, and high standards of teaching and leadership from all instructional and support personnel. This is marked by a willingness if not compulsion to identify poor performance (student, teacher, school) and other obstacles to success, to accept responsibility, and to seek solutions.
How these leaders are able to communicate and develop this shared sense of efficacy
across a district remains less well understood than the fact of its presence in these sites.
District-wide focus on student achievement and the quality of instruction. Not surprisingly, evidence of district-wide improvement and success for all categories of
students and schools is more likely in districts which establish a clear focus on attaining high standards of student achievement. This goes beyond broad mission statements to the designation of explicit goals and targets for student performance and engagement (e.g., academic results on state/district measures of student learning, attendance, retention, high school graduation), with particular attention to closing performance gaps between lower and higher performing groups of students. Academically successful districts also tend to emphasize instructional quality as one of the keys to improvement in student learning.
The districts mobilize and align district and school operations, resources, and supports with these two focuses in the forefront -- student achievement and instructional quality.
Adoption and commitment to district-wide performance standards. At a minimum, the high performing districts highlighted in recent case studies pay serious attention to state mandated standards for curriculum content, student, and school performance. Some develop or adopt district standards that mirror or even raise the bar beyond those set by the state. The standards and their attainment become synonymous with “success”. The pervasiveness of the standards movement extends beyond curriculum, school and student results in some districts to other components or dimensions of school reform efforts, such as standards for effective instruction, principal leadership and management, and professional development (Togneri and Anderson, 2003). Standards are key features of district performance monitoring and accountability systems as described below.
Development/adoption of district-wide curricula and approaches to instruction.
Case studies of districts that have transformed themselves from low or mediocre to high performing systems (in terms of student results) often allude to pre-reform circumstances in which there was little consistency in curriculum content, curriculum delivery (i.e., instructional approaches), and curriculum materials between schools and even within schools in the same subject area. Such fragmentation and lack of coherence may have existed despite the existence of state-mandated curriculum standards, frameworks, and accountability measures (cf Spillane 1996 on the powerful mediating role of districts on state reforms), and were often associated with prior district commitments to decentralization and site-based school improvement without strong curriculum leadership from the district. Lack of consistency in curriculum hinders sharing of experiences between classrooms and schools, makes it difficult for students transferring among schools, and fragments district professional development efforts, all of which interfere with improvement in student learning. Current characterizations of effective districts normally highlight district efforts to establish greater coherence in curriculum content, materials, and to a certain extent delivery across the system. This can mean providing more support to understanding and use of state curriculum policies and/or developing local curriculum consistent with state curriculum policies. The emphasis on curriculum coherence often extends to advocacy and support for the use of specific instructional
approaches and strategies said to work well with the content, learning outcomes, and
learners in play.