Evidence suggests that successful school districts use a large repertoire of strategies to mobilize and support system-wide success in student learning, and that the impact of the strategies depends on their comprehensive use in a coordinated way, not the selective enactment of some over others or in isolation (e.g., Elmore & Burney, 1997; Snipes, Doolittle and Herlihy, 2002; Togneri & Anderson, 2003). The literature is also ambiguous as to the linkages between the beliefs and actions of district and school leaders and the formal policies (in whatever form) that are associated with district reform initiatives leading to improved teaching and learning.
This section summarizes evidence about how successful case districts went about “raising the bar” for the learning of all students and “closing the gap” between the learning of the most and least successful students. It seems premature in our understanding at this point, however, to assert causal, conditional, or temporal relations among district strategies and related conditions. Within a small sample of five districts, for example, Togneri and Anderson (2003) found three that began their reform efforts with an intensive work on curriculum alignment with an emphasis on school leadership development emerging at a later stage of reform progress. The other two focused initially on leadership development before turning their attention to concerns about curriculum alignment. Even this oversimplifies. Most analysts report that successful districts tend to work simultaneously on multiple dimensions of restructuring and change to support improvement in student learning, though certain areas may be focuses of more intensive district development and intervention at different times. Snipes. Doolittle and Herlihy (2002) argue that district success depends on the existence of certain preconditions (e.g., leadership stability, school boards that focus on policy governance rather than micro-management of district operations, consensus on shared visions for improvement in student learning and instruction, district capacity to diagnosis and respond to student learning needs by school, alignment of district resources with district priorities and support for change). The development of these conditions, however, can also be a focus of strategic action by district leaders. Three of the districts studied by Togneri and Anderson (2003), for example, organized (or offered) policy governance training for their school boards as an integral part of the reform process. Overall, the relationships among the strategies highlighted below remain poorly understood, which suggests a useful focus for research.