Louis, Rosenblum and Molitor (1981) also associated higher degree of program implementation and continuation with problem solving orientations and actions at the district level. Conceptually and practically, this research was problematic to the extent that it was interpreted as though districts and schools treated all changes equally and with equal success (Anderson, 1991). Research on how school districts and schools manage the reality of multiple innovations and continuous improvement was in its infancy at this time (Fullan, Anderson & Newton, 1986; Fullan, 1985; Anderson 1991; Wallace, 1991).
A further gap in the research literature from this era stemmed from the focus on teacher implementation of new programs and practices as the dependent variable, and the relative lack of attention to evidence of impact on student learning. The linkage of leader actions to improvement in student learning remained hypothetical.
The innovation implementation era of educational change was supplemented in the 80’s and 90’s by the effective schools paradigm and by interest in various forms of
restructuring (e.g., site based management, comprehensive school reform), typically
under the banner of the “school as the unit of change”. Much of the basic research on characteristics of effective schools ignored the role of the district or identified districts as partly to blame for allowing ineffective schools to exist and persist along side a few so called effective schools (e.g., Edmonds 1979). Some reviewers of the effective schools research attempted to draw out implications and guidelines for school districts to help replicate the characteristics more widely (e.g., Cuban, 1984; Purkey & Smith, 1985), though the suggestions and conclusions were not actually based on studies of district efforts to do so. Research on effective schools correlates led to state and district policies and projects intended to promote dissemination and replication of the characteristics of effective schools in many schools; this in turn led to research on the process and outcomes of the effective schools initiatives. Some of these studies, while still focusing on individual schools, did examine linkages to the school districts. Louis (1989), drawing upon a large scale survey and case studies of effective schools initiatives in urban secondary schools (Louis and Miles, 1990) identified four district-level approaches to school improvement varying in terms of the uniformity of process and outcomes intended: innovation implementation, evolutionary planning, goal-based accountability, and professional investment. A key finding from this and similar research on the district relations to school-based improvement processes (e.g., Berman et al, 1981; Rosenholtz, 1989) is that districts vary in approach and that the variation is associated with district leader conceptions of change process. Despite emerging clarity about district approaches to school improvement (as opposed to implementation of specific programs as in the innovation era), the measured links between the policies and strategies enacted by district leaders and the quality of student learning and teaching practices remained vague.