Chapter 3: Literacy Policy: Policy Research that Makes a Difference by Sheila W. Valenci and Karen K. Wixson

This research focuses on what we know about effective literacy policy and what kind of policy research has been conducted.

The locus of authority refers to where does a policy originate and who has authority over it. The National Testing: NAEP: National Assessment of Educational Progress. This includes programs such as Title I, Special Ed ast the federal level, Standards and Assessment, State policies on teacher quality, class size, bilingual education, restrucring, resource allocation, power of the states, district policies, and classroom policies. All of this translates to how daily life is affected in the classroom, mandted curriculum, retention, professional development, special services, policies on grading, and grouping.

Policies differ for their targets. A narrow focus would be a particular practice, program, resource allocation, new assessments, and the establishment of cut scores for special programs. The point of systemic reform is to create a coherent set of efforts rather than discrete unrelated policies and actions.

Policy focus difference depends on what the researchers target such as: graduation requirements, organizational issues, groups of students, curriculum. Half of the policies in this study focussed both on curricula content and teaching in 1500 school districts. Research on reform began in 1980s with a goal of improving teaching practice.

Sources for the study included: published books, articles, conceptual pieces, technical reports from research projects and centers.

Overview of the Research: First the researchers varied on focus. Some were grounded in policy, others in measurement and others in literacy. They targeted audiences respectvely. Bibliographies had little overlap. Different research questions, conceptural frameworks, methodolgies, and perspectives on literacy were considered. These differences shaped what was learned from the research, limited the possiblity of learning across perspectives, and influenced policy.

Here is a comparison of the focus of research:

Policy Research focussed on reforms regarding standards, reorganization, governance, and literacy. The system of research was based on surveys, interviews, teacher self-reports, practices not observations of practice. The focuss on subjects related to specific issues in classroom instruction.

Research on measurement included assessment components of reform regarding the validity of issues and psychometric qualities. This research was based on statistical analysis, self-reports, interviews and artifacts.

Literacy offered questions about insruction and learning regarding literacy research and theory. The question of what makes better reading and writing instruction was addressed. What reforms are consistent with the research. Finally, looking closely at classroom teaching practices and evidence of resulting student learning. There was no exploration of the context of policies.

Two states were studied: Michigan and Kentucky.

Michigan: (Geotz, Floden, and O'Day 1995) Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading and process must be interactive, constructive, dynamic. Key factors include: 1. local educators' desire to redirect reading curriculum from basic to higher-ordered thinking; 2. states want education to be more accountable; and 3. there is a historical use of educators outside of the state department to communicate reform efforts.

Global Empasis (Geortz 1995): Reading was studied in Michigan and writing in Michigan, California, and Vermont
Students had to respond to wht they read and then had questions in basic skills as phonics and word recognition. Half used lieterature from trade books while 30% used the basal readers. Focus was to review, revise, and develop curricula. Half of the students worked in pairs or individually and 75% in another study educated the whole class with discussion.

Studies that combined global and local emphasis (Standerford 1997): examined Michigan's plicy context. and saw a tension between classrom and district. Interpretations of state reading policy and design, district rules, objectives, plaers, audience, time frames focussed on compliance rather than substance. Teachers made changes in practice based on individual professional development but were unsure about the changes fitting into the state policy.

The conclusion: state and district policies influenced teacher efforts making them aware that the chages we expected in instruction but were not learn on specifics and didn't offer support to figure it out. Roles and objectives were defined differently at district and classroom levels.

More local emphasis (Jennings 19996) and Spillane and Jennings (199) found teacher practices were based on well reforms were elaborated on by the district. All used literature based reading program and trade books. Writers' workshops and comprehension over skill-based issues with "below the surface" difference in teaching were examined. The complexity of prior knowledge played a role as two teachers with the same training developed different dispoitions toward policy.

Researchers' knowledge of language arts and the important differences in teachers' learning as well as classroom practies led to new analytical frameworks and development.

The juxtaposition of studies: global to local examined the alignment of practice with state policy, differences in practices regarding policies from superficial to substantive, and the lack of information on responses to policy and its affect on strudents comprised the studies.

Case 2: Kentucky KERA (Kentucky Education Reform Act 1990)

KERA was designed to change the entire school system addressing administration, governance and finance, school organizations, accountability, professional development, curriculum, assessment, literacy: assessment and professional development. Kentucky developed mutlifacted professional development programs and KIRIS ( Kentucky Instructional Results Information System) became CATS (Commission Acounting Testing System aggregated for a school score for cash rewards to avoid sanctions.

Global Emphasis (Koertz 1996) In KIRIS Assessments, information about language arts, teachers new assessments, changed practices to include more time on writing but lots of time on tests preparation, expectations for high achiever rose but not for low achievers. Student gains for specific test practices and familiarity with test overrode the development of capabilities.

CRESST/RAND study (Stetcher, et. a. 1998) noted more of a subject matter emphasis to examine the contrast of practices of stand-based eduction vs. practices consistent with tradition. They found writing teachers aligned themselves with standards-based approaches but continued to combine traditional and standards-based practice. They also rated professional development high.

Stecher obsered KIRIS assessmetns, state curriculum material and trainig and concluded no convincing evidence that policies produced higher schores. Perhaps Kentucky educations have not found practices that promote higher achievement.

McDonnell and Choisser (1997) used interviews and teacher assignments as a measure of teaching practices in social studies, math, language arts. Few assignments included state learning goals that stressed critical thinking, developing solutions to complex problems, and organization of information to understand concepts though they changed strategies as working in groups but had little effect on depth of instruction.

Combining Global and Local emphasis (Bridge 1994): To what extent did teacher practices reflect on literary practices? Observations found teachers combined traditional and new approaches. Impact on literacy is unclear because teachers were not certain to what they could attribute changes.

Local empahsis (Calahan 1997) held schools accountable for student learning. English departments were charged with porfolio madates in Kentucky schools. This led them to ask for more and different kinds of writing. All needed to write personal narratives, stories, and powem and teachers explored ways to provide opportunities and engage students in personal goal setting, writing, self-reflection, and portfolio assessment. Basic tension existed between best practices in the classroom and preparing students for the demands of portfolios.

KERA and KIRIS noted that though there was change, teachers were not "up to speed" in instructional practices.

Conclusion and Implications: Literacy policies must be more than mandates. They must attend to new learning required by people and systems at all levels. Literacy policies must use a layered approach of complementary studies at all levels from globl to local and incorporate multiple perspectives. Literacy policies must have multiple perspective and must understand the relatinship between state policy and responses in district, school, and teacher levels.

Literacy policy research needs to probe deeply into relationships among classroom context, teacher practices, and specific types of student learnng. Research much address what counts as quality teaching and learning for literacy. There is a lack of consensus regarding what constitutes quality literacy teaching. The current need is to find literacy policy and policy research that makes a (an appreciable) difference.