The Elusiveness of Equity: Evolution of Instructional Rounds in a Superintendent's Network
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| Title: | The Elusiveness of Equity: Evolution of Instructional Rounds in a Superintendent's Network |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Roegman, Rachel, Allen, David, Hatch, Thomas |
| Source: | American Journal of Education. Nov 2017 124(1):127-159. |
| Availability: | University of Chicago Press. Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005, Chicago, IL 60637. Tel: 877-705-1878; Tel: 773-753-3347; Fax: 877-705-1879; Fax: 773-753-0811; e-mail: subscriptions@press.uchicago.edu; Web site: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/aje/about |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 33 |
| Publication Date: | 2017 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Descriptors: | Superintendents, Educational Innovation, Educational Administration, Longitudinal Studies, Equal Education, Educational Experience, Networks, School Visitation |
| DOI: | 10.1086/693957 |
| ISSN: | 0195-6744 |
| Abstract: | The practice of instructional rounds is a recent innovation in educational administration, intended to support administrators' understanding of instruction through the development of common language. This longitudinal study examines the rounds practice of a network of superintendents over 6 years to understand how rounds serves as a vehicle for addressing inequities in students' educational experiences. Using Scott's concept of normative, regulative, and cultural-cognitive pillars, we investigate the practice to see how the network addressed issues of equity in 21 visits. Findings demonstrate that increased attention to equity in the protocol and visit expectations resulted in increased attention to equity. However, conversations manifested three patterns that functioned to curtail a focus on equity: understating race, the "culture of nice," and following the protocol. We conclude with implications for how rounds can be structured to bring equity into sustained focus, with an understanding of regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive pillars as constantly interacting. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2017 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1159223 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwFiAHQDWmdV5MQsJbTKwcr-AAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDO13kjdUJa8Gxw99CAIBEICBmwoPA6NOkOJYZk2ldNotZKe_wd7JGmd7lF6z5KuqTp9UeHL1gG4tw4Z7pKy5x690Gaq_BDUjbU1bPwnPc5m9IHtLpWr7a1rIVjiSj-QLVeLguqlHUXsAgjGlxAt3F2Gbik84eQoli8UJj72fQ0XLc398f-Pq4G9ZsZe26O14xLe5QZ2_vx_u90j3YR0q31zeT4DBOsvldwmPgNGF Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0125789720;jrd01nov.17;2018Oct10.09:24;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0125789720-1">The Elusiveness of Equity: Evolution of Instructional Rounds in a Superintendents Network. </title> <p>The practice of instructional rounds is a recent innovation in educational administration, intended to support administrators' understanding of instruction through the development of common language. This longitudinal study examines the rounds practice of a network of superintendents over 6 years to understand how rounds serves as a vehicle for addressing inequities in students' educational experiences. Using Scott's concept of normative, regulative, and cultural-cognitive pillars, we investigate the practice to see how the network addressed issues of equity in 21 visits. Findings demonstrate that increased attention to equity in the protocol and visit expectations resulted in increased attention to equity. However, conversations manifested three patterns that functioned to curtail a focus on equity: understating race, the "culture of nice," and following the protocol. We conclude with implications for how rounds can be structured to bring equity into sustained focus, with an understanding of regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive pillars as constantly interacting.</p> <p>Participant 1: I just want to remind us that equity of access is only half the equation. We're now arguing for equity of outcomes, so to get that, you have to deal with the leveling issue and all the rest of the issues, if we're ever going to start where it really counts, which is, Where do these kids end up when they graduate from our systems?</p> <p>Participant 2: When you say leveling, do you mean tracking?</p> <p>Participant 1: Yes.</p> <p>Participant 3: I just want to add, the other piece is, many districts are struggling with the same issues, and it's always a wondering for us to ask, when we engage in new programs, How do we know if that structure is the structure that will accelerate the learning where it most needs to be accelerated?</p> <p>Districts across the country face similar questions: how do we ensure equitable outcomes for all? How do we ensure new programs are helping the students who most need them? The educators raising and addressing the questions in the conversation above are participants in a statewide network of district superintendents, the Northeast Network of Superintendents (NNS; a pseudonym), the goal of which is to address systemic inequities affecting student outcomes within the participants' districts. Through 6 years of examining schools and classrooms together, using an instructional rounds protocol, NNS participants have considered these types of questions in a community of peers. In this article, we examine how NNS developed its process of examining classrooms together so that critical issues of educational equity—access, success, race, and class, among others—could come more clearly into focus.</p> <p>Just as school and district administrators face increased expectations for instructional leadership (Brazer and Bauer [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref1">2</reflink>]; Coldren and Spillane [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref2">9</reflink>]), they are also being called upon to address systemic inequities in students' experiences, including those of African American and Latino students, students living in poverty, and students receiving special education services (Leverett [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref3">23</reflink>]; Peterkin et al. [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref4">31</reflink>]). However, although instruction and equity are linked in students' educational experiences, these goals often do not intersect in district-level work (Hill et al. [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref5">19</reflink>]). Efforts to improve instruction often ignore issues of equity (Cann and Hernandez, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref6">4</reflink>]; Roberts, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref7">32</reflink>]), and initiatives that ignore systemic inequities are likely to perpetuate them (Parker and Villalpando [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref8">30</reflink>]).</p> <p>Instructional rounds (rounds) is a professional practice that is intended to support school leaders' understanding of the instructional core of teaching, learning, and content (City et al. [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref9">7</reflink>]; Fowler-Finn [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref10">17</reflink>]; Hatch et al. [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref11">18</reflink>]; Marzano [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref12">25</reflink>]; Roberts [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref13">32</reflink>]; Teitel [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref14">47</reflink>]). The theory of action of rounds as an improvement strategy is that focusing administrators on instructional practice through observing, analyzing, and discussing teaching and learning in real school contexts will lead to the creation of a common understanding of—and common language for—effective instruction (City et al. [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref15">7</reflink>]; Hatch et al. [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref16">18</reflink>]). Deeper and shared understanding of the instructional core, the theory posits, provides the foundation for instructional improvement and school change.</p> <p>Although rounds protocols may look somewhat different in different contexts, as implemented by the Connecticut Center for School Change (not the network in this study, but a foundational source to learn about rounds for NNS), they involve groups of educators observing a series of classrooms within one school focused on an instructional issue called a "problem of practice" (POP) identified by the host school or district. Each group identifies patterns and questions based on their observations, and then all the small groups meet as a whole to address the host school's POP. Rounds visits often conclude with brainstorming possible next steps for the host school and reflecting on participants' own learning (City et al. [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref17">7</reflink>]). For example, one rounds visit conducted by NNS focused on the following POP: "To what extent is the implementation of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme positively impacting teacher practice and the students' classroom experience?" In four small groups of four or five, NNS members observed five classrooms in one middle school and gathered evidence from the teaching and learning in those classrooms that could help them to address this question. Evidence included questions the teachers were asking students, assignments students were working on, and learning objectives in each classroom.</p> <p>Roberts's ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref18">32</reflink>]) case study of one school district's implementation of rounds highlighted the challenges of discussing race during rounds. He noted that the theory of rounds focuses on the interactions among teachers, students, and content. He acknowledged that this theory is not explicitly disconnected from race but that it could be interpreted to not "require a person to notice the race of the learner or teacher or racial patterns across a system" (<reflink idref="bib129" id="ref19">129</reflink>). Roberts found that conversations about race were either very brief, involved just one observation, or led to disagreements that were not resolved. He argued that racially diverse groups of educators need support to talk about race and achievement gaps during rounds, as they might in any other professional development setting: "Quite simply, one should not expect rounds teams to have productive conversations around [race and achievement gaps] unless the systems provides them with this support" (<reflink idref="bib138" id="ref20">138</reflink>). Robert's conclusions are echoed in a study of three districts engaged in rounds with administrators that found little connection between conversations around race and conversations around instruction (Hill et al. [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref21">19</reflink>]).</p> <p>In this article, we focus specifically on the question of rounds and equity, including issues of race, to better understand how rounds can be facilitated to support productive conversations about educational equity and, ultimately, systemic, equity-focused change. To do so, we examine the rounds practice of NNS over 6 years to understand how rounds might serve as a vehicle for investigating and addressing inequities in student educational experiences. Rounds is only one component of NNS's equity agenda, which includes developing participants' theories of action and learning from guest speakers, among other activities; however, it is the sole practice aimed at addressing instruction and equity simultaneously, thus affording the opportunity to identify connections between these two core responsibilities of school leaders.</p> <p>In analyzing NNS's use of rounds, we draw on Scott's ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref22">37</reflink>]) concept of the normative, regulative, and cultural-cognitive pillars of institutions. We consider both changes in the structures and procedures of rounds visits over time, as well as in the conversations that occur during rounds visits. The research questions for the study are as follows:</p> <p></p> <p>• 1.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> <bold> What changes did the network make in the rounds process over time to address educational equity in terms of (_I_a_i_) expectations and (_I</bold>i_) protocols?</item> <p></p> </ulist> <p>• 2.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> <bold> What was the nature of conversations related to equity over time? (_I_a_i_) When and under what circumstances were conversations about equity curtailed? (_I</bold>i_) To what degree, if any, were these conversations focused explicitly on race?</item> </ulist> <p>In addressing these questions, we identify specific ways that administrators can engage in rounds to increase their attention to equity while acknowledging the challenges that persist in keeping issues of equity, and particularly those of race, at the forefront. We highlight lessons learned by NNS that may be applied by school and district leaders, as well as by organizations that support them, in targeting and disrupting educational inequities.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-2">Rounds as Organizational Routines: The Regulative, Normative, and Cultural-Cognitive</hd> <p>Rounds can be viewed as an organizational routine, that is, a "recurring pattern of behavior of multiple organizational members involved in performing organizational tasks" (Feldman and Rafaeli [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref23">16</reflink>], 311; Roegman and Riehl [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref24">34</reflink>]). Organizational routines, which may recur weekly, monthly, or even annually, are characterized by both ostensive and performative aspects (Feldman [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref25">14</reflink>]; Feldman and Pentland [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref26">15</reflink>]). Ostensive aspects refer to the practice in principle—written protocols and implicit norms, whereas the performative aspects are actual actions that individuals take as they engage in the practice. As participants take part in rounds, their performance relies on ostensive aspects as well as the larger context in which the activity takes place (Spillane [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref27">43</reflink>]), from the local context of a superintendents network, for example, to the global context of education in the twenty-first century. Because of the performative aspects of organizational routines, each enactment is to some degree novel (Feldman and Pentland [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref28">15</reflink>]), and thus although the recurring nature of the routine creates stability, participants' performance allows for adaptability and change (Feldman and Pentland [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref29">15</reflink>]). For example, as participants "negotiate the diagnostic meanings of particular pieces of a student's writing ... the ostensive script offers only broad guidance (e.g., avoid evaluative statements), requiring participants to improvise" (Spillane [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref30">43</reflink>], 118) as they develop their own individual and collective interpretations of the student work. In addition, as participants reflect on routines, they may purposefully modify the routine itself or how they participate in the routine, potentially leading to ostensive changes in future enactments (Spillane [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref31">43</reflink>]). Organizational routines themselves change over time, based both on "the internal dynamics of the routine itself [and] the thoughts and reactions of the people who participate in the routines" (Feldman [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref32">14</reflink>], 626).</p> <p>To better understand the dynamics involved in ostensive and performative aspects of rounds, we draw on Scott's ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref33">37</reflink>]) concept of the normative, regulative, and cultural-cognitive pillars of organizations as a framework to investigate shifts in the rounds practice of NNS. This enables us to identify changes over time and how some of the initial adaptability in performance later became part of the expectations, further refining the ostensive aspect of the routine (Spillane [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref34">43</reflink>]). As NNS members engaged in rounds, we would expect to see variation in their performance, based on each visit's focus (POP), individuals in attendance that day, and so on. Furthermore, we would anticipate that some of the variation in the early years, which is part of the performative aspect of rounds, would become embedded in the practice itself, influencing how the protocols and expectations evolve in later years.</p> <p>Scott's three pillars offer a useful framework to analyze rounds to see how this practice might support participants' understanding of educational inequities and instruction. This framework enables us to focus both on written and implicit norms, expectations, and protocols for engaging in rounds (ostensive aspects), as well as the observations, wonderings, and conversations that superintendents engage in through the practice of rounds (performative aspects). Analyzing rounds with an understanding of ostensive and performative aspects of routines is particularly useful in considering how individuals enact, or perform, their roles, as superintendent, both in districts and within the network. Skrla ([<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref35">41</reflink>]), for example, noted how female superintendents, as women, felt they were perceived by others and how they felt they needed to perform their roles. Other scholars have written about performance in regards to superintendents' racial and ethnic identities, which both informs how they are viewed by others as well as how they choose to perform their roles (Jackson [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref36">21</reflink>]; Ortiz [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref37">28</reflink>]; Scott [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref38">36</reflink>]). Participants, thus, are not just superintendents or facilitators, but also individuals with racialized, classed, gendered identities (Skrla [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref39">41</reflink>]). The performative aspect of rounds varies, not just as a result of a different school sites, but also because of the participants engaged in the rounds visit.</p> <p>The regulative pillar includes formal and informal structures and protocols that guide how an activity, such as rounds, is conducted (Casto and Sipple [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref40">5</reflink>]; Scott [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref41">37</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref42">38</reflink>]). In this study, aspects of the regulative pillar include the protocols for rounds visits. Each visit as a whole follows a similar format (e.g., opening presentation by host, classroom observations, small group deliberations—see fig. 1), and each part of the visit has its own format. For example, small group discussions begin with each participant organizing all of his or her own notes, and then each member reports to the small group on any patterns identified. Each individual visit, however, may have more specific directions for note-taking related to its POP. For example, a school visit focused on a POP related to literacy may ask participants to look for evidence of the writing process as part of the content column (these focal areas are referred to by NNS as "look-fors").</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 1. Sample instructional rounds agenda. This figure illustrates a typical agenda for a rounds visit.</p> <p>The normative pillar focuses on values, expectations, and norms that are part of an organization and its practice of organizational routines (Scott [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref43">37</reflink>]). These may be stated or implicit, and individuals often learn these in interaction with others (Casto and Sipple [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref44">5</reflink>]). In this study, aspects of the normative pillar include facilitators' stated expectations, as well as the network's evolving sense of what can be discussed. For example, an explicit norm that the network adopted in its first year was a singular focus on instruction, and conversations about other topics, such as bus schedules, were not allowed. Another normative feature of the NNS is the planning sessions with host superintendents, in which one or two facilitators share their expectations for what should happen in a rounds visit. This often includes attention to the wording and focus for the POP and look-fors.</p> <p>The cultural-cognitive pillar refers to how individuals interdependently construct understandings of organizational activity (Scott [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref45">37</reflink>]). This refers to notions of what is taken for granted, "shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality" (Scott [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref46">37</reflink>], 67), and interactions between individuals' own sensemaking of activities and the influence of the organizational process. The emphasis on shared understandings between individuals as a way to legitimize organizations and their routines aligns with constructs for collective sensemaking. This theory developed from the initial work on sensemaking theory, which emphasizes cognition—that is, how individuals develop understandings of ideas, policies, and concepts within situated contexts (Coburn [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref47">8</reflink>]; Scott [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref48">37</reflink>]; Spillane et al. [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref49">44</reflink>]; Weick [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref50">50</reflink>]). A primary assumption of sensemaking theory is that knowledge and understanding are products of human action—and therefore subjective (Dervin [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref51">11</reflink>]). Sensemaking theory is particularly attuned to the role of contexts, that is, "the ways in which people make sense depends on the cues they receive from multiple, overlapping contexts. Furthermore, the ways in which they interpret the cues depend on the embedded values, beliefs, and assumptions of the context" (Evans [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref52">13</reflink>], 161). A rounds visit, by definition, takes place within multiple overlapping contexts, including classrooms, school, district, and state, providing a set of cues that enable and constrain participants' sensemaking around instruction and equity.</p> <p>In analyzing NNS's engagement in rounds over 6 years, we use Scott's three pillars as a conceptual framework for understanding one network's practice of rounds over time in relation to equity. Equity is a term that is much contested in the literature and in practice (e.g., Roegman and Hatch [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref53">33</reflink>]; Bulkley [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref54">3</reflink>]). For this study, we adopt the understanding of equity held by the foundation that supports NNS, drawing on Singleton and Linton's ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref55">40</reflink>]) work, that is, educational equity involves "narrowing the gaps between the highest-and lowest-performing students, and eliminating the racial predictability and disproportionality" (<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref56">46</reflink>) of student achievement. This definition focuses our analysis on two key aspects of educational equity: student outcomes and, explicitly, how race affects gaps in those outcomes.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-3">Methods</hd> <p>This qualitative, longitudinal case study draws on 6 years of data from a network of superintendents engaged in rounds to better understand how the practice supports an investigation of educational inequities. A case study offers the opportunity to examine NNS's practice of rounds over time while drawing on multiple data sources (Creswell [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref57">10</reflink>]; Yin [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref58">51</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-4">Research Context and Participants</hd> <p>NNS held its inaugural meeting in December 2008. Sixteen superintendents from the same state were brought together by an educational foundation to develop their skills as instructional leaders. The foundation has a longstanding commitment to equity, as defined by Singleton and Linton ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref59">40</reflink>]), which focuses on student outcomes and eliminating predictability of students' background in determining outcomes. For foundation officers, advancing educational equity in school districts across their state and the country is the explicit underpinning of all of their work, including the creation and support of NNS.</p> <p>The foundation assembled a team (referred to in this study as the "facilitation team" or the "facilitators" to support the network). The team includes two foundation officers, one consultant, one director of a doctoral program (since retired), two university-level researchers, and one doctoral student (since graduated). The team's responsibilities include facilitating meetings, organizing agendas, and documenting the network's evolution. Three of the team members are African American and four are white; five are male, two are female. Six members are former K–12 educators, three of whom are former superintendents. Two members have primary responsibility for facilitating whole-group discussions, an African American male and a white male; however, other team members actively participate in the discussions and occasionally assume a facilitative role as well. The two foundation officers, an African American male and a white male, as the creators and organizers of NNS, take on the primary responsibility for leading the network, including defining and communicating its key purposes in supporting superintendents in systemic, equity-focused leadership, while continually involving participants in planning meetings and asking for feedback in various formats. Three team members also make up the documentation team and are the authors of this paper.</p> <p>NNS includes superintendents from urban, suburban, and rural districts whose tenures range from 1 year to upward of 25 years. The majority were born and raised in the state in which they work, attending universities in the state, and working in the state for their entire careers. Over the 6 years, 29 superintendents have participated in the network. Approximately 31% have been superintendents of color, and approximately 31% have been women. Every year, a few superintendents leave the network, and a few join. In year 6, only six of the initial 16 members remained within the network.</p> <p>NNS meets monthly during the school year, and one of its primary activities is rounds. NNS held its first rounds visit in April 2009. It has since engaged in 21 visits over the course of 6 years. Each visit is "hosted" by an NNS superintendent who selects a school to be the focus of the visit. The visit consists of a presentation by the host, central office administrators, and/or principal about the school demographics and achievement data; articulation of a POP; and identification of look-fors—specific focus areas related to the POP to guide the observation, such as evidence of specific curricular materials; classroom observations by teams of four to five; analysis of observation data in relation to the POP in small groups; and a whole-group discussion of findings, wonderings, and recommendations to a district leadership team.</p> <p>Instructional rounds visits, as a core organizational routine, have occurred, on average, four times a year for the first 6 years of the network. NNS has followed similar protocols for engaging in rounds over time. To prepare for rounds, and specific skills the practice requires (e.g., observing nonjudgmentally), participants have engaged in readings, viewing videos, and discussions about the purpose and practice of rounds. In addition, participants have discussed specific expectations of rounds and how these contrast to other forms of classroom observations, such as teacher evaluations or walk-throughs.</p> <p>Instructional rounds has been identified as an effective professional learning experience by participants. In reflecting on rounds during annual interviews since the first year, all NNS participants have expressed that rounds is valuable for deepening their understanding of instruction in ways that other professional development activities for the superintendent do not. Over two-thirds of NNS participants have instituted rounds within their districts outside of their NNS involvement, in some cases, with the support of NNS facilitators.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-5">Positionality</hd> <p>The foundation officials who created NNS serve as the key drivers of the NNS agenda, drawing on the perspectives of the five other facilitation members, as well as the annual superintendent interviews and surveys. The authors of this paper are all members of this facilitation team. We have all been involved in planning individual meeting agendas and annual summer retreats that focus on the upcoming year's goals, objectives, and schedule (including number of rounds visits). In terms of our specific roles, one facilitated most of the rounds visits throughout all 6 years and also worked with host superintendents in year 6 to develop their POPs; the other two conduct documentation for NNS, including transcribing meetings and interviewing superintendents. Thus we are all engaged in this work and interested in how this study can further it. It is important to note, however, as we discuss below, that the explicit NNS shift to make equity central to the work on rounds, while supported by the authors, did not come from our input, but from other members of the facilitation team.</p> <p>Although we did not initiate the shift to equity, we supported it, as we share with the rest of the facilitation team a commitment to social justice and increasing educational opportunities and outcomes for all students, especially those who have been historically underserved. As white, university-based researchers, two males and one female, we are aware of the potential bias that we have in researching race: Our racialized experiences as white individuals in the United States affect our interpretation of data in ways that reproduce inequalities. We recognize this and attempt to mitigate it by sharing our work with a diverse group of colleagues, including NNS facilitation team and member superintendents, to help us examine how our experiences affect our analysis. We also asked university colleagues with expertise in organizational theories to provide feedback on the paper.</p> <p>We also note that this is a secondary analysis of data that we had already collected. We did not begin 6 years ago with the idea to explore the connections between equity and instruction through rounds, nor did we make suggestions to the facilitation team about how rounds should be conducted to further the aims of this study. Rather, we documented the rounds practice, and, as advocates for equity, decided to conduct this particular analysis to investigate how the evolving practice of rounds might have affected superintendents' understanding and thinking about equity.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-6">Data Sources and Analysis</hd> <p>Data for the study include transcripts from 21 rounds visits conducted from 2008 to 2014. Each includes transcription of whole-group activities, including opening presentations, discussions of findings, recommendations, and reflections. Additional data include visit artifacts, especially meeting agendas and materials prepared by the host (student outcome data, curricula, etc.). A third data source includes communications, primarily e-mails, from NNS facilitators to superintendents as well as among NNS facilitators around protocols and agendas of upcoming meetings.</p> <p>Data analysis began with an examination of NNS documentation to identify regulative and normative aspects of rounds. We first developed two narratives, one of the network's expectations (normative) for participants in relation to equity and rounds visits over the 6 years of the study, and one of the network's protocols (regulative). We did this by reviewing network communications (e.g., emails with outlines of assignments or readings) and network agendas and highlighting instances where explicit changes were made. We then looked at the two narratives together, to look for patterns between them as well as places of divergence.</p> <p>To code the conversations, we began by looking across transcripts to identify instances in which superintendents or facilitators brought up issues or asked questions related to equity. We did so using an expansive notion of equity, including how we define it in this study, how superintendents defined it, and how equity is referenced in the academic and popular literature. For example, some NNS superintendents at some points developed a shared understanding of equity as access to high quality learning opportunities, and the literature on equity frequently references resource distribution, with more resources provided to students with greater needs. The purpose of an expansive definition was to capture as much of the "equity talk" as possible.</p> <p>We then grouped the instances of equity talk into two categories: episodes of equity and equity unaddressed. We defined episodes of equity as conversations with at least four consecutive conversational speech acts focused on some aspect of equity. An individual act might be as short as a single statement or question offered by a participant or a series of sentences by the same participant. Across the 21 rounds visits, we identified 18 such episodes. Equity unaddressed referred to comments or questions that individuals shared that were not taken up in whole-group discussions for the remainder of the day. Many of these comments occurred during the section of the day when small groups shared out their observations from the rounds visits. One small group might share five to 10 findings and ask three to five questions; if these findings or questions were not discussed later on in the conversation, then they were categorized as equity unaddressed. At other times, these comments arose during the end-of-day reflection. For example, in the middle of a superintendent's reflection about how the recession affected schools, an NNS facilitator commented, "In a climate of racial disparities, increasing gaps [between black and white students]." However, the superintendent did not respond to the suggestion of overlap between class and race, and the facilitator did not follow up. There were 45 such comments.</p> <p>We next analyzed the 18 episodes of equity. We began by having all three authors code the same sample episode (<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref60">18</reflink>). Episode 18 had 14 individual speech acts and is one of the longest episodes. In discussing our coding of this episode, we developed a systematic coding scheme for the remaining episodes, focusing on the purpose of the individual speech act (e.g., affirming, building, questioning) and how the speech act was connected (or not) to equity (e.g., how equity was defined, what obstacles there may have been to equity initiatives). Using this scheme, two of the authors coded the remaining episodes, comparing codes after coding five episodes and then again after completing the coding of all episodes. When they had coded speech acts differently, they each discussed their coding and came to consensus, often applying multiple codes to one act.</p> <p>After coding all of the episodes, we looked across the codes for patterns. We noted an overall relative lack of lengthy conversations around equity, and we focused on identifying conversational patterns that deemphasized attention to equity. Three such patterns emerged: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref61">1</reflink>) understating race, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref62">2</reflink>) "culture of nice," and (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref63">3</reflink>) following the protocol. Understating race occurred when individuals highlighted different reasons for low performance or inequity, even after race was raised as a potential area of concern. The culture of nice refers to a group norm around challenging each other's perspectives and assumptions. Following the protocol occurred when an issue of equity was raised, but an individual (facilitator or superintendent) suggested the need to follow the agenda rather than engage in conversation about the new issue, which was perceived as "off-protocol."</p> <p>Next, we shared our findings with the NNS summer planning team, which included the four other members of the facilitation team and two superintendents. Two of our colleagues, both black males, voiced strongly critical reactions to our initial interpretations. They suggested that our racialized perspectives as white facilitators and researchers did not enable us to see the challenges that black males have in facilitating mixed-race groups around issues of race. Instead, they felt themselves accused by the authors of engaging in racial erasure (hooks [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref64">20</reflink>]), a term we had used to name one of the three findings.</p> <p>Taking the team's feedback into account, and examining our own perspectives, we reinterpreted our analysis. In particular, we paid attention to ways that facilitators and participants may either intentionally or unconsciously engage in the three patterns that we identified that shortened conversations around race. This has led to conceptual changes in our analysis, as well as reconsideration of the use of language. For instance, rather than employing the term "racial erasure," we use "understating race."</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-7">Findings: Shifting toward Equity, and Then Curtailing It</hd> <p>We have divided findings into two sections. First, tracing the evolution of the network's enactment of rounds, we identified three time periods that were preceded by explicit equity-related shifts in normative and regulative domains. In addition, we found an increase in sustained episodes of equity in the second and third eras. In the second section, we look at ways these conversations, though increasing in number, were curtailed.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-8">Three Eras of Rounds Practice</hd> <p>In our analysis of data from 6 years of the network's use of rounds, we identified three distinct periods, or eras, largely determined by how the facilitation team framed the rounds protocol to NNS participants. Over the three eras, NNS facilitators made explicit changes to protocols and expectations of hosting districts to more effectively focus attention on equity.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-9">Era 1: The Traditional Era, Years 1 and 2</hd> <p>In the first era, NNS engaged in rounds following the protocol described by City et al. ([<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref65">7</reflink>]). This included a host presentation, classroom observations, small group discussions, whole-group discussions of the small group findings, and conversations with hosts. In its first 2 years, the NNS's formal theory of action stated:</p> <p>WHEN superintendents make an active and sustained commitment to NNS and together with the Network facilitation team develop a community of practice by</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> 1) deepening their understanding of the instructional core (the interrelationship between teachers and students around content);</item> <p></p> <item> 2) developing, applying, reflecting upon, and refining individual theories of action related to the instructional core</item> <p></p> <item> 3) identifying and articulating productive and genuine problems of practice related to the instructional core and their theories of action</item> <p></p> <item> 4) using rounds to observe the instructional core, carry out their theories of action and address their problems of practice ...</item> </ulist> <p>THEN they will sharpen their own acuity for observing instructional practice within their own districts, use instructional rounds and related practices within their own districts, and in the process improve the quality of teaching and learning in ways that result in improved outcomes for all students—ALL MEANS ALL.</p> <p>The fourth item focuses explicitly on the purpose of rounds—observing instruction, carrying out individual theories of action, and addressing POPs, with the belief that engaging in these actions, alongside items one through three, will lead eventually to improved outcomes for all students.</p> <p>The foci for the six rounds visits in this era, as provided by the POPs, were specific instructional program. Observers were charged to look for evidence of its implementation across classrooms. For example, in the first visit of the second year, the POP noted that "the district has set a goal of attaining 90% proficiency by June 2011. The school has not met that goal, and state assessments reveal that 'Analyzing Text' and 'Geometry and Measurement' are identified as areas in need of improvement." The host superintendent asked the observing superintendents to address the following look-fors: "What tasks are students being asked to do? What instructional strategies are teachers implementing? What should students know and be able to do from the lesson observed?" Aside from three isolated comments around culturally relevant literature, enrollment patterns, and gender disparities, all of the whole-group conversations in these visits focused on questions of instruction, particularly around task level (degree of challenge) and critical thinking.</p> <p>The emphasis on learning and practicing established protocols during this era exemplifies the role of the regulative pillar in terms of routines and structures. The lack of attention to equity, including race, resonates with Roberts's ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref66">32</reflink>]) findings that race was unlikely to be raised or discussed beyond isolated individual comments.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-10">Era 2: The Equity POP Era, Years 3, 4, and 5</hd> <p>Equity became a more explicit focus in the expectations for hosting visits in this era. This shift was a direct response to the facilitators' assessment, at the end of year 2, that NNS activities to date, including rounds, had not focused on issues of equity, including race, in explicit or sustained ways. This was supported by a review, conducted by two of the authors as part of their documentation of NNS, of the POPs, meeting agendas, and reflections for all meetings. Data showed, for example, that there were no agenda items explicitly connected to equity in the first 2 years, including the six rounds visits, and none of the POPs in the first 2 years was framed as an issue of equity.</p> <p>The shift in expectations began at the final meeting of year 2, when NNS facilitators invited Jerry Weast and Frieda Lacey, then superintendent and deputy superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland (MCPS), to share their equity-focused work (see Childress et al. [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref67">6</reflink>]). Weast and Lacey described how they developed the concept of "red zones" to highlight educational inequities between geographic parts of the district that negatively affected students of color, English language learners, and students living in poverty.</p> <p>Early in the third year, NNS facilitators asked superintendents to identify a red zone within their district—an issue related to equity that they were facing—and to share this issue at a network meeting. Prior to the second meeting of the year, superintendents completed a worksheet including the following prompts: "Describe the 'red zone' issues in your school district," and "What is your early hypothesis about systems, policies, and practices that need to change in order to make progress toward equitable outcomes for all students?" NNS facilitators encouraged superintendents to use rounds as an opportunity to explore their red zone—in other words, to develop a POP related to the issue of equity that they had identified. One superintendent in year 3, for example, asked visitors to focus on students receiving special education services and African American students during observations, providing visitors with a class picture that identified which students received special education services so that observers could focus on these students' engagement in class instruction.</p> <p>After the third year, the use of red zone as an organizing metaphor receded. Superintendents who could not identify geographic or race-related inequities had difficulty applying the concept to the inequities they did face. Instead, moving into year 5, the expectation for POPs was to focus on an issue of equity more generally, informed by a definition of equity, developed by NNS facilitators, as being about access and success—that is, working to ensure that all students experienced rigorous intellectual engagement resulting in college and career readiness.</p> <p>In years 4 and 5, as well as the first visit in year 6, four of eight rounds visits focused on equity to various degrees, such as a visit to a district with the following POP from year 4:</p> <p>The Middle School has been focused on improving student performance in the [language arts] area. The performance of students enrolled in special education and academic support programs has been, and continues to be, a challenge for our school. In the 2011–12 school year, the principal involved a team in defining the problem and crafting strategies with input from instructional staff. Our visits to classrooms have revealed that [language arts and literacy] teaching approaches vary widely and the roles of special education and support teachers may not be clearly defined or understood. We seek to clarify common expectations and to ensure that all students receive the kind of instructional support needed to meet grade level [language arts and literacy] Common Core standards.</p> <p>Essential Questions:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> • Is the emphasis on reading comprehension strategies evidence in all instructional settings?</item> <p></p> <item> • Is the level of rigor across the different instructional settings (e.g., regular classrooms, academic support, special education) sufficient to reasonably expect that all students will meet grade-level Common Core standards?</item> </ulist> <p>However, the other four visits focused on issues of instruction more generally, similar to earlier years. For example, a visit in year 5 focused on the degree of student collaboration versus teacher-led instruction.</p> <p>In the four visits that focused specifically on an identified issue of equity, equity was explicit throughout the day. Hosts framed the visit around an issue of equity; small groups identified patterns and raised questions related to equity, suggestions for next steps connected to equity, and final reflections and conversations with hosts addressed equity.</p> <p>NNS facilitators' efforts to focus on equity in relation to the instructional core, initially through the identification of red zones and later the development of a common definition of equity, attempted a normative shift: from an expectation that the instructional core will provide the focus for rounds (and other activities) to an expectation that equity will be at the center of the visits.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-11">Era 3: The Equity-Focused Visit Era, Year 6</hd> <p>Year 6 began with a presentation by NNS facilitators highlighting as a concern the relative lack of focus on equity and race in rounds visits and network conversations more generally. They began the year with a revised theory of action for the network: "When NNS superintendents and their leadership teams effectively use external requirements—including Common Core State Standards and assessments, implementing new teacher and principal evaluation mandates, the requirement of defining Student Growth Objectives in all content areas—as well as instructional rounds and other network interactions as levers for advancing an agenda for equity and excellence, they will better serve the educational needs of all their students, including those who are least advantaged." In contrast to its 2009 theory of action, this evolving theory of action explicitly names "equity" and clarifies that "all students" includes "those who are least advantaged." NNS facilitators also framed their work around a central question: "What is required of superintendents and their leadership teams in the Northeast Network of Superintendents to effectively use these external requirements as levers for promoting equitable access and success for all students in every classroom, every day?" To address the lack of equity focus in rounds visits, facilitators became more directly involved in the planning of the visits. They introduced an alternative structure for rounds visits, the equity visit, to increase explicit attention to issues of equity, particularly racial dimensions of student achievement. NNS facilitators worked more closely with host superintendents to design a visit that would focus on a key equity issue or question and include additional data sources to address it, such as student work samples; interviewing teachers, administrators, and students; or observing faculty meetings.</p> <p>In all four visits in this era, equity was part of the POP. Furthermore, in all four visits, issues of equity were raised, to varying degrees, throughout the day, from the host presentation, through the small group share-outs within the larger group, through the final reflections. In one of the four, race was part of the way that the host introduced the POP around differential performance to two different schools visited:</p> <p>One [school] is in the North side of town and one in the south side of town. Both schools have the exactly the same curriculum, qualified staff, professional development, etc. [North] has 975 total students with 33 black students, 115 economically disadvantaged students, 29 Hispanic students, and 683 Asian students. [South] has 697 total students with 113 black students, 271 economically disadvantaged students, 130 Hispanic students, 255 Asian students. There are persistent and significant differences in performance between the two schools, with [North] consistently outperforming [South] on a range of measures.</p> <p>What are the similarities and differences between the two schools that might contribute to these results? To what extent are students in each school experiencing rigorous intellectual engagement that results in college and 21st century-career readiness and success?</p> <p>In this era, facilitators encouraged a regulative shift in the form of a new visit protocol that required explicit inclusion of equity within the POP for the visit and provided specific data collection strategies for addressing the POP. In doing so, facilitators also sought to affect a normative shift around stated expectations and implicit norms for how equity would be taken up during the visits.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-12">Increasing Attention to Equity</hd> <p>The three eras identified above demonstrated progressively greater attention to equity, though not necessarily race, within discussions among participants in the rounds visits. This is evident in how visits were introduced to the visiting superintendents by hosts; references to equity in the POPs; and the presence of "episodes of equity"—conversations that lasted for at least four speaking turns and included at least two individuals (see table 1).</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Table 1. Attention to Equity over Three Eras</p> <p> <ephtml> &lt;table&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom" /&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom" /&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;number of meetings&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;explicit expectation&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;observations protocol&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;Equity in Introduction by Host&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;Equity in POP&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;Visits with at Least One Episode of Equity&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;Era 1: Focus on instruction&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;All participants visit 4&amp;#8211;6 classrooms in one school&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;2/6&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;0/6&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;3/6&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;Era 2: Focus on disparities in student outcomes or access&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;All participants visit 4&amp;#8211;6 classrooms in one school&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;7/11&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;6/11&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;7/11&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;Era 3: Focus on equity in POP&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;Visits include multiple data sources, such as different schools, interviews, or student work&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;4/4&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;4/4&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="bottom"&gt;3/4&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/table&gt; </ephtml> </p> <p>11 POP = problem of practice.</p> <p>In the next section, we examine the episodes of equity to understand how, along with the regulative and normative shifts, the network addressed the cultural-cognitive pillar, that is, how NNS members construct meaning in relation to equity and the instructional core.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-13">Equity Made Elusive</hd> <p>As noted, our analysis found episodes of engagement with equity issues in whole-group discussions across the network's history—with more sustained episodes occurring in the second and third eras. NNS participants reported that these changes contributed to their decision to continue to participate in the network, despite the fact that, at the same time, superintendents were faced with significantly increased external demands, including new statewide initiatives related to curriculum, teacher evaluation, and principal evaluation. It is important to note that although numbers of episodes of engagement with equity increased, overall, the episodes were relatively short, averaging 5.5 participants and 9.2 speech acts, and did not investigate systemic issues that underlie instructional patterns or racial performance gaps.</p> <p>In analyzing the data to better understand how these episodes began and what might end them, we identified three recurring patterns that curtailed more sustained explorations of equity: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref68">1</reflink>) understating race, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref69">2</reflink>) culture of nice, and (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref70">3</reflink>) following the protocol. In the sections below, we describe how each pattern operated within whole-group discussions and consider how rounds protocols and implicit norms and expectations might have worked to limit or deemphasize equity. Although we highlight the role of NNS facilitators in pursuing or curtailing equity talk within these episodes, it is important to note that these episodes occur within an organizational routine that occurs within a specific context. In other words, it is not the sole responsibility of facilitators—or even within their capacity—to maintain a focus on addressing inequities, as facilitator moves are supported and constrained by NNS norms, protocols, and procedures, as well as by prior and future NNS activities and discussions.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-14">Understating Race</hd> <p>Understating race occurred when individuals highlighted different reasons for low performance or inequity, even after race was raised as a potential area of concern, or when they chose to focus on students in general in situations in which specific groups of students—for example, black and Latino students—were underperforming their peers or had differential access to a rigorous curriculum. Participants understated race both in introducing visits as well as discussions of classroom observations.</p> <p>It was common, for example, for superintendents to identify racial achievement patterns in discussing their schools, but to create POPs that were not explicitly related to race. For example, in a rounds visit in era 2 to a mixed-wealth district with about 50% African American students and 50% white students, the host superintendent framed the visit around an "achievement gap" between black and white students. His POP noted that "some students" were not being engaged and aimed to support the school in developing lessons that engaged "all students." This POP and its accompanying look-fors did not distinguish between classroom experiences of black and white students: "Instructional practice too often positions <emph>some students</emph> as passive learners or lacks enough differentiation to engage each child at her level of cognitive development. The POP that the school is grappling with is to design learning outcomes, tasks, and lessons that engage all students with content at the appropriate level of cognitive development of <emph>each individual student</emph> while moving each student along a pathway toward postsecondary educational success" (emphasis added). Instead of explicitly focusing on racial patterns, the POP identifies "some students" as being identified as "passive learners." It does not ask superintendents to consider the role that race plays in how teachers make such determinations and how these influence instructional practice. Instead, the POP directed observers to focus on students in general ("all students") or to focus on "each individual student" regardless of race, understating the concern that black students were underperforming and the possibility that the reason for this underperformance was that they were the "some students" who are not being engaged. Through 6 years of rounds visits, only two POPs explicitly mentioned race (and three explicitly mentioned students receiving special education services); the majority, like this one, focused on all students.</p> <p>Understating race occurred not only in framing visits, but also in whole-group conversations and reflections. In the first rounds visit to explicitly focus on race in era 2, to a suburban district with about 70% white students, 10% African American students, and 10% Latino students, with 15% of students receiving special education services, the POP focused on "the special education subgroup" and the "black or African American subgroup." In addition, the superintendent provided visitors with class pictures that identified which students were receiving special education services. Further, she asked visitors to pay attention to the engagement of African American and Latino students during observations. Near the end of the day, the host superintendent reflected on her observations: "[There was] one little girl, it really bothered me, an African American girl she had her hand up, hand up, hand up, and the teacher didn't call on her at all. I was ready to jump out of my skin and go over and say, 'Can you please call on this kid?' Now there were a couple of other kids that raised their hands and weren't called on, but we were focused on the African American students." Because the POP focused on experiences of African American students, the host superintendent, a white female, noted one African American girl who was not called upon and wondered if "there's a pernicious pattern there," while recognizing the difficulty of drawing conclusions based on a 12-minute classroom observation. Pushing the superintendent to expand on her reflection, a black male facilitator engaged in a brief conversation with her about expectations of students of color and about how to have a discussion about participation patterns with her staff.</p> <p>Following this, another superintendent, a white male, commented that "Even as you talk about a girl who wasn't called on, she may be a Black child who is [high-performing]." In this comment, the superintendent understated the role of race by offering alternate reasons why the girl was not called upon. Although it is possible that this individual student is high-performing or had answered questions just before the visitors entered the room, the comment signals that race may not be relevant and effectively curtailed conversation around the issue of race and participation patterns. In fact, shortly after this comment, the discussion ended; no one challenged the comment. Even if, for this one student, not being called on was irrelevant to her racial identity (if that is possible), by raising this perspective, the opportunity for a more in-depth conversation around the interaction of race and participation was not taken during the meeting.</p> <p>In other instances, NNS members treated the underperformance of students of color as broader issues of struggling students more generally. In a second rounds visit in year 6 to the mixed-wealth district that hosted a visit in year 4 around differentiation and engagement, the host superintendent introduced the POP in relation to the implementation of a new, rigorous middle school curriculum aimed at addressing disparities in access and outcomes for the district's racially diverse student population. At the end of the meeting, after a reflection on the superintendent's courage in tackling issues of race in a direct way, another superintendent shared a "take away" that reframed an issue of disparities around race to an issue of "struggling learners": "My take away from today is shifting what we see as a struggling learner.... I look at as, for those bright autistic kids, or the kids who don't fit in our traditional box, you're giving them the same access to the kids who can fit into that traditional box." Here the superintendent takes issues of race out of the question and out of the conversation—no one questioned the reframing, and the conversation did not return to its initial focus on race.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-15">Culture of Nice</hd> <p>Discourse among teachers and administrators commonly models the culture of nice, in which "being 'nice' to each other is equated with not challenging each other" (City et al. [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref71">7</reflink>], 91), a difficulty faced by many educators interested in engaging in rounds. NNS facilitators recognized that to create a culture of inquiry and critical reflection necessary for professional learning and growth, it would be essential to confront often unspoken norms that inhibit critical or challenging questions. Thus, from NNS's inception, members have sought to engage in probing conversations with each other. In fact, one of the network's norms is "complete honesty"—intended to foster such a culture.</p> <p>Over the course of its 6 years of rounds practice, NNS facilitators and superintendents have noted a tendency to veer into the "realm of nice," particularly in offering uncritical feedback to rounds hosts. Despite awareness of this tendency, the culture of nice seemed to curtail comments about equity, particularly when observers identified inequitable practices in their colleagues' districts' schools being visited. Instead of asking direct questions or making direct statements, superintendents often spoke more indirectly. For example, one visit to a wealthy suburban district that was about 45% white, 45% Asian, 5% African American, and 5% Latino, centered on an initiative around differentiation and helping students to identify their learning styles. A visiting superintendent, a white female, asked the host superintendent, also a white female, "It seemed, when you framed this, you talked about the fact that, if teachers and administrators in the schools were learning and engaging in professional discourse, it would help in practice support a culture and climate and processes that would help you reduce the achievement gaps, so that somehow these processes ... This school has chosen this path." This wondering seems to be an indirect—and perhaps "nicer"—way of saying, "I don't see how this initiative will reduce achievement gaps" (which no one said).</p> <p>Often, "nicer" versions of comments were made during conversations with district staff—classroom teachers, principals, and instructional supervisors—present to hear the findings from the rounds visits. In reflecting on a conversation in which visiting superintendents did not raise specific questions about the pedagogical approach to working with African American and Latino students, one facilitator, a black male, reflected on how the question had been raised indirectly. He had asked, "Is there a strategy to help kids in the classroom?" He noted that he could have asked that same question with more directness: "What do you do with the Black and Latino kids in the classrooms? I guess we could ask it that way. We chose to frame it differently." Another facilitator, also a black male, responded that in conversations with district staff other than the superintendent, "there's a 'do no harm' aspect that's different from culture of nice, that it's not helpful to leave an erupted pipe." In his response, the second facilitator validated the initiating facilitator's "nicer" question—the question that did not mention race—because the more direct question about how African American and Latino students were treated in classrooms had greater potential to "do harm" to the district.</p> <p>Participants also concluded difficult conversations with "nicer" comments. At the end of a rounds visit to a district experiencing increasing Hispanic and Asian populations with concerns about middle school literacy, the host superintendent shared some of his struggles in addressing rigor: "Our varied learner demographic is really going to add unique challenge, because trying to incorporate all of this and break the old habits and keep fidelity to process, we have to ensure that nothing else falls by the wayside, rigor or relevancy." Four NNS participants, superintendents and facilitators, engaged in conversation with him about questions of rigor and tracking, with two black male facilitators asking direct questions about how tracking might be connected to inequitable outcomes. The conversation ended when a white female superintendent added, "You're all to be commended for the work you're putting into this because the other piece of this is, many districts are struggling with same issues." In this instance, commending a district in the middle of a difficult conversation may have curtailed a conversation in which an NNS participant was being asked challenging questions about equity. This type of comment generalized the issue of the host district into a challenge that everyone is facing, taking pressure off of the host to justify, defend, or change his own practice.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-16">Following the Protocol</hd> <p>Equity was also curtailed in discussions during rounds when participants valorized <emph>following the protocol</emph>, that is, attending to a particular process (with its steps, norms, roles, etc.) rather than addressing substantial issues, the exploration of which the protocol is meant to facilitate (Little and Curry [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref72">24</reflink>]; Earl and Timperley [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref73">12</reflink>]). Specific to rounds, classroom observations are focused by the host school/district's POP and the specific look-fors associated with the POP. In reporting out findings and wonderings based on the classroom observations, participants sometimes identified these as constraints on what is acceptable to say, regardless of what they had observed or believed.</p> <p>For example, in a rounds visit in era 2 to a school in a wealthy suburban district with about 60% white students and 35% Asian students, during the reflection discussion at the end of the day, one superintendent, a white male, offered a critique of the appropriateness of the school's use of a specific reading intervention. Another superintendent, also a white male, agreed with the critique but commented, "Those are not necessarily questions I feel we're here to address." This exchange initiated a discussion about the benefit of "audit[ing] or tabulating" what is going on in a classroom based on a set of look-fors provided by the host school, rather than raising questions about the appropriateness of different types of instruction for different groups of students. In other words, following the protocol constrained the discussion from going beyond the consideration of the target instructional practices specified by the look-fors.</p> <p>In a later rounds visit, also in era 2, to a rural school with about 50% white, 35% African American, and 10% Hispanic students, after reporting out of findings and wonderings, a teacher from the school commented: "I think we have a problem because we have labeled all of our students as academic and we think that all of our students are going to go to college, and that's not true. When we put them all in one classroom as a jumble and you have to differentiate between so many learning styles, that doesn't serve anyone ... Did you see any of that, when you were walking around, that there were so many different levels in every classroom that there was trouble meeting all of their needs?" One of the facilitators, a black female, responded directly to the teacher's question: "That wasn't one of our specific look-fors." She went on to add, "We were in your classroom for 10 to 12 minutes and we saw variations of differentiation, but that wasn't something we focused on." Differentiation was one of the look-fors, and thus something that she felt she could respond to, rather than considering the appropriateness of heterogeneous classrooms. A white female superintendent commented that students were able to explain what they were working on and generally "felt good" about it. Here, asking students what they were working on was one of the specific look-fors, and thus comments related to it were permitted by the protocol.</p> <p>Another superintendent, a Latino male, addressed the teacher's comments with a characterization of the network's process and its findings: "What bounced out of the data was that whatever the kids were assigned was assigned to the whole class, and that assignment for the whole class, regardless of where all the kids were, was at a level that could demand more rigor, and that the school could work on designing rigorous tasks for the entire body. And we're not even getting to the point of differentiating." This superintendent, like the others, focused his comments specifically around the host POP and look-fors. Later, in reflecting on the visit with only NNS members present, this superintendent brought up the teacher's question, which he interpreted as being about differentiation. Another superintendent, a white male, contradicted this interpretation, arguing that the teacher was in fact raising a question about heterogeneous grouping: "I didn't hear, I need help with differentiation. I heard: kids are in my class that shouldn't be in my class." Instead of following this line of thought and engaging around the question of heterogeneous grouping and teachers' beliefs about it and about students, the initiating superintendent returned to the POP and look-fors: "The reason I bring up differentiation is because it was one of our look-fors and we didn't see any. If the school is going to prioritize, is differentiation going to be one of your priorities or are you going to put it on your back burner and work on something else?" Again, the look-for of differentiation, which framed the remarks shared with the teacher, centered the conversation during the superintendents' reflection on the visit. It is notable, however, that when a teacher challenged the group on heterogeneous grouping, the response was largely an apology for the protocol—both in terms of what it asked the group to look for (differentiation, student understanding) and in the adequacy of the time spent in classes to address such questions. No facilitator or superintendent said that ability grouping was an inequitable practice that disproportionally affects students of color, poor students, and students receiving special education services—not necessarily because they agreed with the teacher, but at least in part because they felt they should only address issues raised in the POP.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-17">Discussion</hd> <p>Analysis of NNS's use of instructional rounds over 6 years demonstrates that issues of race were neither regularly raised nor addressed in depth, even in a network committed to a focus on equity. Deliberate efforts to modify NNS norms and expectations did shift the focus of rounds and the nature of conversations, though conversations about equity were often curtailed in a variety of ways. However, these efforts and their results must be understood within broader and complex issues of race and equity within schools and society at large, which affect both how participants observe and discuss classroom teaching and how facilitators can influence conversations to focus on race and equity (Evans [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref74">13</reflink>]; Spillane et al. [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref75">44</reflink>]).</p> <p>In considering how race and equity are taken up by society at large, perhaps it is most surprising that participants discussed issues of race and equity in regard to specific district issues at all. This may be especially true given the shifting makeup of NNS participants over time and the challenge of maintaining an environment of trust and candor necessary to take on issues of race (Singleton and Linton [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref76">40</reflink>]).</p> <p>Tracing the evolution of rounds through three eras of the network's history demonstrates that making deliberate changes to the regulative and normative pillars increased the attention to equity within network conversations, but was not sufficient to maintain explicit and extended conversations around equity in general and around race specifically. The dual shifts in the regulative and normative pillars contributed to changes in the cultural-cognitive domain, indicated by increased comments and conversations related to equity. The evolution also demonstrates that changes to one or more of the pillars may work in tandem. As protocols changed, norms for behaviors changed; as shared meaning of ideas like equity changed, expectations of what it means to focus on equity changed.</p> <p>Without explicit and emphatic agreement that that equity be present in the POP (normative domain), as was the case in era 1, attention to equity was rarely present in whole-group deliberations (cultural-cognitive domain). Even when observations about equity emerged in these conversations, they were typically treated as off-topic, since the guiding POP focused on instructional effectiveness rather than equity.</p> <p>Discussions in era 3, however, demonstrate the potential of managing changes in normative and regulative domains conjointly. By both requiring and working with hosts of rounds visits to develop equity-focused POPs (normative) and creating a variation on the rounds protocol, that is, "equity visits" (regulative), NNS was able to encourage more sustained attention to issues of equity in whole-group deliberations.</p> <p>The role of the facilitation team was critical in affecting these changes. Although there was turnover in superintendent membership, composition of the facilitation team remained constant throughout, and these seven facilitators were the initiators of changes to the rounds protocol. From the onset of the network, the facilitation team intentionally included documentation of NNS activities. Based on regular review of the documentation, and their own experiences at NNS activities, the facilitation team evolved the way that NNS engaged in rounds to try to draw attention to equity and race. As new members joined the network in later years, they were introduced to the network focus on equity and the network's rounds practice that was underway when they joined.</p> <p>Individuals within the facilitation team also played critical roles within an overall shift in focus toward equity. Throughout our data, we found instances of two NNS facilitators, both black males, asking direct questions of superintendents around issues of race and intersections of race, gender, disability, and class—issues that might otherwise have remain unexamined. For these two individuals, supporting superintendents to identify and address systemic inequities was a key aspect of their involvement in NNS.</p> <p>Although the amount of conversation focused on equity increased over time, we identified three conversational patterns that curtailed conversations: understating race, the culture of nice, and following the protocol. In our initial analysis of the data, we concluded that these patterns functioned implicitly to end discussions of equity; we did not consider contextual, structural, or other reasons that might explain why these episodes were relatively brief. When we presented the initial conclusion to the facilitation team, the two black facilitators mentioned previously challenged our supposition. They informed us that their decisions to pursue (or not) issues of race are not made lightly, let alone unconsciously. For example, facilitators may follow a direct question that challenges superintendents with a more generalizing comment or even change of topic so that superintendents do not feel so threatened that they leave the network.</p> <p>This pattern of alternating direct questions, which might press on issues of equity or race, with more general questions or comments mirrors a tension identified among advocates for equity-oriented leadership between being "patient enough" and "too patient" (Skrla et al. [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref77">42</reflink>], 53). Deliberately applying pressure to focus on race, even when followed by more generalizing comments or questions, contrasts with the phenomenon of "racial erasure," as defined by hooks ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref78">20</reflink>]) and applied in education settings by McKenzie and Scheurich ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref79">26</reflink>]). Racial erasure occurs when individuals profess to seeing students as race-less (i.e., being "colorblind") or when they argue that race is not relevant when considering a topic such as student achievement.</p> <p>General statements that focus on "all students," which frequently happened in districts in which many black and Latino students had inequitable educational experiences and outcomes, also risk understating race. As the two foundation officers who created NNS frequently state, "all means all." However, after 2 years of rounds and NNS activity in general that did not focus on race, there was a felt need on the facilitation team's part to be more explicit. Referring to "all students" and working for all students' access and success have the potential to address systemic inequities, but doing so also led to little conversation within NNS explicitly about race.</p> <p>The Black Lives Matter movement highlights the need to explicitly name race. Taylor (quoted in Victor [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref80">48</reflink>]) stated that although there is a given assumption that all lives matter, "the entire point of Black Lives Matter is to illustrate the extent to which black lives have not mattered" (<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref81">14</reflink>). Applying precepts from this movement to education, focusing on all students, even with the explicit but unstated intent to address inequities, actually may hide the inequitable experiences of black and Latino students (Koski and Reich [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref82">22</reflink>]). This suggests that POPs or school reforms that focus on "all" students may perpetuate existing inequities rather than challenge them (Parker and Villalpando [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref83">30</reflink>]), and can be seen as forms of racial erasure.</p> <p>However, making race explicit in rounds discussions is itself a complex issue. The authors' reinterpretation of the analysis, informed by the perspectives of our colleagues on the facilitation team, led us to see that conversational patterns that appear to curtail discussions of equity must be understood within larger contexts of how individuals and groups respond to facilitators' (or colleagues') questions or comments. For instance, a superintendent confronted about a practice that negatively affects black students may "shut down" or withdraw from the discussion, rather than continue to engage. It is possible that a superintendent might even choose to leave the network rather than engage in future challenges.</p> <p>It is also important to consider other contextual factors that may have contributed to the absence of attention to race, which was particularly evident when superintendents discussed racial achievement patterns but developed color-neutral POPs. This may reflect concerns about making racial inequities public in districts whose community members are not ready or willing to address them. One superintendent noted, for example, that bringing up an inequity that had previously been under the radar could lead to his being fired for somehow causing the inequity. Superintendents occasionally referenced the work of nationally known superintendents who lost their jobs for addressing deep-seated inequities within their districts.</p> <p>Research has shown that trust is a necessary foundation for individuals of different races to discuss issues of race, equity, and education (e.g., Rusch and Horsford [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref84">35</reflink>]; Tatum [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref85">46</reflink>]). All NNS participants, even those participating in their first year, reported feeling a high degree of trust within the network. However, it is possible that the turnover of participants was part of the reason for some of the relative lack of attention to race; following a consistent group of individuals over time might demonstrate a greater degree of conversation if emphasis was placed on developing trust while engaging in rounds, discussing issues of equity, and sharing their district challenges.</p> <p>Finally, we note that our analysis was also limited to data from the whole-group discussions, because these were the only ones that were audiotaped. We did not have access to the one-on-one conversations a facilitator may have had with an individual superintendent or in small-group conversations. However, anecdotally both black and white facilitators shared with us examples of how they had private conversations with NNS superintendents in which they challenged them to think more critically around issues raised in NNS meetings, including race.</p> <hd id="AN0125789720-18">Implications and Conclusion</hd> <p>Although there is more work to be accomplished to foster sustained and in-depth discussions about equity, implications for networks and other organizational structures that support school and district leaders' professional learning are clear. The regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive domains of an organization must be understood as constantly interacting. To affect change in the cultural-cognitive domain, that is, how participants make meaning about issues such as equity and instruction, it is essential to consider how changes in the normative and regulative domains are aligned with the organization's goals—and how they are mutually reinforcing. For almost 2 years, NNS facilitators held an implicit expectation that the work on instruction would simultaneously address inequities in participating superintendents' districts. However, when they realized that this expectation was not being met, they purposefully changed their stated expectations; and after 3 years, they also purposefully changed the protocols for rounds visits. As the pillars became more aligned, superintendents were more likely to raise issues of equity throughout the rounds visits. When changes are not aligned or reinforcing, it is likely that, no matter how essential to students' lives and education, a subject as elusive as equity will continue to fall through the cracks of even the most valued professional learning opportunities.</p> <p>As our first analysis of the data and our interpretations of the analysis taught us, the life experiences and perspectives of those who seek to support greater focus on equity and race must be understood as a key ingredient in how the pillars are aligned and reinforced. Keeping equity on the table is neither simple nor easy; keeping superintendents at the table so that they can continually develop their understanding of equity—and act upon it—is no less so. Rounds offers one way to open up questions of equity in relation to instruction, but it is not sufficient to insure these types of conversations will take place or that participants' fundamental understandings or practice will change—let alone their practices themselves.</p> <p>Rounds will likely lead to more in-depth conversations around race when they are integrated with other activities, including opportunities for trust-building among participants, conversations about race in society in general, and dedicated time to focus on participants' own work in relation to issues of equity. The curtailing or limiting of equity-focused conversations can be addressed in part through changing network norms and protocols. For example, NNS could develop a "parking lot"—that is, when an issue is raised that is not related to the POP but is important to discuss, the issue can be noted and then brought up at another date. In addition, the network could ask host superintendents to include look-fors that are explicitly related to the issues of equity their district is confronting.</p> <p>The network can also share specific protocols for conversations about race, recognizing that these conversations will be uncomfortable to participants. As the superintendents appeared more comfortable naming and talking about non-racial explanations, specific protocols may be needed to push individuals past their comfort levels to engage in conversation. In fact, in response to the initial discussion of this article, as well as other NNS activities, the facilitation team drew on Singleton and Linton's ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref86">40</reflink>]) work to initiate a series of "courageous conversations" about race for the start of year 7, beginning with discussions around two video segments of black male experiences in schools and society. The use of such artifacts suggests other ways to broaden the data used to consider students' experiences in schools, especially those of blacks, Latinos, and other students of color and in marginalized groups. When superintendents did address race explicitly within the network, for the most part they focused on proficiency levels on state assessments, rather than evidence of more rigorous intellectual work, such as performance in advanced placement or international baccalaureate courses.</p> <p>Beyond considering the role of facilitation in discussions of equity and race amongst school leaders, it is also critical to consider how these types of conversations fit into a larger set of activities that could play a role in addressing inequities. Research on professional development, for example, has shown the weakness of one-time workshops (e.g., Wallace Foundation [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref87">49</reflink>]). For discussions based on classroom observations to be most productive, it is valuable for participants to have opportunities for learning and reflecting both before and after the day of the observations, and to connect their observations of other schools to their own schools and districts. In addition, as talking about race is difficult, particularly in cross-racial groups, professional development organizations and districts interested in issues of equity need to develop a sense of community among participants prior to engaging in the work itself (Shields et al. [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref88">39</reflink>]). Hallmarks of such a community should include not only avoidance of the culture of nice but explicit attention to "race talk" (Sue [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref89">45</reflink>]).</p> <p>Despite NNS's explicit commitments to equity through explicit protocols and expectations, we suggest that participants' performance of rounds draws on implicit beliefs that perhaps are so taken for granted that they are not considered when the network, for example, brainstormed norms for rounds visits. This is not necessarily a surprise. Research has documented the difficulties of discussing issues of equity, particularly for white school leaders in talking about race (Alsbury and Whitaker [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref90">1</reflink>]; McMahon [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref91">27</reflink>]). In fact, one of the white facilitators commented that he "followed the lead" of his black colleagues when race was invoked within discussions and chose not to follow up on questions or comments related to race if he observed that his black colleagues did not do so first. Research has also documented tensions that school leaders of color face if they seem "too" focused on issues of race (Jackson [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref92">21</reflink>]; Ortiz and Ortiz [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref93">29</reflink>]; Scott [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref94">36</reflink>]). NNS facilitators, particularly both black males, see themselves as engaging in racial calibration as they navigate the tension of how much to be explicit about race, with a concern of focusing "too" much on race, being perceived as "angry, Black men," and pushing people away. To support more sustained conversation about race, white facilitators need to take equal responsibility for raising questions and following up on comments made, both because they are equally responsibility for addressing racial inequities in school systems and also because their comments may be perceived differently by participants than those of black facilitators.</p> <p>The rounds process has to change, and even so, participants need to be aware that the rounds practice itself is not enough to overcome systemic inequities or the challenges to discussing these inequities. Changing protocols and formal expectations are key for getting equity to the table, but for equity to remain on the table and under discussion, participants need to address implicit norms around what can be said. Engaging superintendents in getting to the table, as demonstrated by the longevity of NNS and the ongoing participation of several of its members, is possible. To stay at the table and engage in frank conversations, without the need to curtail, generalize, or redress threatening topics, but rather to question and challenge one another around issues of equity proves to be a more difficult task. For the network that is the basis of this study, our hope is that sharing this analysis will support reflection on how equity is pursued and curtailed in their conversations. For facilitators and others engaged in supporting school leaders in discussing issues of equity in relation to conversations about instruction, for instance, through professional learning practices such as instructional rounds, careful attention needs to be paid to the nature of conversations and to what kinds of topics are raised but not pursued, with explicit and implicit protocols and norms constantly assessed so that participants are able to make the connections between equity and instruction in a sustained and probative manner. Rounds offers one way to open up conversations around equity and instruction—but rounds needs to be accompanied by other practices that center on race and culture for those conversations to be sustained and ultimately have an impact on students' educational experiences.</p> <ref id="AN0125789720-19"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref61" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Rachel Roegman is an assistant professor in educational leadership at Purdue University, College of Education. She is a former middle school teacher with interests in school reform, educational leadership, and the intersections of context, leadership, and equity. David Allen is an assistant professor in the School of Education, College of Staten Island, City University of New York. His research focuses on teachers' and administrators' collaborative learning practices. 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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: The Elusiveness of Equity: Evolution of Instructional Rounds in a Superintendent's Network – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Roegman%2C+Rachel%22">Roegman, Rachel</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Allen%2C+David%22">Allen, David</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Hatch%2C+Thomas%22">Hatch, Thomas</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22American+Journal+of+Education%22"><i>American Journal of Education</i></searchLink>. Nov 2017 124(1):127-159. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: University of Chicago Press. Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005, Chicago, IL 60637. Tel: 877-705-1878; Tel: 773-753-3347; Fax: 877-705-1879; Fax: 773-753-0811; e-mail: subscriptions@press.uchicago.edu; Web site: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/aje/about – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 33 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2017 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Superintendents%22">Superintendents</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Innovation%22">Educational Innovation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Administration%22">Educational Administration</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Longitudinal+Studies%22">Longitudinal Studies</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Equal+Education%22">Equal Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Experience%22">Educational Experience</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Networks%22">Networks</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22School+Visitation%22">School Visitation</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1086/693957 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0195-6744 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: The practice of instructional rounds is a recent innovation in educational administration, intended to support administrators' understanding of instruction through the development of common language. This longitudinal study examines the rounds practice of a network of superintendents over 6 years to understand how rounds serves as a vehicle for addressing inequities in students' educational experiences. Using Scott's concept of normative, regulative, and cultural-cognitive pillars, we investigate the practice to see how the network addressed issues of equity in 21 visits. Findings demonstrate that increased attention to equity in the protocol and visit expectations resulted in increased attention to equity. However, conversations manifested three patterns that functioned to curtail a focus on equity: understating race, the "culture of nice," and following the protocol. We conclude with implications for how rounds can be structured to bring equity into sustained focus, with an understanding of regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive pillars as constantly interacting. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2017 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1159223 |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1086/693957 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 33 StartPage: 127 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Superintendents Type: general – SubjectFull: Educational Innovation Type: general – SubjectFull: Educational Administration Type: general – SubjectFull: Longitudinal Studies Type: general – SubjectFull: Equal Education Type: general – SubjectFull: Educational Experience Type: general – SubjectFull: Networks Type: general – SubjectFull: School Visitation Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: The Elusiveness of Equity: Evolution of Instructional Rounds in a Superintendent's Network Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Roegman, Rachel – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Allen, David – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Hatch, Thomas IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 11 Type: published Y: 2017 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0195-6744 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 124 – Type: issue Value: 1 Titles: – TitleFull: American Journal of Education Type: main |
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