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Abstract
Purpose: School leaders become arbiters of educational opportunity by shaping how policies are implemented within their buildings. Yet the role that school leaders play in enacting policies designed to expand equity for historically marginalized groups of students such as English learners (ELs) has received little attention in the research literature. This study examines the role that school leaders play in enabling or obstructing social justice by examining how leaders implement one policy, that which dictates the process of exiting students from EL status and reclassifying them as English proficient. Research Method: We conducted qualitative case studies of eight elementary schools across four districts in Texas, each of which included an observation of the year-end meetings when committees review EL students’ files and make reclassification decisions, as well as a semistructured focus group interview. Findings: School leaders both enable and obstruct practices that reflect social justice leadership while implementing reclassification policy, but lack awareness that they are doing so. Policy understanding and approach to implementation mediated the ways in which school leaders were able to leverage policy implementation to enable social justice and promote equity. Implications: We draw upon research findings to provide a framework for helping school leaders leverage policy implementation to enact social justice in their schools.
Introduction
English learners (ELs) continue to be the fastest growing subgroup of students in the United States (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). Whereas the overall student population in this country increased by just 2.1% between 2008 and 2014, the percentage of EL students grew by 53.2% (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2016a, 2016b). Moreover, schools of all types are now experiencing EL student population growth. Over the past decade, EL enrollments have increased in city, suburban, and rural schools by 14%, 23%, and 34%, respectively; in districts with more than 1,000 students and districts with fewer than 200 students by 6% and 8%, respectively; and in the poorest and most affluent school districts by 7% and 11%, respectively (NCES, 2004, 2013). EL students are now enrolled in nearly 75% of American public schools (NCES, 2013). Consequently, educational policy makers and practitioners across the country have been wrestling with how to best serve this group of students.
As the EL population has grown, so too has the amount of attention given to ELs by policy makers, particularly since the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in the form of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). NCLB required states to identify and monitor students who are ELs and provide them with effective English instruction programs as well as develop standards and targets for English acquisition and the demonstration of knowledge in content areas such as reading, math, and science (NCLB, 2002). This legislation arguably emphasized the importance of addressing the unique needs of ELs more than ever before (Office of English Language Acquisition, 2008). The most recent ESEA reauthorization, commonly known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), further requires that states include English language proficiency in their accountability metrics under Title I, thereby increasing pressure on states and districts to ensure EL students are learning English.
As state and federal policy makers have placed stricter EL accountability pressures on school leaders, pressure has mounted to ensure that all students are provided with equitable and adequate educational opportunities. For example, in 2015 the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education released joint guidance “to assist SEAs, school districts, and all public schools in meeting their legal obligations to ensure that [EL] students can participate meaningfully and equally in educational programs and services” (Lhamon & Gupta, 2015, p. 2). This guidance focused on clarifying requirements on how federal policy can be meaningfully implemented at the local level such that it is working toward the goal of removing barriers that impede equal educational participation for ELs. These federal efforts represent a small portion of the increasing attention on the way school leaders as local policy implementers go about understanding and carrying out policy on the ground.
Research has established that, when implementing education policy, school leaders become local arbiters of educational opportunity by shaping how policies are carried out within their buildings (Coburn, 2005; Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002; Spillane, Diamond, et al., 2002). Yet the role that school leaders play in enacting policies designed to expand equity for historically marginalized groups of students has received little attention in the research literature. Moreover, although researchers have explored school leaders’ enactment of social justice practices (Alsbury & Whitaker, 2007; Brooks, Jean-Marie, Normore, & Hodgins, 2008; Kose, 2009; Theoharis, 2007), very little research has explored how school leaders promote and practice social justice through the policy implementation process. As such, this study seeks to examine the role that school leaders1 play in the policy implementation process and the ways in which social justice is enacted through policy implementation. We examine this through the lens of one policy, which dictates the process of exiting students from EL status and reclassifying them as English proficient in Texas. Specifically, we investigate the following questions:
What role do school leaders play in implementing state policy regarding EL reclassification in their schools?
In what ways is social justice enabled or obstructed through school leaders’ reclassification policy implementation?
This study focuses on the connection between how policy is implemented and the potential for policy to expand educational equity for underserved students. Specifically, we seek to make several key contributions. First, we attempt to better understand the role school leaders play as local policy implementers, specifically in ways that promote social justice for ELs. Second, we seek to provide a conceptual framework to help researchers consider how school leaders make sense of and engage as policy implementation agents. Building on this framework, we seek to help school leaders evaluate their approach to EL policy implementation and provide guiding questions for school leaders to consider when interpreting and implementing policies in an effort to expand opportunity for underserved students. Finally, we shed light on the intersection between the work school leaders do as policy implementers and their responsibility to use social justice-oriented practices as a means of promoting equitable opportunities and outcomes in their schools.
School Leaders as Policy Implementers: A Social Justice Approach
Ensuring access to equitable educational opportunities is an outcome to which many educational policies aim. Social justice is a vehicle through which such equity may be achieved. For example, if we aspire for ELs to have access to equitable opportunity for learning, there must be a process to progress toward such a goal. School leaders focused on implementing policies from a social justice approach can create an environment of opportunity that could lead to equity as an outcome.
Scholars have produced myriad definitions of social justice, ranging from the disruption and subversion of arrangements that promote marginalization and exclusionary processes (Gewirtz, 1998) to making “issues of race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other historically and currently marginalized conditions in the United States central to [leaders’] advocacy, leadership practice, and vision” (Theoharis, 2007, p. 223). Others contend that social justice–oriented school leaders hold a belief that school leadership should primarily value the enhancement of equity and social justice (Astin & Astin, 2000). Nonetheless, all definitions incorporate one common premise: Educational leaders are “activist leaders with a focus on equity” (McKenzie et al., 2008, p. 114).
EL students are one marginalized population for which school leaders must take up the charge of ensuring equitable, excellent, and inclusive educational experiences (e.g., Crawford, 2004; Theoharis & O’Toole, 2011; Walquí, 2000). For ELs and other culturally and linguistically diverse students, this includes cultivating academic language proficiency using additive approaches (e.g., selecting models for language acquisition that affirm students’ native languages, supporting linguistically responsive teaching), ensuring access to rigorous curricula (e.g., providing access to high-quality instruction that provides access to challenging curricula, helping content-area teachers understand that they are also language teachers, encouraging effective linguistic accommodations on assessments, integrating EL students into advanced coursework), and promoting sociocultural integration (e.g., drawing upon students funds of knowledge, emphasizing culturally responsive instruction) (Scanlan & López, 2012).
As individuals with the power to create and influence conditions for effective and equitable education, school leaders can meaningfully influence the long-term success of programs for ELs (Reyes, 2006) through the promotion of justice and equity in schools (Cambron-McCabe & McCarthy, 2005; Shields, 2004). Research has also shown that leaders with research-based knowledge of EL programs and personal beliefs that EL students are an asset to the school community are able to influence services that benefit ELs and their peers (Theoharis & O’Toole, 2011). Within schools, the presence of social justice–oriented leadership, which seeks to both advance and improve the social and academic outcomes of traditionally marginalized student populations, arguably shapes the way school leaders implement policies on the ground.
In addition to taking an asset-based approach that recognizes and affirms the unique linguistic and cultural strengths of EL students and seeking out research-based knowledge about EL populations, scholars contend that school leaders can enact social justice by equitably distributing school resources and services, raising consciousness of privilege and openly discussing the interplay between power and control, recognizing and striving to better understand group differences, and fostering a diverse and inclusive community within schools (Wang, 2016). One less frequently discussed way that school leaders can enact social justice is by making sense of and implementing policies with the collective interests of marginalized groups in mind (Leithwood & Jantzi, 1990). As a result of their positional authority and influential role in filtering and implementing education policies, school leaders are uniquely positioned to champion the needs of students who have been historically marginalized—a central premise of the growing calls for both transformative and social justice leadership (Shields, 2004; Skrla, Scheurich, Garcia, & Nolly, 2004; Theoharis & O’Toole, 2011). Yet the way that school leaders go about making sense of and implementing policy is complex and multifaceted. As such, we turn to policy sensemaking and implementation literature to inform how we approach our exploration of how school leaders promote and practice social justice through their implementation of EL reclassification policy.
Decades of research have established that school leaders’ interpretation, understanding, and implementation of education policy does not take place within a vacuum: Both institutional and social norms, as well as individual experiences and social networks, influence these processes. For example, institutional theory recognizes that, when making sense of and implementing policy, individuals are influenced by institutional norms, rules, and definitions that constrain and enable action (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991; Scott & Meyer, 1991). Moreover, access to resources and support, including professional development for school leaders, as well as the economic and social context in which the policy is being implemented, affect the policy implementation process (Odden, 1991; Sabatier & Mazmanian, 1979; Van Meter & Van Horn, 1975). Cognitive theory emphasizes that institutional norms do not obliterate human agency (Giddens, 1984): Local agents remain incredibly influential in the construction of policy messages (Spillane, Diamond, et al., 2002). Within schools, researchers have found that educators make sense of policy messages through their preexisting worldviews, professional beliefs, and formal and informal networks (Ball & Bowe, 1992; Coburn, 2001, 2004; Hill, 2001; Jennings, 1996; Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002). Additionally, research suggests that individuals’ background and experiences, such as leadership preparation programs, matter for how school leaders conceptualize policies and programs within their schools (Rigby, 2016). Finally, how school leaders come to understand policy shapes their decisions and actions during the implementation process (Anagnostopoulos & Rutledge, 2007; Carraway & Young, 2015; Coburn, 2005, 2006; Cohen & Lowenberg Ball, 1990; Rutledge, 2010; Spillane & Jennings, 1997).
Because positional authority is accorded to school leaders, they are able to shape how policy is framed, what messages are emphasized, and which messages are filtered out (Coburn, 2005, 2006). Since they are able to shape policy response norms and the environment in which teachers and other school staff interpret and enact policy, school leaders are exceptionally important to the policy implementation process and, subsequently, the enactment of social justice through policies that are designed to expand equity. Yet little research has examined school leaders’ policy implementation and even less has explored policy implementation through a social justice frame. In contrast, much policy implementation research focuses on whether policy is implemented in line with the goals and desired outcomes of an education policy: Did the implementation of the policy comply with the letter of the law, that is, the explicitly documented expectations of the policy (Harmon, Kim, & Mayer, 2014)? Rarely have scholars attempted to understand whether the implementation of an education policy met the spirit of the law, or, the undocumented, and often tacitly held, expectations of the policy (Harmon et al., 2014).
One exception is Callahan and Shifrer’s (2016) study on EL student high school course taking. Contending that the courses that EL students have access to and enroll in can be understood as one facet of academic equity required under Castañeda v. Pickard (1981): that EL programs must be proven effective in meeting both the linguistic and academic needs of EL students (Del Valle, 2003; Hakuta, 2011). In particular, the authors argue that many EL programs focus on compliance with federal policy and court rulings by simply providing linguistic support services rather than focusing on “the spirit of these policies, equity in academic access” (Callahan & Shifrer, 2016, p. 470). In particular, Callahan and Shifrer (2016) find that EL students’ high school graduation course taking lags significantly behind native English speakers and that the placement of EL students in English as a Second Language (ESL) programs “precludes, rather than improves, equity in access as evidenced by college preparatory course taking” (p. 485). Building on a transformative leadership approach (Shields, 2004), Callahan and Shifrer (2016) call on local school leaders to use the findings of their research in conjunction with “local course taking data to open discussion with feeder elementary and middle schools regarding EL students’ experiences [. . . and] academic as well as linguistic development” (p. 485) while also monitoring the progress of EL populations and identifying programmatic features that may “cause permanent damage” (p. 487) to an EL’s academic trajectory.
Our work builds upon Callahan and Shifrer’s (2016) study by introducing a framework (Figure 1) that connects education policy implementation to the enactment of social justice for underserved groups of students such as ELs. This framework, discussed in depth later in this article, posits that school leaders are uniquely positioned to enable social justice as they implement policies in their schools and that their ability to enact the spirit of the law is a product of both their depth of policy understanding and whether they approach policy implementation in technical or transformative ways.
We contend that social justice for ELs is within the spirit of EL education policies, such as those that aim to ensure ELs are provided with equitable educational opportunities and experiences. As such, we examine whether school leaders implement EL reclassification policy in ways that promote social justice for EL students.
Background on EL Reclassification
Long-standing federal law has required state and local education agencies to take “affirmative steps” to remove language barriers that may prevent EL students from equal participation in schools’ instructional programs (Civil Rights Act, 1964; Equal Educational Opportunities Act, 1974). An important goal for any program that serves ELs is for students to acquire a level of English proficiency such that they are able to access academic content without language supports. Thus, a noteworthy juncture in EL students’ academic trajectories is reclassification, which occurs when students are deemed to have acquired sufficient English language proficiency to exit EL status and be designated “fluent English proficient” (Linquanti, 2001; Mavrogordato & White, 2017; Robinson, 2011; Thompson, 2017a; Umansky & Reardon, 2014). Reclassification carries substantial weight for EL students: When ELs are reclassified, they often “lose access to these specialized services but gain access to mainstream classes including the full breadth of courses, teachers, and peers” (Umansky & Reardon, 2014, p. 880). Simultaneously, reclassification often grants access to valuable educational resources such as more advanced academic tracks, higher quality teachers, and meaningful social networks with peers who are proficient in English (Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2009).
There is a growing research base documenting the consequences of being classified as an EL and being reclassified as English proficient (Mavrogordato & Harris, 2017). If ELs are reclassified prematurely when they are still in need of language support services, they are at risk for academic failure (Cimpian, Thompson, & Makowski, 2017; Linquanti, 2001; Robinson, 2011). Conversely, reclassifying an EL student too late may have adverse effects such as limited access to honors and college preparatory coursework, increased high school dropout rates, reduced rates of college enrollment, and a greater need for remedial education in college (Callahan, 2005; Callahan & Humphries, 2016; Callahan & Shifrer, 2016; Callahan, Wilkinson, & Muller, 2010; Dabach, 2014; Estrada, 2014; Flores & Drake, 2014; Kanno & Kangas, 2014; Parrish et al., 2006; Silver, Saunders, & Zarate, 2008; Thompson, 2017b; Umansky, 2016a, 2016b). Given the stakes associated with reclassification, researchers are turning their attention to understanding the reclassification phenomenon more deeply.
One line of research on reclassification has begun to unpack variation in how reclassification policies are enacted. Recognizing that a given reclassification policy is not implemented uniformly across different contexts, this research suggests that educators in schools and districts draw upon different capacities, resources, and knowledge bases and face competing demands and constraints when implementing policy, thus shaping how policy is in fact implemented on the ground. For example, in a study of two districts in California, Estrada and Wang (2013) found that school staff had different philosophies regarding the consequences of being reclassified and that their “inadequate knowledge of the reclassification process and criteria led to misapplication of criteria, widely varying implementation, and few standardized processes” (p. 29). In a study with four Texas school districts, White and Mavrogordato (2018) found variation, particularly by gender and experience in education, in the extent to which school leaders and educators use formal and informal policy resources (e.g., guidebooks, training/professional development, or other policy documents, as well as social networks) to understand and implement EL reclassification policy. Finally, Mavrogordato and White (2017) documented that educators in different schools had divergent orientations toward reclassification and profoundly different knowledge of the purpose of reclassification policy, which prompted them to implement reclassification policy in strikingly different ways. In some cases, reclassification policy implementation aligned with the spirit of the policy, whereas in other instances the way policy was implemented seemed to undermine the policy’s underlying purpose.
Taken together, these lines of research suggest that reclassification (or lack thereof) has the potential to shape ELs’ educational trajectories, but that this potential is moderated by both the formal policy components and policy implementation. As states work to standardize their reclassification criteria given new ESSA requirements, it is increasingly important to understand how educators go about understanding and implementing reclassification policy and unpack what shapes uneven policy implementation. We assert that school leaders have a particularly prominent role in this process since they are tasked with overseeing state and district policy implementation in their buildings, possess the positional authority to shape policy implementation in powerful ways, and are charged with cultivating a school culture and climate that expands educational equity for students.
Study Context: Texas
With more than 1,010,000 ELs, Texas ranks second among states in terms of the number of ELs it serves (NCES, 2016c; Texas Education Agency [TEA], 2017). In Texas, state policy has guided the reclassification process for many years. For the past 35 years, any district that serves ELs has been required to form at least one Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC).2 In practice LPACs are often established at each school that serves ELs, as was the case in all schools in our study. Texas Education Code (1996) asserts that the purpose of the LPAC is to oversee “the identification, processing, placement, and monitoring of the ELL in his/her intensive language instructional program as well as the determination for exiting and follow-up of the student as he/she transitions into the mainstream all-English program” (TEA, 2016, p. 7). However, TEA (2016) asserts,
The LPAC’s role extends beyond the responsibilities established under the . . . Commissioner’s Rules Concerning State Plan for Educating English Language Learners (ELLs). As an advocate for the ELL, the LPAC becomes the voice that initiates, articulates, deliberates, and determines the best instructional program for the student. (p. 7)
As such, LPACs play a pivotal role in shaping educational opportunity for ELs in Texas.
Each LPAC must consist of a campus administrator (such as a principal or assistant principal), bilingual educator, a transitional language educator (such as a bilingual or English as a second language teacher), and a parent of an EL who is not employed by the school district. In addition, districts and schools have the freedom to add additional members to the committee. While the requirements about who sits on the committee are rather specific, neither does state law prescribe how LPAC members are selected nor does it specify the role each member plays. As such, LPAC membership selection and members’ roles vary to some degree. As the schools in our sample demonstrate, it is often the campus administrator on the LPAC who approaches educators and a parent and asks them to volunteer to serve on the LPAC.
When LPACs make reclassification decisions for ELs, they must consider a set of criteria that include both indicators of students’ English proficiency level as well as academic achievement. In Texas, some of these criteria are set by the state. For example, ELs are required to demonstrate reading and writing proficiency on the State Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), in all grade levels for which these tests are given. Other criteria are more flexible. For example, when it comes to measuring oral English proficiency, the state allows districts to select from a list of state-approved assessments that gauge proficiency in listening to and speaking in English. In addition to objective assessment criteria, the state also requests teacher input through the “Subjective Teacher Evaluation,” which factors in “assessments, anecdotal notes, portfolios, etc.” (TEA, 2016, p. 71).
While many components of Texas EL reclassification policy are long-standing, the state recently made a policy change focused on which ELs are eligible for reclassification. In particular, in 2013-2014, the state indicated that ELs who received linguistic accommodations on the state-standardized reading or writing assessment could not be considered for reclassification. Linguistic accommodations include “dictionaries, oral administration, language and vocabulary supports, or extra time as an accommodation for any reading or writing assessment” (TEA, 2016, p. 71). It may seem that the LPAC has little ability to exert influence in this area; however, each school year, the LPAC is charged with determining which students will receive these assessment accommodations.
Research Methodology
To understand the role school leaders play in the reclassification process and unpack how they enact or obstruct social justice through policy implementation, this study relies on a qualitative case study design (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2014).
Data
We conducted qualitative case studies of eight elementary schools across four districts in Texas. Each case included an observation of the year-end LPAC meetings when committees review ELs’ files and make reclassification decisions, as well as a semistructured focus group interview with each LPAC. All LPAC focus groups included a principal, assistant principal, or both. Data collection took place during the 2-week window when LPACs convened at the end of the academic year during May and June 2014.
We observed LPAC meetings at each school. As direct observers, we watched instead of participated in the committee meeting. We endeavored to be as inconspicuous as possible so as not to bias the observation. Because of the sensitive nature of the conversations about individual students (e.g., personal lives, academic achievement scores, special education status), we did not digitally record the conversations that took place during the LPAC meeting. Communicating the decision to refrain from digitally recording the LPAC meetings was key to school and district leaders’ decisions to allow us access to these meetings. Nonetheless, both researchers took careful, copious, detailed field notes, recording not only the role of the school leader during the LPAC meeting but also the involvement of each of the additional LPAC members, how the meeting was structured, and the meeting setting.
Immediately after observing meetings, we conducted focus group interviews with LPAC members, allowing us to follow up on what we had observed, seek clarification, and request additional information. Focus group interviews allow people to explore and clarify their views in ways that would be less easily accessible in a one-on-one interview (Kitzinger, 1995; Lederman, 1990). In particular, focus groups allow for more data to emerge through group interactions (synergism), an opportunity for a statement of one respondent to initiate a chain reaction of additional comments (snowballing), the generation of excitement about a topic (stimulation), an environment of comfort that encourages candid responses (security), and the ability of an individual to refrain from answering a question, allowing their responses to be more spontaneous and genuine (spontaneity) (Lederman, 1990; Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub, 1996).
During the focus groups, we used a semistructured protocol that included open-ended questions, which was designed to obtain detailed information about how the reclassification process was carried out in each school and to gauge the extent to which school leaders shaped reclassification policy implementation in each school. For example, we asked participants to explain the purpose of the LPAC in their own words and inquired about what role, if any, LPAC members play in interpreting reclassification policy. In an effort to not make assumptions about the role of the school leader, we directed our questions at all LPAC members rather than directly addressing the school leader. When necessary, we probed to get more information from the school leader specifically. We digitally recorded and transcribed focus group interviews for analysis. We provided each focus group participants a modest incentive ($25 gift card) to acknowledge their participation.
Sample
We purposefully selected the eight schools in our study in an effort to yield “information-rich” cases (Patton, 2014). We selected schools based on several criteria. First and foremost, we sought to maximize variation in reclassification policy implementation by selecting schools located in different Education Service Center Regions with different rates of reclassification. Previous quantitative work found that ELs who perform at the same level on academic and English proficiency assessments and have the same demographic and educational profile characteristics are reclassified at different rates depending on where they attend school in Texas (Mavrogordato & White, 2017). We posited that school leaders may play very different roles in implementing reclassification policy in these different contexts, so we selected schools located in Education Service Center Regions with high, medium, and low rates of reclassification. Specifically, we selected schools that come from three regions; in one of the regions, ELs are 0.77 times as likely to be reclassified when compared with the reference group region, whereas in the other region ELs are nearly twice as likely to be reclassified (Mavrogordato & White, 2017).
In addition, we selected schools that varied with regard to characteristics we hypothesized might influence the way school leaders implement reclassification policy, including the percentage of EL students, percentage of students from economically disadvantaged schools, average principal and teacher tenure, and charter school status. Table 1 provides information on our sample.
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Table 1. Sample Information.
Analytic Method
Our analysis focused on unpacking the role that school leaders play in making sense of and implementing EL reclassification policy. Specifically, we used multiple stages of pattern coding to detect patterns of thought, action, and behavior among school leaders (Yin, 2014). We began by establishing a baseline a priori framework to use during the first round of data coding. We derived the codes from our theoretical framework and literature review of EL reclassification policy. For example, prior research suggests that sensemaking plays a key role in policy implementation (e.g., Coburn, 2001, 2006; Spillane, Diamond, et al., 2002). Therefore, we coded data for how the school leaders frame the LPAC’s purpose and their perspectives on the importance of reclassification. The research on how leaders enact social justice (e.g., Anderson, 2009; Theoharis, 2007) prompted us to code for instances when school leaders positioned themselves as advocates for students.
As we coded, we added open codes to capture salient concepts that emerged within and across the interviews (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Yin, 2016). As an example, while coding it became apparent that school leaders approached integrating policy changes into the reclassification process in distinct ways, which resulted in new categories being added to our coding scheme (discussed in the “Findings” section). In sum, our analytic process was iterative, grounded in theory and prior research, and reflected both inductive and deductive analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
We coded transcripts and field notes using the constant comparative method (Patton, 2014). As we collected and analyzed data we also took steps to establish trustworthiness by attempting to minimize bias and prevent errors that can occur when engaging in qualitative research (Erlandson, Harris, Skipper, & Allen, 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). We triangulated our data by comparing different data sources (interview transcripts and observation field notes) and across investigators (two researchers took field notes independently). After observing LPAC meetings, we used member checking by clarifying our interpretations of what we had seen. We used pseudonyms in our findings.
Limitations
While our study makes several contributions, our data collection and analyses are limited in a number of ways. First, our study is limited to data collected in a single state during a single school year. Therefore, our findings are not generalizable to other states and cannot speak to policy implementation over time. Second, the schools in which we observed school leaders make sense of and implement EL reclassification policy were purposefully selected. Therefore, results from this study cannot be generalized to all schools within Texas. Additionally, although we purposefully selected the schools that were part of the study based on geographic location and EL student population characteristics that we posited would shape the way school leaders implemented reclassification, our selection process did not focus on school leader characteristics.
Findings
While reclassification policy implementation varied markedly across schools, the level of influence school leaders exert over the process was consistently high. Our data demonstrated that principals have three major channels of influence during the reclassification process. First, school leaders control the LPAC meeting agenda. Second, they decide which data sources the LPAC will prioritize and which will be ignored. Finally, they determine how to incorporate new policy changes and how to respond in cases where there have been errors implementing these changes.
Channel 1: LPAC Meeting Agenda
School leaders play a prominent role in determining the breadth and depth of conversations on EL students’ academic progress by setting the LPAC meeting agenda. Specifically, while some school leaders arranged meetings to focus on obtaining LPAC members’ signatures on precompleted documentation or filling in forms by hand, others focused on discussing each EL student’s performance. Leaders established meeting duration and location and determined who would be present and what resources would be available to support the LPAC. Although these may seem like minor details, the meeting agenda influenced the nature of reclassification policy implementation, thereby shaping the extent to which social justice–oriented practices were present.
Two leaders, Ms. Wilson and Mr. Garza, set the LPAC meeting agenda to focus on getting LPAC members’ signatures to comply with required documentation. School leaders arrived at these meetings having predetermined which students were ready to be reclassified and which of them would remain classified as ELs, and quickly reviewed this information with the LPAC. For example, before the LPAC meeting, Mr. Garza had merged all student performance data into a large multipage spreadsheet and highlighted the names of students who had met the criteria. His committee members spent a few minutes discussing the students who had met criteria and then quickly signed forms. The entire meeting lasted less than half an hour. He expressed pride in how “efficient and easy” he had made such “a tedious process.” While efficient, the brief meeting neither allowed for discussion of students’ progress over the year, nor did it provide information that would better support students the following year, perhaps missing an opportunity to promote social justice for these students.
Another four leaders—Ms. Silva, Ms. Guerrero, Ms. Jones, and Ms. Gómez—set their meeting agenda to focus on filling out a score form by hand or reviewing prepopulated score forms for each EL student. Ms. Silva described her school’s LPAC meeting as an “assembly line” where she assigns each LPAC member a different score to read aloud while she filled out the form by hand. For example, one member would read aloud a student’s reading score, while another would read the student’s writing score. Because the school had nearly 600 EL students, this process of reading aloud scores, filling out forms, and filing paperwork in each student’s folder stretched over two school days, so Ms. Silva had gotten substitutes for LPAC members who were classroom teachers. Despite the time allocated to this process, only a very small amount of time was devoted to discussing student performance. Ms. Silva lamented not spending more on discussion, “but realistically with the amount of time we have, we haven’t been able to discuss every child.” By devoting a substantial amount of time to the reclassification decision-making process and by paying for substitute teachers for LPAC members, it was evident that Ms. Silva believed that this process was important. However, using the time to fill out paperwork by hand that could have easily been completed electronically prevented the LPAC from engaging in meaningful discussion about EL students’ progress.
The last two leaders, Ms. Álvarez and Mr. Ochoa, made discussion about individual students a priority on their LPAC meeting agenda. As an exemplar, Ms. Álvarez organized her meeting to facilitate a discussion of each individual EL student regardless of whether or not they had met state-set objective assessment reclassification criteria. She set an entire school day aside to run the LPAC meeting out of a spare classroom. Using a projector, Ms. Álvarez had an administrative assistant—who she referred to as the “LPAC clerk”—display each student’s assessment data onto a large screen at the front of the room. Ms. Álvarez had asked teachers from each grade level to join the meeting during their planning period. Grade-level teams came into the meeting, their data binders in hand, and Ms. Álvarez displayed the data of each EL student one by one. She solicited comments on each student’s performance from the student’s classroom teacher, particularly focusing on students who had not demonstrated sufficient growth during the year. Teachers voiced concerns (“She was absent too often” or “it might be time to recommend this child for special education testing”) and, on being prompted by Ms. Álvarez asking “What can we do to build upon this student’s strengths” or “Is there anything else we can do to help this student be successful?” teachers also offered suggestions such as “we could get in touch with his mom and encourage her to take advantage of summer school” or “we recommend that her teacher provide her with a bilingual dictionary to use from the start next year.” As Ms. Álvarez facilitated these discussions, she simultaneously used her laptop to keep a running record of teachers’ recommendations, indicating that she was doing so in order to be able to pass this information along to students’ teachers when the school year started in the fall. Mr. Ochoa similarly facilitated a discussion on each student, involving a teacher representative from each grade level to provide detailed information on individual students. These leaders drew upon their own personal experience as former ELs and expertise as former bilingual teachers to facilitate a discussion in which every student, particularly those struggling, was considered. These discussions were not only used to decide whether or not to exit students from EL status but also to solicit valuable information on how to disrupt practices that had not been working and propel each individual EL student forward in the subsequent academic year. In doing so, their meeting agendas reflected social justice–oriented leadership.
Channel 2: Prioritization of Data Sources
Across all schools, leaders were unwavering in their commitment to ELs meeting state-set reclassification requirements on objective English proficiency and academic achievement tests:
To see if they are ready for exit, we use the exit criteria chart . . . that TEA provides. So, we look at all their data, you know, whatever it requires whether it be [English proficiency assessment data], whether it be [state standardized academic achievement data], you know whatever . . . we have to do the state criteria. This is a nonnegotiable. (Ms. Wilson)
I have to follow state guidelines. They can tell me all they want, but if they don’t meet the [objective] criteria, you can’t go there. (Mr. Garza)
We have criteria. We have a form that has these criteria that TEA provides, like you need to pass an oral language test, a reading test, etc. My understanding is that the state tells us what the criteria are. (Ms. Silva)
However, leaders varied in whether and how they factored teacher evaluations into reclassification decisions, at times enabling social justice for students, and at other times obstructing it.
Two leaders, Ms. Jones and Ms. Gómez, did not incorporate teachers’ subjective evaluations into reclassification decisions at all. They never discussed or mentioned subjective teacher evaluation data, only examining objective assessment data. They seemed to miss an important opportunity to get a more nuanced understanding of student performance, thereby reducing their ability to advocate for what services would be best for students in the future.
Another two leaders, Mr. Ochoa and Ms. Álvarez, made it clear that their LPACs made reclassification decisions solely based on objective assessment data because they saw these data as the most valid, but that they valued teachers’ subjective input because they could use it to get more information on what they could do for students who had not met objective criteria. For example, Mr. Ochoa explained that his LPAC focuses on the objective assessment data because they view these as more valid than subjective data, “We base [reclassification decisions] on data . . . it’s not opinions. It is based on results. It is based on information.” However, they also saw value in teachers’ subjective evaluations to contextualize the objective assessment data and make service recommendations for the student the next year. Despite the fact that teachers’ opinions were not factored into reclassification decisions, Ms. Álvarez explained her belief that teachers’ voices provided important information that would have otherwise been lacking: “How can you hold the LPAC meeting without the classroom teachers?” While incorporating subjective teacher evaluations to contextualize objective assessment data took more time, these school leaders were able to gather more information on students, allowing the LPACs to make better recommendations about services students would receive the next year.
Two leaders incorporated teachers’ subjective evaluations as a way of confirming objective assessment data for each student who had met objective assessment criteria. Ms. Silva and Ms. Guerrero asked teachers to provide written input that the LPAC could review. Our observations revealed that teachers’ subjective evaluations in these schools largely referred back to performance on objective assessments, so there was never a case where the subjective teacher evaluation was in conflict with objective assessment data. These leaders seemed interested in making sure that they had written documentation of subjective input from teachers when they had made the decision to reclassify a student. Notably absent were subjective teacher evaluations for students who had not met objective assessment criteria, arguably the most critical students on whom to get more information.
Finally, two leaders, Ms. Wilson and Mr. Garza, gave subjective teacher evaluations much more weight than their counterparts in other schools. As Ms. Wilson shared,
We also want to get a good picture of the kids, so we’ll go by that [objective] criteria because we have to, but we are also going to look at that teacher input, look at those grades, and really the one thing we do is talk to the teacher and ask, “Do you feel as if this child is going to be just as successful in the regular ed class?” That is really the goal, and if you can honestly say yes, then great. If not, we might have to go back and look.
During our observations, it was frequently the case that students met objective criteria, but their classroom teacher recommended against being reclassified for a host of different reasons including discipline problems, quiet personality, and being behind on demonstrating leadership behaviors. These school leaders always deferred to the teacher recommendation regardless of whether or not the data were actually relevant to the reclassification process. During our observations, we saw these LPACs decide against reclassifying multiple students who had met, and often exceeded, all objective assessment criteria because their teachers recommended against it. It is interesting to note that had these students attended any of the other six schools in our sample, they likely would have been reclassified. By choosing to only focus on the one piece of data that pointed out a student’s deficit (per their classroom teacher) and ignoring all the data that pointed to the student’s assets, these leaders seemed to obstruct social justice.
Channel 3: Incorporating Policy Changes
School leaders tracked reclassification policy changes and decided how they would be integrated into the reclassification process. In the year of our study, there had been a change to the linguistic accommodation policy (refer to paragraph 4 of the “Study Context: Texas” section). School leaders monitored this policy change to differing degrees, so their awareness of the policy change varied. Moreover, leaders took different approaches to incorporating the policy change into the process. The ways leaders dealt with the policy change both enabled and obstructed social justice.
Two school leaders, Mr. Ochoa and Mr. Garza, took a purposeful and proactive approach to implementing the linguistic accommodation policy change. Both these leaders took it upon themselves to stay abreast of the latest policy developments by attending trainings provided by their district or education service center and were comfortable seeking clarification on questions that arose about the policy change. They used the knowledge they acquired to generate a careful and thoughtful plan to incorporate the policy change seamlessly into existing practice. Mr. Ochoa explained that he gleaned information on the new policy through training provided by the district at the beginning of the year. Rather than just attending himself, he chose to include the other LPAC members in the training so they could build collective awareness about the policy change early on. Then Mr. Ochoa convened the LPAC in October to discuss how they would go about assigning linguistic accommodations and suggested that they not only get recommendations from classroom teachers as they had in the past but also try a new approach to collect more data on whether or not students actually needed linguistic accommodations. This new approach consisted of providing EL students with all linguistic accommodations on a “mock test”—“a released test that the states provide the schools”—that students took in January and asking teachers to monitor students’ actual use of these accommodations during the test. As one LPAC member reported, Mr. Ochoa’s creative use of the mock test was worthwhile because
Teachers did come back and say, “You know what, I think I’m going to change a couple [of linguistic accommodation recommendations].” When they see, “okay even though I gave them the accommodations during the mock, they didn’t really use them,” and that is probably why they changed their recommendation.
In another school, the school leader also got ahead of the policy change and planned accordingly. As Mr. Garza explained,
We just have to be very aware of the changes because if you don’t know them, you can be out of compliance on a lot. . . . One of the things that changed this year was if students received any linguistic accommodations on state exams that automatically does not allow them to exit. So, we took that into account when we were determining accommodations for exams.
Mr. Garza described learning about the linguistic accommodations policy change during a beginning-of-the year meeting with his district’s director of bilingual education and getting regular reminders about it during their monthly, hour-long check-in meetings. His approach to implementing the policy change was to routinely meet with ELs’ classroom teachers to help them understand the ramifications of linguistic accommodations and help them think through whether or not students actually need them. As Mr. Garza explained,
I did tell the teacher that, keep in mind that if Juan, for example, were to have gotten extra time, he wouldn’t have been eligible to exit . . . even with advanced high. Even with straight A’s. So, we took that into account also.
Throughout the year, Mr. Garza encouraged teachers to try out different linguistic accommodations to gauge what helped students:
Offer them the dictionaries at the beginning of the school year [. . .]are they using it? Are they not using it? Will it benefit them or will it hinder them during the test? Because if they are going to take 15 minutes to find a word, it might not be too useful. But we have some students that will rely on it and be able to see the word in Spanish and go “oh, I get it now” and they use it to their advantage.
In situations where Mr. Garza felt that teachers were assigning linguistic accommodations too frequently, he took time to confer with teachers:
We look at last year—I asked [the teacher], “how did students do last year on it?” “Well, a lot of students finished early,” she said. Because when this accommodation first came up, “oh no let’s give them extra time, let’s give them extra time.” And then we saw that that wasn’t necessary, so we took that into account as well.
Both Mr. Ochoa and Mr. Garza worked diligently and thoughtfully to integrate the linguistic accommodation policy change in a way that was in line with the spirit of the policy change, which was to encourage schools to provide linguistic accommodations to students who really needed them. Their approaches, while different, kept student needs at the center of the way they implemented the policy change and reflected social justice–oriented leadership.
Unlike school leaders who took a purposeful and proactive approach to integrating the new linguistic accommodation policy into their practice, two leaders were aware of the policy change but chose not to alter their use of linguistic accommodations because of concerns in other areas. Specifically, both leaders were preoccupied about writing assessments and felt that student performance could suffer if ELs were not given linguistic accommodations. Ms. Silva explained that she was very aware of the policy change: “At every [LPAC] training that I went to . . . [the district] gave us the form with the criteria. [The linguistic accommodations policy change] was at the bottom, they highlighted it and shared it with us.” Despite being aware, her administrative team encouraged teachers to prioritize using linguistic accommodations to improve academic performance:
If they need linguistic accommodations, use them. We aren’t going to worry about they are not going to exit—consider what the child needs. So that has been communicated to the teachers. That is why I think we are one of the campuses that uses accommodations the most.
Ms. Álvarez indicated that at her school, concerns voiced by teachers had compelled her to continue to make frequent use of linguistic accommodations: “teachers are scared about not using linguistic accommodations . . . what if students don’t pass the [reading or writing] test?”
In both schools, leaders chose to prioritize academic performance over reclassification: If linguistic accommodations could help a student score higher on reading or writing assessments, that took precedent. Unlike leaders who took a purposeful and proactive approach to integrating the policy change, these leaders were unable or unwilling to figure out a way to reconcile what they viewed as two competing priorities. Consequently, linguistic accommodations were given to a number of students who likely did not need them. During our observations, we witnessed multiple students who met exit criteria but were not considered for reclassification because of the fact that they had been given linguistic accommodations, seemingly obstructing social justice for these students.
Finally, some school leaders were caught off guard by the policy change; they were either unaware that the policy had changed or misunderstood the implications of the policy change. These school leaders—Ms. Gómez, Ms. Guerrero, Ms. Jones, and Ms. Wilson—came to understand the new policy and its implications at the end-of-year LPAC meeting. For example, Ms. Jones expressed discontent that she found out about policy change so late:
Now we just got another [policy change] about [giving students] extended time. TEA is constantly changing the criteria and it is going to change for next year. So, as a campus we need to keep up to date. As a district, I think we need to keep up to date with the changes that are going on. . . . I would say we would definitely benefit from more frequent information and training on what policy changes there are within the state.
These school leaders were forced to react to the way linguistic accommodations had been used at their school, often lamenting not receiving more information earlier and regretting that they had given way too many students linguistic accommodations. Despite recognizing the impact of overassigning linguistic accommodations (sometimes entire grade levels of students were given linguistic accommodations), Ms. Jones was resigned to accepting the error, indicating that they would be out of compliance with state policy if they considered reclassifying students who had been given linguistic accommodations, even if they did not use them.
Interestingly, one leader, Ms. Guerrero, sought to correct her school’s overuse of linguistic accommodations. Ms. Guerrero was unsettled by how many students had met all academic achievement and English proficiency reclassification requirements but had been provided linguistic accommodations for the reading and/or writing achievement tests. She was particularly perturbed by the students who had well exceeded reclassification requirements, such as those who received commended performance on the reading or writing exam but were ineligible for reclassification because of linguistic accommodations. Noting that it was an “error” that so many students had been assigned linguistic accommodations, she decided to investigate whether students had actually used the accommodations, explaining to the other LPAC committee members that “relying on the accommodations is what would be a sign that a student is not ready to be reclassified, not just whether or not a student had a bilingual dictionary or extra time at their disposal.” Ms. Guerrero summoned each teacher who had a student who had met objective assessment criteria but had linguistic accommodations to the LPAC meeting. She spoke with each teacher about his or her student, asking “We are considering whether this student is ready to be reclassified. He demonstrated proficiency on his reading and writing assessments but was given linguistic accommodations. Did he use the linguistic accommodations during the test?”
In cases where the teacher indicated that the student relied on the accommodation to be successful (e.g., “Without the bilingual dictionary, this test would have been a disaster for Miguel. He’s not ready to exit.”), Ms. Guerrero suggested the LPAC to keep the student classified as an EL; but, in instances where teachers said the student did not need the accommodations (e.g., “Diana was one of the first students to complete both the reading and writing test and the bilingual dictionary sat under her desk the whole time. On top of that, she got commended performance. She’s beyond ready to exit.”), Ms. Guerrero instructed the LPAC to go ahead and reclassify the student because it was “the right thing to do—it doesn’t make sense to keep a student classified as an EL if the services are no longer beneficial.” Ms. Guerrero also explained that she was comfortable defying the policy that students who had access to linguistic accommodations could not be reclassified because she was “correcting an earlier error—these students never should have been given extra time or a bilingual dictionary, so I’m documenting this clearly in their records in case we get questions down the road.” Thus, Ms. Guerrero prioritized doing what she felt was right for students over ensuring compliance with the letter of the law. Ms. Guerrero’s willingness to probe whether or not students had actually used linguistic accommodations allowed her LPAC to reclassify students who otherwise would have remained ELs. She drew upon her knowledge about EL programs and recognized that continuing to provide language development services to students who no longer needed them would not be helpful. She was willing to risk being out of compliance because her focus was on what was best for students.
Findings Summary
The decisions leaders make across these three channels of influence—LPAC meeting agenda, prioritization of data sources, and incorporating policy changes—appear to directly connect to reclassification outcomes for students. Given the stakes associated with reclassifying students too soon or too late, it is evident that these three channels of influence are key to school leaders’ implementation of EL reclassification policy, which, in turn, has the potential to affect individual students’ trajectories. Yet school leaders neither seem to be aware of the sway they have over the reclassification process nor do they recognize how much their decisions matter. As Mr. Ochoa said, “We don’t play any role in interpreting state policy—not at all.” Instead, school leaders framed the work they do in terms of complying with state policies that allowed little room for interpretation:
We play by the book. (Ms. Wilson)
. . . keeping in line with what the state requires. (Mr. Garza)
We follow through with state mandates. (Ms. Silva)
Very much about complying with state criteria. (Ms. Jones)
What our data demonstrate is that school leaders go about implementing state EL reclassification policy in very different ways and have much more leeway than they think they do. Within this leeway, school leaders both enable and obstruct practices that reflect social justice.
Our findings demonstrate that school leaders play a critical role in the implementation of state EL reclassification policy. The actions they take and decisions they make throughout the entire school year not only affect whether a student is reclassified but also the extent to which the academic needs of EL students are given adequate attention by educators who are positioned to support their academic growth. Our data reveal that school leaders at times use their channels of influence to enact social justice through reclassification policy implementation. Examples of how school leaders enabled or obstructed social justice are summarized in Table 2.
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Table 2. Examples of Social Justice Enactment and Obstruction Across School Leaders’ Channels of Influence.
Specifically, we see instances where leaders draw upon their knowledge and experience working with ELs to inform how they approach reclassification, take an asset-based approach that emphasizes students’ strengths when making reclassification decisions, and allocate time and resources to facilitate the reclassification decision-making process. Conversely, our data also indicate that at times school leaders seemingly unintentionally use their channels of influence to obstruct social justice during the reclassification policy implementation process. In these instances, school leaders have little knowledge or experience working with EL students, take a more deficit-oriented approach that ignores students’ strengths when making reclassification decisions, and do not devote the necessary time and/or resources to the reclassification process or spend time inefficiently.
Toward a Framework for Policy Implementation as Social Justice
In what follows, we discuss how our findings build on current perceptions of social justice leadership. Subsequently, we leverage our findings to propose an empirically based framework that school leaders could use as they strive to enact social justice through policy implementation.
The body of literature that defines and describes school leadership for social justice is rapidly expanding. As displayed in Table 3, researchers have provided many different illustrations of school leadership for social justice. This research suggests that there are indeed leaders who have been successful in advocating for and enacting social justice in their schools. Yet the literature also cautions that many school leaders espouse beliefs and articulate a commitment to social justice, but in reality often separate social justice from daily practices that affect students directly (Merchant & Shoho, 2006). Scholars suggest that some of the disconnect between social justice beliefs and actions among school leaders can be attributed to a lack of preservice training focused on preparing school leaders to engage in social justice or equity work (Bell, Jones, & Johnson, 2002; Brown, 2004; Henze, Katz, Norte, & Sather, 2002; Lyman & Villani, 2002; Marshall, 2004; Rapp, 2002; Rusch, 2004). Moreover, school leaders face multiple demands at the school and district level that can make it difficult to focus on social justice work, including “obstructive staff attitudes and beliefs and insular and privileged parental expectations” and “unsupportive central office administrators, a formidable bureaucracy, prosaic colleagues, [and] a lack of resources” (Theoharis, 2007, p. 240).
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Table 3. Literature on School Leadership for Social Justice.
Scholars have only recently begun to offer some tools to help school leaders work toward leadership for social justice. For example, some scholars have developed tools aimed to help school leaders pinpoint areas of their school or district that may be inequitable that can then be used to drive positive change (Frattura & Capper, 2007; Scheurich & Skrla, 2003; Skrla et al., 2004, 2010). Others have offered tools to measure school-wide values related to cultural competency (Bustamante, Nelson, & Onwuegbuzie, 2009) and awareness of social justice teaching and learning among staff (Kose, 2007). Nonetheless, the literature is surprisingly thin and relatively abstract when it comes to specific practices and actions that school leaders can engage in to address social justice issues (Furman, 2012). Moreover, there is effectively no literature that focuses on providing a tool for school leaders to take a social justice approach to their important role in implementing policy.
Given this gap in the literature, we draw upon our findings to propose a contemporary framework for policy implementation for social justice previewed earlier in Figure 1. In doing so, we seek to provide guidance on how leaders can take proactive and purposeful steps to do this through policy implementation. The framework we present centers on two criteria: depth of policy understanding and approach to policy implementation.
Policy Understanding: Perfunctory Versus Deep
A deep understanding of policy begins with basic awareness of the policy elements that must be completed to comply with the law. This understanding of the letter of the law is necessary, but not sufficient, to enabling social justice through policy implementation. School leaders with deep policy understanding also recognize the underlying purpose of the policy and are able to see where the policy allows for local flexibility and innovation. Additionally, school leaders with deep understanding proactively seek out information on policy changes that may affect implementation processes. Without basic knowledge of the policy and recent changes, it is difficult to be aware of areas where flexibility is available to engage in actions and decisions that focus on improving educational opportunities for underserved students. In contrast, perfunctory understanding of policy stops at and sometimes does not even include awareness of basic policy elements that must be completed to comply with the policy. Leaders who demonstrate perfunctory policy understanding are unable to decipher which aspects of the policy are flexible or allow for innovation because their understanding lacks nuance. Consequently, opportunities to enable social justice during the policy implementation process are often missed by those with a perfunctory understanding of policy.
Approach to Policy Implementation: Technical Versus Transformative
School leaders who approach policy implementation from a transformative perspective see policy as a mechanism to enhance educational opportunity. They do not view themselves merely as policy compliers, but instead use the policy as a vehicle to transform education for students. Leaders who use policy for transformative purposes are empowered to engage in actions and make decisions about policy implementation. As such, they often implement policy in a way that enables social justice for students. In contrast, school leaders who take a technical approach to policy implementation are primarily focused on complying with concrete elements of the policy rather than leveraging the policy to better serve students. This approach is similar to findings from Bray and Russell’s (2016) study of IEP policy implementation. Like Bray and Russell (2016), we contend that state policy is powerful in that it can compel policy implementers to follow a highly regulated protocol in order to avoid the threat of being out of compliance with law. Such pressure to act in accordance to expectations set by a governing organization—also known as coercive isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983)—may lead to lost opportunities to engage in implementation that enables social justice. To enable social justice, school leaders must be able to look beyond the institutionalized structure of the state policy.
Framework Application: EL Reclassification Policy Implementation for Social Justice
We situate the eight school leaders in our study in this framework based on their depth of understanding of EL reclassification policy and approach to reclassification policy implementation in Figure 2. When taken together, school leaders with a deep understanding of the policy and a transformative approach to policy implementation (upper right quadrant of Figure 2) are well positioned to enable social justice in the policy implementation process.
Mr. Ochoa is the leader who emerged with the highest level of policy understanding and most transformative approach. He understood that the purpose of the policy was to go well beyond compliance: “We are really taking time to look at what we are doing and not just say, ‘Okay, we had an LPAC meeting. Where are the notes?’ We are really collecting information and making important decisions.” He set aside an entire day for his LPAC to meet and discuss each individual student’s progress, incorporated subjective teacher evaluation data to gather information on what services would best serve each EL student the following academic year, and seamlessly incorporated linguistic accommodation policy changes into his school’s process.
We also located Ms. Álvarez in this quadrant but at a slightly lower level of policy understanding and level of transformation. Ms. Álvarez generally demonstrated a good understanding of the underlying purpose of the policy as demonstrated by her desire to review each EL student holistically and incorporate feedback from each student’s classroom teacher. However, she struggled to navigate and effectively enact linguistic accommodation policy changes. Unable to assuage teachers’ concerns about fear of students not passing tests because they did not have linguistic accommodations, a number of students in her school were given linguistic accommodations despite not needing them, thereby limiting the potential for this policy to be transformative for this group of students. Similarly, Ms. Guerrero generally had a solid understanding of the intentions of the policy and worked to implement it in transformative ways. Her depth of understanding was particularly pronounced when she realized that linguistic accommodations had been overutilized at her school and that not considering so many ELs for reclassification went against the spirit of the policy and therefore had to be addressed. Yet like Ms. Álvarez, Ms. Guerrero’s approach to policy implementation was less transformative in one way—that she chose to use meeting time reading aloud prepopulated score forms rather than discussing each student.
Based on the findings, we assert that several factors could support a school leader being in this quadrant. First, in addition to human and fiscal resources, school leaders must be willing to allocate quality time to the policy implementation process. Time should be spent meaningfully and purposefully with the student at the center of conversation. When possible, activities associated with complying with the technical components of the policy should be streamlined so that time can instead be spent on the aspects of the policy that have the potential to transform education for students.
Second, school leaders who demonstrate a deep understanding of policy and seek to leverage policy to transform education for students also take an asset-based approach to students. When implementing policies that include making decisions about students’ future academic trajectories, school leaders in the upper right quadrant focus on ways to support the student and hold firm conviction that all students can learn. An important subcomponent of this asset-based approach is having knowledge of and experience with both the needs of the students being considered as well as the research base related to the student population and the ways in which decisions made about students affect their future education opportunities.
Third, school leaders in the upper right quadrant proactively seek out policy information and training. Of note, these leaders had access to district training and support, as well as continuous communication, about state policy and policy changes. Leaders in this quadrant are empowered to look beyond the boundaries of policy and implement policy in a way that not only complies with the letter of the law but, more important, reflects the spirit of the law.
Our data also suggest that not all opportunity to enable social justice is lost if the school leader does not initially understand technical elements of the policy—especially newly introduced technical elements. So long as the leader demonstrates a deep understanding of the underlying purpose and spirit of the law and seeks to use policy to transform education for students, he or she will likely be able to correct policy implementation errors in a way that is consistent with the intentions of the policy. Sometimes course corrections have to happen along the way, just as Ms. Guerrero, who initially was unaware of the changes to technical elements of the linguistic accommodation policy, sought out additional information from teachers to better understand whether the students who met objective reclassification materials used the accommodations that were provided to them. School leaders who enable social justice are able to think beyond the boundaries of technical policy elements and “recognize structures that pose barriers to students’ progress” (McKenzie et al., 2008). While this may entail some risk on the school leader’s part, taking detailed, purposeful steps, including documenting all decisions and actions can allow leaders to explain that policy implementation actions are driven by a desire to make improvement for students and are consistent with the underlying goals of the policy.
In contrast, school leaders who embody a deep understanding of the policy and took a technical approach to policy implementation (bottom right quadrant of Figure 2) seem unable to get beyond a focus on complying with the policy. Although they understand the policy’s underlying goals, their practices focus on letter of the law implementation. This may be because they are paralyzed by fear of taking a more transformative approach due to concerns about complying with the policy or competing priorities. In addition, they may simply lack the motivation to reexamine their institutionalized implementation routines. Mr. Garza understood that “the purpose of the LPAC is for students whose language is other than English, we need to provide them with services to meet their needs” yet the way he implemented reclassification policy focused on efficiency and did not build in time to consider each student’s learning needs. For example, he enthusiastically showed us how he had figured out a way to photocopy signatures onto each student’s paperwork, describing this as a way of working “smarter.” Similarly, Ms. Silva displayed her difficulty translating deep understanding into transformative practices. While she set aside an entire day for her LPAC to convene, they spent time filling out forms by hand. She lamented,
Ideally we would be discussing every child, but realistically with the amount of time that we have, we haven’t been able to do that . . . I’m curious how it works in other places and if there is a better way.
School leaders who have a perfunctory understanding of the law and take a technical approach to policy implementation (bottom left quadrant of Figure 2) face many barriers in implementing policy in a way that enables social justice. School leaders in this quadrant are more concerned with compliance procedures and are unaware of areas of flexibility that afford opportunities to implement the policy so as to promote equity in education. Both Ms. Gómez and Ms. Jones wanted to expand educational opportunity for their EL students in general but were unable to do so through EL reclassification policy implementation because they lacked familiarity and fluency with the policy. Seemingly overwhelmed by the task at hand, neither of them was willing to incorporate any subjective evaluations from teachers into LPAC meetings at all, missing an important opportunity to get a more nuanced understanding of student performance. Conversely, Ms. Wilson overemphasized teachers’ recommendations against exiting students even when they were based on data that had nothing to do with English proficiency or academic achievement (e.g., discipline, personality traits). Her lack of understanding allowed her to focus exclusively on data that pointed out students’ weaker areas, ignoring all objective assessment data showing strengths.
Interestingly, we did not identify any examples of school leaders who embodied a perfunctory understanding of the policy and took a transformative approach to policy implementation (upper left quadrant of Figure 2). While more research may be warranted, we posit that if school leaders only demonstrate perfunctory understanding of the purpose and goals of the policy, they are effectively barred from making intentional decisions that lead to transformative outcomes for students. To be sure, school leaders may coincidentally make decisions and take actions that lead to transformative outcomes for EL students without full knowledge of the spirit of the law. However, we contend that intentionality is an important aspect of school leadership for social justice. The best possible conditions under which EL students will have access to equitable opportunities is when school leaders are intentional, demonstrating both in-depth knowledge of policies and taking a transformative approach to implementation.
Policy Implementation for Social Justice: Guiding Questions for School Leaders
Based on our findings and other literature on policy implementation, we encourage school leaders to work toward this deep understanding and transformative approach to policy implementation since this combination allows leaders to leverage policy implementation to enable social justice for their students. In particular, Callahan and Shifrer (2016) point to school leaders’ profound ability to “identify and articulate what EL student success looks like in practice” (p. 489). By coupling Callahan and Shifrer’s (2016) call for better designed and implemented EL instructional programs through the use of course taking with our call for a deep understanding and transformative approach to EL reclassification policy, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners may begin to initiate rich discussions of the multifaceted experiences of EL students and begin to identify junctures in policy interpretation and implementation processes that may either produce inequities in educational opportunities available to ELs or facilitate social justice in their schools.
In an effort to help leaders more closely examine their policy interpretation and implementation practices, we offer a series of questions in Table 4. While some questions should be considered before, during, or after a policy is implemented, we urge school leaders to revisit these questions multiple times each school year, as they provide important continuous check-ins to support policy implementation for social justice. Finally, school leaders could benefit from considering these questions in collaboration with other school and district leaders.
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Table 4. Guiding Questions for School Leaders.
Conclusion
While federal and state policies are often criticized because they are assumed to constrain local control, our examination of reclassification policy implementation demonstrates that school leaders exert substantial influence over how policy is enacted in their schools. School leaders shape reclassification policy implementation by controlling the meeting agenda, prioritizing different data sources, and integrating policy changes. While school leaders are tasked with implementing different education policies every day, our study shows that school leaders may not be aware of the potential for policy implementation to serve as a mechanism to enable social justice in their schools, thereby overlooking a valuable opportunity to expand educational opportunity for underserved students such as ELs. In an effort to help school leaders see opportunities to use policy implementation to expand equity in their schools, we built upon our findings to put forth a framework for policy implementation as social justice. Moving forward, it will be important for other researchers to continue to build upon and critique this framework by exploring how school leaders implement other types of educational policies, including those that are designed to promote equity for other groups of underserved students (e.g., policies guiding the IEP process for students with special needs) as well as more general educational policies (e.g., teacher evaluation).
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the eight schools that partnered with us on this research project. We wish to recognize and thank the anonymous participants in our study for taking the time to speak with us.
Authors’ Note
All opinions expressed in this article represent those of the authors and not necessarily the institutions with which the authors are affiliated. All errors in this article are solely the responsibility of the authors.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support was provided to Madeline Mavrogordato and Rachel S. White by the Education Policy Center, Department of Educational Administration, and College of Education at Michigan State University.
Notes
1.
In this study, we focus on school leaders who are in formal leadership positions such as principals or assistant principals. We recognize that teacher leaders likely also play an important role in policy implementation but choose to focus on leaders in formal administrative positions because of their ability to influence the policy implementation process through their positional authority.
2.
While districts that serve ELs are required to establish one LPAC, it is often the case that districts opt to create LPACs at the school level instead of the district level, particularly, in schools that serve a large number of EL students.
ORCID iD
Madeline Mavrogordato 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5401-8877
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Author Biographies
Madeline Mavrogordato is an associate professor of K-12 educational administration in the College of Education at Michigan State University. She uses mixed methods to investigate how district, state, and federal policies; systems of school governance; and school leadership practices affect educational outcomes for underserved students, particularly English learners and immigrants.
Rachel S. White is an assistant professor of Educational Foundations and Leadership in the College of Education and Professional Studies at Old Dominion University. She uses mixed methods to examine topics related to state education governance, politics, policy making, and policy implementation.
