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C H A P T E R 7T h e I l i n o i s R e p o r t 2 0 1 2

The Illinois Report 2012

Although the education policy landscape inIllinois is quickly changing, it is far from cer-tain whether these changes will improve theeducational opportunities that students willreceive. Illinois has recently enacted a rangeof legislation aimed at improving schools,including laws focused on developing a lon-gitudinal education data system, encourag-ing alternative certification programs forteachers, evaluating teachers and principalsbased on their performance, increasing thenumber of charter schools in the state, andconsolidating school districts.1 During thistime, the Illinois State Board of Education(ISBE) has also pledged to adopt the Com-mon Core State Standards in mathematicsand English language arts, which are beingdeveloped by a multi-state consortium.2While Illinois adopted many of these initia-tives in a failed effort to win funds from thefederal Race to the Top (RTTT) competition,some of these initiatives were driven by apush to improve education fromwithin thestate.3 With another RTTT application cycleon the horizon and the impending reautho-rization of the federal No Child Left BehindAct (NCLB), Illinois likely faces another se-ries of considerable education policychanges in the near future.

The problems and pitfalls we are con-cerned with in this chapter are those asso-ciated with policy incoherence—thetensions, dilemmas, and conflicts thatresult when different federal, state, anddistrict education reform policies and pro-grams that are not aligned converge at theschool and classroom levels. We beginwith a brief overview of this problem ofpolicy incoherence and evidence of its ef-fects. We then turn to the logic and benefitsof policy coherence. This discussion isfollowed by a look at a concrete “case” ofeducator workforce development policy inIllinois, particularly because this area is thetarget of many of the state’s recent efforts.We conclude with a discussion of ap-proaches to achieve greater educationpolicy coherence in general and withrespect to our case of workforce develop-ment policy. Overall, we argue that Illinoisis generally moving in the right directionby focusing on improving the educatorworkforce. However, the state still facessignificant problems, especially groupedaround issues of policy incoherence.Unfortunately, addressing such problemsstands in stark contrast to the actions re-cently taken by state.

The Challenging Road to Coherencein Illinois Education PolicyBy BenjaminM. Superfine, Mark A. Smylie, Marlon I. Cummings, and Steven Tozer

1 Illinois Public Act96-0107, RetrivedOct. 25, 2011 fromhttp://ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/PDF/096-0107.pdf;Illinois Public Act96-0862, SchoolCode, Section 5.Retrived Oct. 25,2011 fromhttp://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96-0862; Illinois PublicAct 096-0861,Retrieved Oct. 25,2011 fromhttp://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/PDF/096-0861.pdf,;Illinois Public Act96-0105, SchoolCode, Section 5.Retrieved Oct. 25,2011 fromhttp://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/PDF/096-0105.pdf;Illinois Public Act97-0503, SchoolCode, Section 5.Retrieved Oct. 25,2011 fromhttp://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/97/PDF/097-0503.pdf.

2 Honig, M. I. & Hatch,T. C. (2004) “Craft-ing coherence:How schools strate-gically managemultiple, eternaldemands.”Educa-tional Researcher,33:8, 16-30.

3 The AmericanRecovery and Rein-vestment Act of2009, P.L. 111-5,Sec. 14006. Re-trieved Oct. 31,2011 from http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html.

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BenjaminM. Superfine,College of Education,UIC

Mark A. Smylie,College of Education,UIC

Marlon I. Cummings,College of Education,UIC

Steven Tozer,College of Education,UIC

The Problem of Policy Incoherence

During the past 50 years, education poli-cies have proliferated at the federal, stateand local levels, and the rate of prolifera-tion has accelerated substantially in thepast 20 years. According to researchersMeredith Honig and Thomas Hatch,schools now face a growing “barrage ofdemands” from several sources, includingfederal and state governments, local schoolboards, unions and community groups.4They observe that these demands focus onnumerous aspects of schooling, rangingfrom curriculum and instruction, the useof time, testing, accountability, manage-ment, parent involvement, and a numberof aspects of education workforce develop-ment from initial preparation to certifica-tion and licensure to evaluation andcompensation to professional develop-ment, tenure and retention. While myriaddemands from multiple policies originat-ing from different levels of the educationsystem may provide new opportunities forimprovement, they also pose substantialrisk to improvement because of what someobservers call a heightened state of policyincoherence.5

University of Washington Professor M.S.Knapp and his colleagues contend that dif-ferent policies can “converge” on schoolsin several different ways.6 One is by wayof mutual reinforcement. That is, differentpolicies can complement each other andthus be mutually reinforcing. They wouldconverge in alignment with each other.This form of convergence is what might beexpected when policies cohere around sim-ilar goals, strategies, and resource de-mands. Another way that policies canconverge on schools is by way of interfer-ence. Policies can converge on schools inconflict and contradiction. They can get ineach other’s way and pull schools in differ-ent directions. This form of convergence iswhat might be expected when policies lackcoherence around goals, strategies, and re-source demands. A third way the policies

can converge on schools is by accumula-tion and overload. Whether coherent or in-coherent, different policies can “pile up” asthey converge, overburdening schools andswamping them with additional responsi-bilities.

When multiple policies and reforms con-verge on schools, we might expect the in-troduction of a wide range of challengesand demands.7 We would expect thesechallenges and demands to be muchgreater under a condition of policy inco-herence and where accumulation andoverload are beyond the ability of a schoolto manage well. Of course, the net effectsof convergence, be they positive or nega-tive, are likely to be contingent on the ca-pacity of the school and its leadership tomanage and mediate these challenges anddemands.8 These include increases in thenumber of responsibilities for professionalstaff, escalation in demands on time, chal-lenges and trade-offs to the allocation oftime and effort, increases in demand fornew knowledge and skills, questions re-garding the goals of the school and goalsfor schooling, prospects for goal and roleambiguity and conflict, questions regard-ing the nature and function of professionalroles, increases in overall responsibilityand accountability, and expansion ofsources and forms of responsibility and ac-countability. Under conditions of policy in-coherence, school personnel accordinglymust balance “all manner of contrary ten-dencies” and may experience a sense offrustration, fear and heightened stress.9

There is a good bit of empirical evidence ofthe negative effects of policy incoherenceon schools. Early research on the individ-ual and aggregate effects of multiple fed-eral categorical programs on school anddistrict operations found that policy inco-herence was associated with substantialprogram “interference” and “cross-sub-sidy,” which compromised the implemen-tation and effects of these programs.10These programs not only interfered with74


4 Honig, M. I. & Hatch,T. C. (2004) “Craft-ing coherence:How schools strate-gically managemultiple, eternaldemands.”Educa-tional Researcher,33:8, 16-30.

5 Susan Fuhrman(Ed.). (1993).Designing coherenteducation policy.San Francisco:Jossey Bass.

6 Knapp, M. S.,Bamburg, J. D.,Ferguson, M. C.,Hill, P. T. (1998).“Convergingreforms and theworking lives offrontline profes-sionals in schools.”Educational Policy,12:4, 397-418.

7 Ibid.

8 Honig, M. I. & Hatch,T. C. (2004) “Craft-ing Coherence:How schools strate-gically managemultiple, eternaldemands.”Educa-tional Researcher,33:8, 16-30.; Knapp,M. S., Bamburg, J.D., Ferguson, M. C.,Hill, P. T. (1998).“Convergingreforms and theworking lives offrontline profes-sionals in schools.”Educational Policy,12:4, 397-418.

9 Cohen, D. K. & Ball,D. L. (1990) “Rela-tions between pol-icy and practice: Acommentary.”Edu-cational Evaluationand Policy Analysis,12: 334.

10 Kimbrough, J. &Hill, P. T. (1981). TheAggregate Effects ofFederal EducationPrograms. SantaMonica, CA: Rand.

each other, they interfered with basicschool-level operations and instructionalprograms. Moreover, schools and districtsfound that they had to reallocate resourcesfrom categorical programs and from gen-eral operating funds to meet implementa-tion demands. More recently, research hasfound that “cluttered and contradictory”federal, state, and district policy initiativesare associated with fragmentation andcompromise improvement at the schoollevel.11 This “collision” of external policyand local school improvement efforts is il-lustrated well in research on accountabilityreform in the Chicago Public Schools,where the rise of student testing and high-stakes-student school accountability poli-cies from the central office swampedschool-based improvement effortsgrounded in local collaborative, develop-ment-oriented projects, such as theChicago Annenberg Challenge.12

The problems of incoherence are also evi-dent in studies of schools trying to importand implement several improvement pro-grams and services. For example, researchon school reform in the Chicago PublicSchools from the Consortium on ChicagoSchool Research identified the problem of“Christmas tree schools.”13 These areschools with myriad program and prac-tices that vary widely in content, purpose,and methods. While individual programsand practices may have their own strength

and integrity, they do not cohere as agroup and many may conflict, renderingtheir impact minimal or even negative.

The Logic and Benefits of Coherence

Just as education policy incoherence can beseen as a source of problems for schools,policy coherence can be beneficial. Thelogic of policy coherence is analogous tothe logic of component “fit” in organiza-tion theory. Fit is the degree to which anorganizational component is consistentwith or congruent with another. Most or-ganizational theories of fit contend thatwhen organizations achieve fit amongcomponents, they are more efficient andmore effective relative to when a lack of fit,a misalignment, or a conflict exists. Theidea of coherence is also considered aproblem of policy design and is premisedon the idea that multiple policies can bedeveloped around a common focus or ob-jective.14 The primary example of such ef-fort was the development of system andstandards-based reform policies of the1980s and 1990s.15 The logic is that thealignment of standards, curricula, and as-sessments by states and districts couldhelp reduce the number of potentially con-flicting demands on schools and focusschools in a more singular direction.

Although most of the research on educationpolicy coherence focuses on the problems

Institute of Government & Public Affairs

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More recently,research hasfound that“cluttered andcontradictory”federal, state,and districtpolicyinitiatives areassociatedwithfragmentationandcompromiseimprovementat the schoollevel.

11 Newmann, F. M., Smith, B. A., Allensworth, E. & Bryk, A. S. (2001). “Instructional program coherence: What it is andwhy it should guide school improvement policy.”Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23:4, 297-321.

12 Smylie, M. & Wenzel, S. A. (2003). “The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: Successes, failures, and lessons for thefuture.”Final Technical Report of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Research Project. Chicago: Consortium onChicago School Resesarch; Lipman, P. (2002). “Making the global city, Making inequality: The political economyand cultural politics of Chicago school policy.”American Educational Research Journal, 39, 379-418.; O’Day, J..“Complexity, Accountability, and School Improvement.”Harvard Educational Review, 72:3, 293-329.

13 Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., Kerbow, D., Rollow, S. & Easton, J. Q.. (1998). Charting Chicago School Reform: Democraticlocalism as a lever for change. Boulder, CO: Westview Press (1998).

14 Honig, M. I. & Hatch, T. C. (2004) “Crafting coherence: How schools strategically manage multiple, eternaldemands.”Educational Researcher, 33:8, 16-30.

15 Ibid.

associated with incoherence, there is someevidence of the benefits of policy coherence.In contrast to the “Christmas tree schools”discussed above, Chicago schools that weremore selective, strategic, and coherent intheir programs and practices experiencedmore successful implementation andgreater improvement. Subsequent researchby the consortium has found that lack of co-ordination and alignment of a school’s in-structional programs and practices cancreate gaps in the curriculum, lead to poorpacing of instruction and idiosyncratic ex-pectations for student learning within andacross grade levels, and incoherence be-tween regular and supplemental pro-grams.16 Indeed, curriculum alignment, animportant dimension of program coher-ence, was found in this research to be signif-icantly and positively related to increases instudent attendance and to gains in studentachievement in both reading and mathe-matics.17 As elaborated in these studies, thelogic of instructional program coherencethat lies behind this evidence is consistentwith research on learning and cognition,that students are more likely to learn andperform well when their experiences con-nect with and build on each other. The logiccan easily be extended to the learning anddevelopment of school personnel and totheir efforts to promote school improve-ment through many initiatives.

Evidence of the benefits of coherence canalso be found in literature on strategichuman resource management, which is di-rectly related to the “case” of educatorworkforce development policy that will bediscussed later in this chapter.18 Cross-in-dustry studies find that strategic flexible fitamong human resource management func-tions are related to organizational produc-tivity, performance, and outcomes.19 Higherlevels of fit are associated with higher levelsof performance and outcomes. Similar find-ings have been made of human resourcesmanagement in schools and school districts.More strategically coherent systems ofteacher human resource management func-tions have been found to be related posi-tively to the successful implementation ofeducation reforms, and instructional and or-ganizational improvement.20

Despite such benefits of coherence, thereare significant challenges to actually insti-tuting a coherent approach. In addition tothe challenge of marshalling the politicalwill to achieve grater policy coherence,states generally have serious capacity chal-lenges to meet. If a state’s goal is to placeprincipals in a policy climate that will en-able them to build professional learningcommunities of teachers who can meetstudents’ learning needs in all classrooms,then the question needs to be asked,

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Cross-industrystudies findthat strategicflexible fitamong humanresourcemanagementfunctions arerelated toorganizationalproductivity,performance,and outcomes.Higher levelsof fit areassociatedwith higherlevels ofperformanceand outcomes.

16 Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., Allensworth, E., Luppescu, S. & Easton, J. Q.. (2010). Organizing Schools for Improvement:Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

17 See Newmann, F. M., Smith, B., Allensworth, E., Bryk, A. S. (2001). “School instructional program coherence:Benefits and challenges. Improving Chicago’s Schools. Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Resesarch andother research conducted under the auspices of the Consortium on Chicago School Research that found positiverelationships between instructional program coherence and student outcomes.

18 Smylie, M. A., Miretzky, D. and Konkol, P. (2004), “Rethinking Teacher Workforce Development: A strategic humanresource management perspective.”Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 103, 34–69.

19 Buller, P. F. (1998) “Successful partnerships: HR and strategic planning at eight top firms.”OrganizationalDynamics, 17:2, 27-42; Delery, J. E. & Doty, D. H. (1996) “Modes of theorizing in strategic human resource manage-ment: Tests of universalistic, contingency, and configurational performance predictions.”Academy of ManagementJournal, 39:4, 802-835; Huselid, M. A. (1995). “The impact of human resource management practices on turnover,productivity, and corporate financial performance.”Academy of Management Journal, 38:3, 635-672.

20 Smylie, M. A., Miretzky, D. and Konkol, P. (2004). “Rethinking teacher workforce development: A strategic humanresource management perspective.”Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 103, 34–69.

“What policies would align well to sup-port that priority?” Such state policiescould include, for example, supportingteacher preparation programs to produceteachers well schooled in collaborativeproblem-solving around student perform-ance; providing incentives that motivatecollective rather than individual activityand success; developing district leaderswho understand how critical it is to pro-vide time for teacher collaboration; andgenerating a public policy campaign tohelp school boards and the public under-stand the characteristics of schools andschool leadership that succeed well abovesocio-economic predictors. As it stands,states are generally far away from seri-ously tackling such challenges. So, now wemust ask: Where does Illinois stand?

Recent Efforts in Illinois to Improve theEducatorWorkforce

Although this chapter is broadly focused onthe importance of coherence for educationpolicy in Illinois, the range of educationpolicies currently being implemented in thestate is quite large. We accordingly presentthe case that recently enacted laws focusingon improving the teacher and principalworkforces is an example of how coherenceand incoherence can emerge. This area isone that is especially important to considerbecause of the concerted attention it has re-ceived from both federal and state govern-ments around the country in the past fewyears, and likely in the years to come.

Recent policy efforts to improve the educa-tor workforce in Illinois have been drivenby pressures at both the state and federallevels. Federal policy has set the stage formuch of what Illinois has recently done toimprove the educator workforce. In orderto stabilize and stimulate the U.S. economyduring the worst financial crisis since theGreat Depression, the U.S. Congress en-acted the American Recovery and Rein-vestment Act of 2009, which is generallyknown as the “stimulus.”21 The stimulus

devoted approximately $80 billion of its$787 billion to public K-12 education andincluded the $4.35 billion Race to the TopFund (RTTT), a competitive grant programtargeted at spurring innovation in educa-tion.22 In order to be eligible and competi-tive for an award, RTTT required states todemonstrate their commitment to coreareas of reform, including the adoption ofthe Common Core State Standards, writtenspecifications of the skills and knowledgestudents should learn in mathematics andEnglish language arts that are being devel-oped by a collaboration of states.

RTTT also required the development ofstrategies aimed at recruiting, training, andretaining effective teachers and principals.In contrast to No Child Left Behind, one ofthe capacity-building priorities of RTTTwas the development of high qualityschool leaders—something that researcherJames Guthrie claims has been “neglected”for far too long in the policy debate aboutimproving learning outcomes in schools.23RTTT further emphasized that these strate-gies must link decisions about educatorperformance to student achievement dataand involve the creation of a statewidedata system that allows individual teach-ers to be matched to individual students.In order to receive an award, RTTT also re-quired states to commit to other areas ofeducation reform, including increasing thenumber of charter schools, implementingparticular school “turnaround” strategiesand enhancing standards and assessments,improving the collection and use of data,and increasing teachers’ and principals’demonstrated effectiveness. While many ofthe strategies promoted by RTTT appear tohave little chance of actually improvingstudents’ learning opportunities andachievement, RTTT has done one thing itwas designed to do. It put into motion awide range of initiatives in at least 35states that were required to show that theyhad built or were building the policy ca-pacity for significantly improved studentlearning outcomes.24


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21 The AmericanRecovery and Rein-vestment Act of2009, P.L. 111-5.Retrieved Nov. 1,2011 fromhttp://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html.

22 Ibid.

23 Guthrie, J. (2010).“Good principalskey to goodschools.”Politico.Retrieved Nov. 30,2011 from http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42894.html.

24 Superfine, B. M.(2011). “Stimulatingschool reform: TheAmerican recoveryand reinvestmentact and the shiftingfederal role in edu-cation,” MissouriLaw Review 76:1,81-134.

In the context of the political pressure andopportunities for funding generated byRTTT, Illinois enacted several education re-forms. As with every other state, Illinois al-ready had in place a comprehensive set ofstandards. However, led by the IllinoisState Board of Education (ISBE), the statemoved aggressively toward replacing itsexisting standards with the Common CoreState Standards with the expressed goal ofbetter preparing Illinois students for suc-cess in college and the workforce in a com-petitive global economy.25 This initiativehas implications for several significantcomponents of the state’s education sys-tem, including assessment, curriculum,professional development, and Response toIntervention programs. The adoption of theCommon Core State Standards is particu-larly aimed at ensuring that such compo-nents are aligned with each other in a waythat can consistently enable high quality in-struction and learning at the classroomlevel. In order to ensure that student as-sessments are aligned to the Common CoreState Standards, Illinois has joined the Part-nership for Assessment of Readiness forCollege and Careers (PARCC), a consor-tium of states working together to developa common set of assessments.

While the adoption of the Common CoreState Standards is indirectly aimed at influ-encing educators’ instructional and admin-istrative practices, Illinois also enactedseveral laws more directly aimed at im-proving the quality of the educator work-force in the wake of RTTT. The P-20Longitudinal Data SystemAct requires thestate to develop a longitudinal data systemthat complies with the requirements of theAmerica COMPETES Act, and thereby in-volves linking individual teacher and stu-dent performance data as part of a strategyto incentivize stronger teacher perform-ance.26 This state law and its later amend-ments also authorize the Illinois Board ofHigher Education to collect data on theperformance of public and private post-secondary institutions that confer graduate

and professional degrees.27 Shortly afterthe passage of this law, the state adoptedthe Alternative Certification Programs Act,which allows alternative teaching and ad-ministrative certification programs to beoffered by various types of providers, in-cluding both higher education institutionsand those operating independently ofhigher education.28 Such programs includethe Alternative Teacher Certification Pro-gram, the Alternative Route to TeacherCertification, the Alternative Route to Ad-ministrative Certification, and the Alterna-tive Route to Administrative Certificationfor National Board Certified Teachers.

The Performance Evaluation ReformAct(PERA) involves the most significant re-forms to how Illinois manages the educatorworkforce.29 Motivated primarily by theidea that many school district performanceevaluation systems fail to adequately dis-tinguish between effective teachers andprincipals, this law calls for the transforma-tion of current evaluation systems in waysthat are particularly tied to the growth ofstudent achievement. Under this law, allschool districts must evaluate non-tenuredteachers at least once each year andtenured teachers at least once every twoyears. Such evaluations must incorporatethe use of data and indicators of studentgrowth as a significant factor in ratingteacher performance. Once districts per-form evaluations, they must rate teachersas excellent, proficient, needs improve-ment, or unsatisfactory. By September 2012,principals also must be evaluated annuallywith a plan that uses data and indicators ofstudent growth as a significant factor inrating performance. Principals must besimilarly rated on a scale that includes theperformance levels of excellent, proficient,needs improvement, and unsatisfactory.

While PERA involves several significantchanges to the state’s previous methods ofeducator evaluation, this law has alreadybeen supplemented by subsequent legisla-tion. “SB7” ties teacher performance to78


25 The New IllinoisLearning StandardsIncorporating theCommon Core,Illinois State Boardof Education.Retrieved Oct. 31,2011 fromhttp://www.isbe.net/common_core/default.htm.

26 Illinois Public Act96-0107, RetrivedOct. 25, 2011 fromhttp://ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/PDF/096-0107.pdf;amended 2010.

27 Ibid.

28 Illinois Public Act96-0862, SchoolCode, Section 5. Re-trived Oct. 25, 2011fromhttp://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96-0862.

29 Illinois Public Act096-0861,Retrieved Oct. 25,2011 from http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/PDF/096-0861.pdf.

tenure and certification decisions to teach-ers’ evaluations, and includes a procedureto revoke teaching certificates with multipleunsatisfactory ratings.30 The law also en-sures that performance evaluation plays animportant role in decisions about teacherlayoffs and teaching assignment, andstreamlines the dismissal process for teach-ers with tenure. Public Act 96-0607 estab-lishes the Illinois Professional EducatorLicense, an endorsement issued to qualifiededucators for each area and grade level forwhich they are eligible to seek employmentin teaching, administration, or school serv-ice.31 This law particularly reduces the 66types of available certificates to three typesof licenses and eliminates the general ad-ministrative endorsement that was previ-ously issued. Another law overhauls therequirements for principal-preparation pro-grams by broadly requiring these programsto prepare future principals to meet stan-dards for principal skills, knowledge, andresponsibilities, including a focus on in-struction and student learning.32 This lawrequires such programs to have specific re-quirements for selecting and assessing itsstudents, training and evaluating staff, pro-viding students with an internship, andpartnering with a school district.

Despite such legislative attention to reform-ing the educator workforce, Illinois was notone of the 11 states awarded RTTT fundsfrom the first two rounds of the competi-tion. Although there is a possibility thatthere will be a third RTTT round, there is no

guarantee that the state will win an RTTTaward. While receiving RTTT funds wouldallow the state to devote more money to theeducator workforce reform efforts it has al-ready begun, the state will soon face futurereform efforts in this area regardless.

Congress is currently considering bills toreauthorize NCLB, and this reauthoriza-tion will significantly influence educatorworkforce reform not only through modifi-cations of principal preparation programs,existing testing and school accountabilityrequirements but teacher quality require-ments as well.33 Given recent federal ef-forts in this area, there is a significantpossibility the reauthorization will includeteacher evaluation and accountability pro-visions of its own. Moreover, Illinois is cur-rently implementing other laws thatindirectly influence the teacher workforce,such as those that aim at consolidatingsome of the state’s 869 school districts andincreasing the number of charter schoolspermitted in the state.34 Taken together,these state laws and initiatives, which arepartially responsive to federal initiatives,comprise a complex education policy land-scape ultimately aimed at changing teach-ing and learning at the classroom level. Butwhat are the prospects for success?

The Prospects for the Current Direction inIllinois Education Policy

On a very broad level, Illinois appears tobe moving in a positive direction. These


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Motivatedprimarily bythe idea thatmany schooldistrictperformanceevaluationsystems fail toadequatelydistinguishbetweeneffectiveteachers andprincipals,this law callsfor thetransformationof currentevaluationsystems inways that areparticularlytied to thegrowth ofstudentachievement.

30 Illinois Public Act 97-0008, Illinois Pension Code, Section 3. Retrieved Oct. 31, 2011 from http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/97/PDF/097-0008.pdf.

31 Illinois Public Act 97-0607, Counties Code, Section 10. Retrived Oct. 31, 2011 from http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/97/PDF/097-0607.pdf.

32 Illinois Public Act 96-0903, School Code, Section 5. Retrieved Nov. 1, 2011 from http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/PDF/096-0903.pdf.

33 Unites States Congress, S. 541.IS, 112th Congress, 1st Session. Retrieved Nov.3, 2011 from http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.541.IS.

34 Illinois Public Act 96-0105, School Code, Section 5. Retrieved Oct. 25, 2011 from http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/PDF/096-0105.pdf

recently enacted laws are broadly intendedto align with improved school teaching inIllinois. The state has begun to focus in-tensely on improving the quality of teach-ers and principals, which severalresearchers have argued is one of the mostimportant factors driving studentlearning.35 Moreover, by giving educatorworkforce development such a prominentposition, the state has altered the generalpolitics surrounding this area, not only byputting it on the policy agenda but also bycreating emphasis and defining the “rulesof engagement.”

Some aspects of Illinois’ approach are alsoparticularly likely to promote coherence.The focus on the Common Core State Stan-dards and assessments aligned to thesestandards signals some sort of attention tocoherence because standards are broadlymeant to serve as policy anchors. Many ofthe intersecting state and federal laws,such as RTTT, PERA, and SB7, were alsoconceived within a policy context that gen-erally includes the improvement and eval-uation of teachers and principals in waysthat are directly linked to the CommonCore State Standards. And laws that focuson consolidation of requirements andsources of authority, such as those that aimat consolidating districts and reducing thenumber of administrative certificates,could decrease uncoordinated and conflict-ing programs and practices across thestate, districts, and schools.

However, a careful look at the educatorworkforce policy landscape in Illinois re-veals that there are also significant concernsgrouped particularly around incoherence.On a fundamental level, conflicts and ten-sions in the policy landcape arise because atleast some of these different policies aregrounded in conflicting conceptions ofwhat improves student learning in schools.For example, the new principal certificatelaw in Illinois was driven by a view ofschool leadership that identifies instruc-tional quality as a property of schools as

organizations rather than primarily a prop-erty of individual teacher talent. This visionforegrounds the capacity of school leadersto lead effective professional learning com-munities marked by high levels of trust, towork productively with parents and com-munity agencies, and to meet the social andemotional learning needs of students andadults in their schools. In contrast, the stan-dards-based, assessment-driven accounta-bility vision conceptualizes the solution tounder-performing schools as improvingteacher talent, motivating individual teach-ers and principals through external ac-countability measures, and inducingcompetition through charter schools and al-ternative certification routes to motivatehigher performance by individuals.

The policy landscape also raises seriousproblems of incoherence because of issuesto which it does not attend. Although theCommon Core State Standards form thebasis for some of the state’s new policies,they do not form the basis for many others,such as the policies governing the alterna-tive certification programs. Indeed, Illinoishas been implementing state standards foryears without anything approaching a co-herent education policy landscape. More-over, besides provisions that tie particularfunctions to state standards and test scores,such as teacher and principal evaluation,the policies are largely silent on the qualityof particular workforce development func-tions, teachers’ work, principals’ work, thedevelopment of teachers’ occupationalknowledge (especially around student per-formance evidence), how multiple work-forces (e.g. the teacher and principalworkforces) should be related, and theworkplace conditions of schools and schooldistricts that affect performance and effec-tiveness of a highly developed workforce.

Similarly, while the principal certificatelaw does require preparation programs tohave specific requirements for functionssuch as selecting and assessing its studentsand partnering with a school district, it80


35 See Darling-Hammond L.(2000). “Teacherquality and studentachievement.”Education PolicyAnalysis Archives. 8,January. Retrievedon Nov. 3, 2011from http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/392;Goe, L. (2007). “Thelink betweenteacher quality andstudent outcomes:A research synthe-sis.” Washington,DC: NationalComprehensiveCenter for TeacherQuality. RetrievedNov. 15, 2011 fromhttp://www.tqsource.org/publications/LinkBetweenTQandStudentOutcomes.pdf.

does not require alignment of such pro-grams with the teacher and principal ac-countability provisions of the otherpolicies. By focusing so narrowly on asmall handful of functions like teacherevaluation and accountability, the policylandscape generally does not not promotestrong fit across the range of importantfunctions of the teacher workforce. Byheavily emphasizing teacher and principalevaluation, a function that in turn directlyrelies on student achievement data, thesepolicies further presume that the knowl-edge and organizational capability to im-plement efficacious functions and practicesalready exist or could be readily developedat state, district and school levels.

Where the policies do not presume the ex-isting capacity to implement new account-ability measures, they seek to build suchcapacity with still more accountabilitymeasures. However, these accountabilitymeasures may compound the problem. Forexample, the new Illinois Pre-K-12 Princi-pal Certificate requires that principalpreparation programs adhere to the StateSchool Leader Standards that are a closeadaptation of the six standards of the Inter-state School Leader Licensure Consortium.But the programs must also demonstratethat candidates are evaluated on the 13Critical Success Factors for School Princi-pals published by the Southern RegionalEducation Board (SREB). In addition, anyprincipals who want to apply for eligibilityfor Chicago Public Schools, which haveabout 20 percent of the new vacancies inthe state each year, will have to be assessedby five CPS Principal Competencies thatare different from ISBE’s six or SREB’s 13.Moreover, the new state SB7 law ensuresthat all principals will be evaluated notjust on student performance gains, but alsoon yet another set of six standards gener-ated by the ISBE Performance EvaluationAdvisory Committee. And finally, thenewly developed National Board Stan-dards for Accomplished Principals intro-duce a set of nine standards that do not

map directly on to SREB, ISBE, PEAC, orCPS standards. Such incoherence will taxthe capacity of school leader programs andschool districts that are seeking to work to-gether to make sense of which standardsshould be used to hold Illinois principalsaccountable.

While the problems of incoherence dis-cussed above are important, it should benoted that they are only examples. Thepolicies currently at play were enacted in ashifting political climate with multiple in-terests at work at federal, state and locallevels, and some incoherence is inevitable.However, these examples should reflectthe fundamental point that the policieswere enacted without an overarching vi-sion, “theory-of-action,” and strategy,which are the cornerstones for any coher-ent approach to policy. So while the recenteducator workforce policies are a positivedevelopment by drawing attention to in-creasing the quality of the educator work-force, the effectiveness of these policieswill ultimately be limited by their lack of ashared and comprehensive strategy.

Ideas for the Future

We have focused on educator workforcepolicies as an example of Illinois’ incoher-ent approach to education policy becausethis area has received so much attentionlately. But there is incoherence across thestate education policy landscape. Thislandscape includes laws focused on a widerange of programs and practices, includingpreschool, district consolidation, and fund-ing. If Illinois is to improve the coherenceof its education policies, it must focus notsimply on increasing alignment withineach of these areas, but across areas as well.

While the problems of incoherence dis-cussed above are important, it should benoted that the actual substance of educa-tion policies is, of course, very important aswell. As Marc Tucker argues in his recentbook Surpassing Shanghai, and Finland’s


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Illinois hasbeenimplementingstatestandards foryearswithoutanythingapproachinga coherenteducationpolicylandscape.

Pasi Sahlberg argues in Finnish Lessons, themarket-model, standardized-assessmentand accountability-driven policies that usecharter schools and alternative routes tocertification are not what is working for na-tions that are outperforming the UnitedStates. Yet, all of these are part and parcelof the current policy climate in Illinois andthe U.S. more broadly. Although it may bepolitically impossible for Illinois to com-pletely rethink its approach to education onthis fundamental level, it is not impossiblefor the state to further develop and alignthe sorts of policies it is already implement-ing. Without doing so, much of Illinois’considerable efforts to improve educationwill likely be squandered.

With this need in mind, we offer three po-tential strategies for Illinois to improve itseducation policy coherence. First, the statecould directly promote coherence by de-veloping meaningful anchors for policiesbased on principles and theories of effec-tive schooling and school improvement.Given the state’s commitment to the Com-mon Core State Standards, this substantivevision of the skills and knowledge stu-dents should possess makes sense as onesuch anchor. Promising theories of effec-tive schools and school improvement, suchas those focused on the development ofpracticing teachers’ and principals’ knowl-edge and skills could constitute other an-chors, especially if construed in ways thatalign with the Common Core State Stan-dards. Then, the state would need to de-velop policies consistent with theseanchors and not develop policies that areinconsistent with them. Moreover, the statewould need to ensure that it addresses pol-icy areas comprehensively instead of nar-rowly to lower the chances that localprograms or practices could work againstthis alignment.

Second, the state could develop the struc-tures to indirectly encourage educationpolicy coherence at the local level. In doingso, the state would focus on developing

the capacities, processes, leadership andincentives for schools to craft and managecoherence.36 This structure would focus onputting schools in strong positions to bal-ance local goals and strategies against theexternal demands of policy. This recom-mendation particularly encourages localadminstrators to employ reasoned discre-tion in their approach to create “bridges”or “buffers” between their schools and pol-icy. Still, this strategy could potentially re-sult in too much variability in how schoolsreact to policy—it leaves room for the possi-bility that schools could create incoherenceby ignoring particular policy demandswhile paying only symbolic attention toothers.

Third, the state could shape the role of thecentral office as an arbiter of developingand managing coherence at the local level.Instead of simply assisting localities insearching for and using information, thecentral office would promote certain prin-ciples as anchors around which local prac-tices cohere. The central office would alsobe required to support school-level leader-ship in the development of processes andcapacities for managing coherence. More-over, the central office would hold localschools accountable for aligning their pro-grams and practices with policy anchorsand would need to negotiate with policy-making bodies when they make contradic-tory demands.

While none of these options by themselveswould likely be sufficient to make the Illi-nois education policy landscape coherentto the extent that is needed, a combinationof strategies would likely be effective.Above all else, the state must act with aplan that stretches across the major educa-tion policy areas in Illinois and from thestate to schools. By approaching educationpolicy in this fashion, Illinois could in-crease the quality of education for studentsacross the state and become a true nationalleader in education reform.

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The statemustactwith a planthat stretchesacross themajoreducationpolicy areas inIllinois andfrom the stateto schools.

36 See Honig, M. I. &Hatch, T. C. (2004)“Crafting coher-ence: How schoolsstrategicallymanage multiple,eternal demands.”EducationalResearcher, 33:8,16-30. for a moredetailed discussionof “crafting coher-ence” at the schoollevel.

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