The School District's Role in Educational Change
A on the role of the school district in educational change is not new, though there has been a resurgence of inquiry and discussion about the district role in recent years. A key difference between the early and current research relates to variation in the policy contexts and change environments in which the research was conducted. Research on the role of the district in educational change in the 1970s and the 1980s was generally undertaken in relation to what Fullan characterizes as the "innovation implementation" era of change (Fullan, 1985) Researchers considered the role that districts played in supporting the implementation of specific governmentand district sponsored programs and practices. Berman and McLaughlin (1978) for example, found that some school districts adopted programs for bureaucratic motives (i.e. compliance) or opportunistic motives (e.g. access to funds, to appear "innovative" and were less successful in facilitating the implementation of those programs than were districts that adopted programs as a means of solving previously identified problems in student and school performance. Louis, Rosenblum, and Molitor (1981) also associate higher degree of program implementation and continuation with problem solving orientations and actions at the district level. Conceptually and practically, this research was problematic to the extent that it was interpreted as though districts and schools treated all changes equally and with equal success (Anderson, 1991) Research on how school districts and schools manage the reality of multiple innovations and continual improvement was in its infancy at this time (Anderson, 1991; Fullan, 1985; Fullan, Anderson, Newton, 1986; Wallace, 1991) A further gap in the research literature from this era stemmed from the focus on teacher implementation of new programs and practices as the dependent variable and the relative lack of attention to evidence of impact on student learning. The linkage of leader actions to improvement in student learning remained hypothetical.