Peer Networks in School Reform - Annenberg Institute for ... · Peer Networks in School Reform LESSONS FROM ENGLAND AND ... the lead TSIA partner in the United States – and the

TRANSATLANTIC D IALOGUE ON COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS SER IES

Peer Networks in School Reform

LESSONS FROM ENGLAND ANDIMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES

Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University

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© Brown University, February 2011

AuthorsJacob MishookAnnenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University

Sara McAlister Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University

Karen Edge Institute of Education, University of London

EditorsMargaret Balch-Gonzales

O’rya Hyde Keller

Graphic DesignHaewon M. Kim

CONTENTS

About the Series ....................................................................ii

About the Annenberg Institute for School Reform ................ii

Acknowledgments .................................................................ii

Introduction..........................................................................1

About This Report ................................................................2

Policy Context in England:

A Culture of Within- and Across-School Peer Networking with

Strong Government Support .................................................3

Policy Context in the United States:

Limited Government Role in Capacity Building ...................5

The New York City Context..................................................6

Findings ................................................................................7

England ..............................................................7

New York City ...................................................11

Discussion and Conclusion .................................................15

England ............................................................15

United States .....................................................17

APPENDIX A: About the Study .............................................18

APPENDIX B: Lead Practitioner Network Analysis ................19

References ...........................................................................21

ii Peer Networks in Education Reform: Lessons from England and Implications for the United States

ABOUT THE SERIES

The Transatlantic School Innovation Alliance (TSIA) isa collaborative partnership established in 2006 betweenthe Annenberg Institute for School Reform at BrownUniversity and New Visions for Public Schools (withsupport from the Annenberg Foundation) in theUnited States, and the Department for Education(DFE, formerly the Department for Children, Schools,and Families) and the Joint International Unit in Eng-land. The TSIA is a partnership program designed toimprove teaching, learning, and educational leadershipby creating a peer (or lateral) network of principals andpractitioners in secondary schools in the United Statesand the United Kingdom engaged in action researchinto adolescent literacy and leadership development.TSIA began as a New York-London partnership andhas since expanded to include partnerships betweenWashington D.C. and the Black Country, and Bostonand Manchester.

As part of the program, participants have developedand studied approaches to teaching literacy to studentsin an urban context. Through the TSIA, participantshave formed collaborative working relationships withintheir schools, across schools in their own cities, withtheir matched international partner school, and withother schools across the TSIA. Participants have alsobeen exploring how school and policy leaders are tack-ling urban leadership challenges through peer-to-peerrelationships and interactions with city, state, andnational policy leaders.

Through the development of these partnerships, theauthors of this report noted the proliferation of peernetworking opportunities in London, in contrast to therelative lack of these opportunities for teachers andleaders in New York City. Given the Annenberg Insti-tute’s interest in how policy shapes practice in urbaneducation settings, the authors set out to investigatehow leaders and practitioners in both cities are incen-tivized (or not) by policy-makers to engage in thesepeer, collaborative networks across schools.

ABOUT THE ANNENBERG INSTITUTE FOR SCHOOL REFORM

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform is anational policy-research and reform-support organiza-tion, affiliated with Brown University, that focuses onimproving conditions and outcomes for all students inurban public schools, especially those serving disadvan-taged children. The Institute’s vision is the transforma-tion of traditional school systems into “smart educationsystems” that develop and integrate high-quality learn-ing opportunities in all areas of students’ lives – atschool, at home, and in the community.

The Institute conducts research; works with a variety of partners committed to educational improvement tobuild capacity in school districts and communities; andshares its work through print and Web publications.Rather than providing a specific reform design ormodel to be implemented, the Institute’s approach is to offer an array of tools and strategies to help districtsand communities strengthen their local capacity to pro-vide and sustain high-quality education for all students.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank the principals andpractitioners in 2009-2010 TSIA schools for their par-ticipation in this research. Those schools are: the Acad-emy for Language and Technology, Bronx Engineeringand Technology Academy, Bronx High School forLeadership and Community Service, Bronx LeadershipAcademy II, East-West School for International Stud-ies, High School for Telecommunication, Arts, andTechnology, and the Young Women’s LeadershipSchool in New York City; and Bow School of Mathsand Computing, City of London Academy, ElliotSchool, George Green’s School, The Leigh TechnologyAcademy, Lilian Baylis Technology School, Skinners’Company’s School for Girls, and Westminster Acad-emy in London. The authors would also like toacknowledge Rob Briscoe, U.K. TSIA adviser; WendyParmley U.K. TSIA program lead; and Marla Ucelli-Kashyap, U.S. TSIA lead, for their guidance and sup-port in the development of this paper.

Annenberg Institute for School Reform 1

INTRODUCTION

Education systems have traditionally relied on buildingand using capacity at the upper levels of a hierarchy tobring reform to scale. In the United States, since theadvent of standards-based reform in the 1980s, this hastypically meant the use of top-down accountability sys-tems (some strong, some weak) like the No Child LeftBehind Act, where knowledge – whether in the form of standards, curriculum, assessment, and/or incentives– is presumed to exist at the federal, state, or districtlevel. This knowledge is supposed to then flow down toprincipals, teachers, and students, though in practicethis has been uneven at best (e.g., Porter & Smithson2001; Tyack & Cuban 1995).

This persistent focus in the United States on buildingvertical structures has resulted in weak peer collabora-tive structures (also known as lateral networks) amonglocal partners for building knowledge and spreadingeffective practices, even though local context stronglyshapes the effectiveness of educational reforms (Sipple,Killeen & Monk 2004; Spillane, Reiser & Reimer2002). At the same time, the mechanisms of accounta-bility have also shifted toward individual teachersthrough new teacher-evaluation systems that rely onstudent test scores, as well as “pay for performance”systems.

This movement toward top-down accountability and accountability focused on individual teachers and schools continues, despite evidence that effectiveteacher and principal networks have the potential toimprove learning. For example, Fielding and colleagues(2005) noted that high-functioning networks exhibit anumber of defining characteristics that can support thedifficult goal of spreading good practice:

• High levels of trust among practitioners

• A focus on learner engagement

• Long-term relationships for developing and transfer-ring effective practice

• Joint development of practice

Local education authorities and other intermediaryorganizations have critical roles to play in developingeffective peer school networks, including avoiding pre-scriptive policies, initiating but not driving networks,and promoting joint leadership for schools in such networks (Fielding et al. 2005; McLaughlin & Talbert2006). Indeed, the sustainability and depth of wholesystem reform may depend substantially on high-quality peer networks (Fullan 2010). However, theseprinciples are largely in conflict with current educa-tional reform priorities in the United States, especiallythose of large urban districts like New York City.

There has been a degree of focus on the benefits ofteacher collaboration within schools and in a fewschool districts in the United States (e.g., professionallearning communities; see, for example, McLaughlin &Talbert 2006). However, there has not been a broad-based attempt in this country to harness the power ofprofessional collaboration across schools to bring aboutsubstantial shifts in policy and practice at the stateand/or national level. Professional networks in educa-tion in the United States, then, are largely external,informal, and voluntary.

Many public sector organizations and schools are notdesigned to promote sharing and collaboration; theyhave cultures of knowledge hoarding, where “knowl-edge is power” is still a central cultural tenet. SusanMoore Johnston (2010) has described the traditionaleducation culture as the “egg crate model” where prac-titioners teach children within individual classrooms,isolated from the support and knowledge of colleagues.Again, the push in the United States for new teacher-evaluation systems that rely primarily on matchingindividual teachers with their students’ test scoresthreatens to exacerbate this competitive, rather thancollaborative, system of teaching (see also Corcoran2010 for technical problems with the value-addedapproach).

Several large urban school districts (such as New YorkCity and Philadelphia) are also experimenting withportfolio management policy structures. Districts using portfolio management typically allow for multi-

2 Peer Networks in Education Reform: Lessons from England and Implications for the United States

ple providers – charter schools and educational man-agement organizations – to manage some schoolswithin the district quasi-independently, as long as thoseschools meet accountability requirements for studentachievement. In this sense, operational control isdevolved locally to schools and their managing organi-zations, while the district still retains ultimate decision-making power to close low-performing schools throughaccountability policies (Lake & Hill 2009). The impactof these new policy structures on knowledge sharingacross schools is not well documented, but preliminaryevidence in this paper indicates that peer networkingmay be more difficult in portfolio management dis-tricts.

These challenges notwithstanding, there are severalplaces where within- and between-school networkingare being adopted to enhance professional practice andcreate opportunities for innovation and support. Eng-land1 is relatively advanced in the scale of its adoptionand implementation of mandated networking and col-laboration to drive policy and practice change. Since2000, networking and collaboration has become a cen-tral force in educational policy and practice withinEngland. It appears that England’s education systemhas capitalized on the potential power of networkingand collaboration in two key ways:

• Policy levers (government-driven): Providing seedfunding and/or enacting policy to foster/mandate col-laboration between and within local authorities andlocal agencies and schools.

• Practice levers (agency/other organization-driven:National College for Leadership of Schools and Chil-dren’s Services/Specialist Schools and AcademiesTrust): Support for head teachers and teacher net-working and professional collaboration.

Most of these national network-collaboration initiativesaim to improve education practice at the local author-ity (or LA – similar to a district in the United States),school, or teacher/head teacher level. More specifically,these initiatives are often designed to influence variousforms of teaching, learning, financing, resources, andinter-school and inter-professional cooperation.

ABOUT THIS REPORT

The role of peer networks for knowledge sharing andbuilding has been at the heart of the TransatlanticSchool Innovation Alliance (TSIA) partnership(described in more detail in Appendix A, About theStudy). TSIA participants have routinely discussed theconditions, policies, and structures inside and outsidetheir schools that support teaching and learning intheir home countries, giving rise to the idea for abroader exploration of peer networks in both countries.While there have been individual evaluations of manyof the networking initiatives within the education sys-tem, there has been little comparative research or dis-cussion of the role of networking and collaboration atthe policy level.

Over a period of six months, the Annenberg Institute –the lead TSIA partner in the United States – and theInstitute for Education at the University of Londonexamined how peer networks in New York City andLondon foster effective practice for school leadershipand teachers. We also conducted a comparative analysisof the policy and practice landscape of networking andcollaboration initiatives within England, focusing onLondon, and the United States, focusing on New YorkCity.2

We asked practitioners from both countries what net-works are available to them, how they are funded, whatoutcomes are intended, what evidence exists about thesuccess of the networks, and what evidence practition-ers share about their experiences with the networks.

1 We use “England” instead of “United Kingdom” in this paper, as thenational education systems of England, Scotland, Wales, and North-ern Ireland are independent from one another.

2 See About the Study in Appendix A for more details about this collab-oration.


Because of the greater involvement of the national gov-ernment in England in education, we focused much of our interviewing on national actors; conversely, thestrong local control in United States schools meant thatwe focused on local and district organizations in NewYork City. While there are numerous national networksin the United States, they have often been scattered andinformal, with the exception of some district- and phil-anthropically supported efforts (see McLaughlin & Tal-bert 2006).

We noted that while there were obvious differences in both the policy and structural context supportingschools and educators in each country, one of the most significant differences appeared to be the level of enthusiasm and national and local support for net-working initiatives to support educators in England. Inthis report, we discuss and contrast the policy contexton networking in England and the United States andpresent the findings on the usefulness of peer networksand on the type of enhancements and obstacles thatpolicy can present to these networks. We close withrecommendations to support future development ofhigh-quality peer networks.

Finally, we should stress the provisional nature of thesefindings. While we were able to access and speak to anumber of individuals with perspectives on peer net-working in London and New York, the total number of interviews is small and the conclusions drawn fromthis work should be considered limited pending furtherdata collection and analysis.

POLICY CONTEXT IN ENGLAND: A CULTURE OF WITHIN- AND ACROSS-SCHOOLPEER NETWORKING WITH STRONG GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

Peer networks have arisen as a central force in thedesign and implementation of English education policy. In order to encourage school-to-school network-ing, government agencies in England, including theDepartment for Education (DFE), have mandated andincentivized local authorities and schools to collaborateon different levels. Non-governmental organizations,including the National College for Leadership ofSchools and Children’s Services (which provide professional development and support for school andlocal authority leaders) and the General TeachingCouncil (which provides professional development forteachers),3 have also established an array of networkinginitiatives and professional networks to support profes-sional collaboration across schools and local authorities.

The landscape of education in England has beenaffected by the surge in mandatory and voluntary net-working and collaboration initiatives. However, thepriorities of the new Conservative-Liberal Democraticcoalition government, reflected in a newly releasedwhite paper (link in footnote 5, page 7), would elimi-nate much of this formal support for collaboration. Atthis transitional point with a new government, it isunclear how and if these initiatives have influencedchanges in practices at the local authority or school lev-els. New government initiatives, such as the “freeschools” initiative (described in the section Discussionand Conclusion), will further complicate this assess-ment. While assessing the collective influence of therange of initiatives is beyond the scope of this project,our interest in the English context of networking lies inhow the national policy/practice landscape has adoptedand encouraged networking.

A body of practice and research has developed duringthe past two decades in England focused on networksof practitioners and school leaders across schools

3 In June 2010, the Secretary of State for Education in Englandannounced that the General Teaching Council will be abolished.


(though with a strong within-school component aswell). The theory of action in these types of inter-school networks is that “significant changes in pupillearning depend on major changes in the practices andthe structures of schools, and that these changes willemerge from the professional learning that occursthrough interaction within and across schools in net-works” (Katz & Earl 2010, p. 28). These significantchanges for student learning emerge by enabling teach-ers and principals to “move outside their typical con-texts to engage with a broader scope of ideas andpossibilities,” which, in turn, leads to sharing knowl-edge that will influence practices in the classroom (Katz& Earl 2010, p. 29).

The history of educational change in England has beendescribed as a path from “uninformed prescription” inthe 1980s to “informed prescription” in the 1990s to“informed professional judgment” or practitioner-ledchange in the 2000s (Barber 2002; Hannon 2007).Movement toward “practitioner-led change,” however,has meant that the central government has devolvedmore authority to local schools, leaders, and practition-ers, while at the same time providing structures, poli-cies, and funding for local educational actors tocommunicate and share best practices. Moving awayfrom this top-down structure and toward locally man-aged (but externally supported and reviewed) networksof schools has been a main thrust of English educa-tional reform during the past decade (Ainscow, Muijs& West 2006).

At the system level, Hargreaves (2003) described whatthe larger educational system would need to do to cre-ate high-functioning peer networks in England. Thisincluded “many dynamic networks of schools andother providers operating collaboratively across localareas,” often in healthy competition with one another,the development of leadership capacity distributedwidely across school networks, a more highly developedinformation and communications technology capacityto “provide personalized, real-time information aboutstudent progress,” and a “reshaped system of centralgovernance with clear and simple objectives, underpin-ning a different kind of systemwide capacity” thatwould “handle and shape the flow of knowledge” and

focus on the most urgent challenges, rather than pre-scribe policy indiscriminately to all schools (pp. 14–15).

Seven years after this description of what “high-functioning peer networks” might look like, and having used peer networks extensively in the highlysuccessful London Challenge and City Challenge,4

England enshrined school partnerships and networks askey to national educational strategy (Department forChildren, Schools and Families 2009) and developed multiple networks through various public and privateorganizations for various purposes: supporting andimproving low-achieving schools, moving schools from“good to great,” providing professional developmentfor teachers and leaders, and testing out new and inno-vative ideas that could be taken to scale across schoolsand networks.

Many of these networks have existed for many years.For example, the Specialist Schools and AcademiesTrust (SSAT, formerly the Specialist Schools Trust), anongovernmental organization (analagous to a non-profit organization in the United States) that representsnine out of ten secondary schools in England, has pro-vided professional development and networks for thepast two decades. However, in recent years these net-works have proliferated not only due to direct centralgovernment support, but also a culture or expectationthat networking with colleagues inside and outside ofschools is an expected part of business. This culture hasbeen developed through DFE and the influence ofnongovernmental organizations like the SSAT.

4 The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills(OFSTED) recently reported that schools in London Challenge havecontinued to improve outcomes for children at a greater rate thanother schools. See: <http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-by-type/Thematic-reports/London-Challenge>.


POLICY CONTEXT IN THE UNITED STATES: LIMITED GOVERNMENT ROLE IN CAPACITYBUILDING

One school improvement strategy that has spreadwidely in the United States is the development of “professional learning communities” (PLCs) withinindividual schools (though supported and in somecases facilitated by local education authorities) (Coburn& Russell 2008; McLaughlin & Talbert 2006). Ideally,within these PLCs teachers “work collaboratively toreflect on their practice, examine evidence about therelationship between practice and student outcomes,and make changes that improve teaching and learningfor the particular students in their classes” (McLaugh-lin & Talbert 2006, p. 4). Recent research by the well-respected Consortium on Chicago School Researchfound that strong professional learning communitieswere one of five characteristics common to fast-improving public schools in Chicago (Sebring et al.2009). Less attention has been paid to inter-school networking.

While the emphasis in the United States literature andpractice has been on collaboration within schools,recent examples of inter-school networks have emergedfrom larger reform initiatives. Several of these havebeen large-scale efforts to substantially improve strug-gling high-poverty schools, facilitated by universities,foundations, and other intermediaries, including theJohns Hopkins University Talent Development whole-school reform model, the Southern Regional Educa-tional Board’s High Schools that Work program, anddistrict-level reform in Hamilton County, Tennessee.Evaluations of these reforms have found that emergentnetworks of schools or of practitioners in similar rolesacross a set of schools are important sources of capacityand sustainability and have been central to the initia-tives’ success (Institute for Education Sciences 2007;Fruchter 2007). Scholars, including Hargreaves andShirley (2009), have recently highlighted the success of inter-school networks abroad and offered them as apromising strategy for struggling schools in the UnitedStates.

Networks have been a feature of the support providedby the robust nonprofit and nongovernmental sectorinvolved in education reform in the United States.Organizations such as the Coalition of EssentialSchools and the National Writing Project have sup-ported virtual and face-to-face networking amongteachers. Alternative teacher certification programssuch as Teach for America and the New York CityTeaching Fellows facilitate networks among their par-ticipants during their service in schools, and many participants also form strong personal networks thatthey use for support and advice on practice. Nationally,elementary and middle school teachers collaboratethrough an online network called TeachNet. TheTeachers Network, with a significant presence in NewYork City, is a voluntary network through which teach-ers share lesson plans, access professional development,and discuss best practices. For the most part, these networks are not coordinated at the school level, butrather involve individual teachers.

The context of the United States education systemmeans that there are fewer levers for translatingresearch or promising practice – such as inter-schoolnetworks – into policy on a national scale. The federalgovernment, historically, has played a limited role infunding education and in setting and driving educationpolicy, particularly in comparison to centralized sys-tems like that of England. While the No Child LeftBehind Act of 2001 established a national accountabil-ity regime and set national goals for educationalachievement, states were left with the responsibility forestablishing standards, developing assessment systems,and intervening in struggling schools. Many states alsodevolve considerable authority for supporting andmonitoring schools to their districts. The United Stateshas no national curriculum or national standards,though many states are currently voluntarily adoptingcommon standards. The Obama administration hashad recent success in pushing significant changes instate policy, including encouraging the adoption of thecommon standards through competitive grant making.


The structure of the American system also means thatthere is no centralized capacity-building process, andthere has been limited investment in capacity buildingat all levels. The federal education department main-tains a clearinghouse of educational research, as well as a system of ten regional educational laboratories that conduct applied research and provide technicalassistance. But the absence of a common curriculum or shared approach to pedagogy makes developing and sharing relevant best practices difficult. There is no American counterpart to the National College toscale up and spread promising practices like peer net-working.

THE NEW YORK CITY CONTEXT

New York City is the largest school district in the UnitedStates. It has experienced many different governancestructures and reform directions over the past fourdecades. Demands for community control in minoritycommunities in the 1960s led to decentralization in1966, with the establishment of thirty-two neighbor-hood school districts, each with an elected board. Highschools fell outside the local district structure andformed districts of their own that roughly correspondedto the five boroughs, each with its own superintendent.

In 2002, the state legislature granted the mayor, MichaelBloomberg, control of the New York City Departmentof Education (NYCDOE). Mayor Bloomberg and hisformer schools chancellor, Joel Klein, experimented witha range of management structures built on the premiseof devolving increased autonomy to school leaders inexchange for strict accountability for outcomes.

By 2007, New York had shifted from the geographic system to one of citywide school support organizations(SSOs), with which principals could contract for thecurriculum, professional development, operations, andmanagement support traditionally provided by districtcentral offices. Some of these SSOs are led by formersuperintendents; some are led by nonprofit organiza-tions, including New Visions for Public Schools (theSSO for the eight New York schools participating inTSIA), which provides professional development, coach-ing, and other non-infrastructure support services toapproximately seventy-five secondary schools within the district. The SSOs allow principals to build relation-ships with colleagues with similar interests and orienta-tions by self-selecting into the SSO that best matchestheir needs (Hemphill et al. 2010).

The district began experimenting in 2009 with a newscheme called Children First Networks (CFNs), whichfurther institutionalizes the belief that decisions aboutteaching and learning and school management are bestleft to those inside of schools. Approximately twenty-five schools join together and hire a network leader, who brings a small staff to handle instructional andoperational support. The networks are not geographi-cally bound, and the idea is to allow schools with


similar interests or similar challenges to seek out appro-priate support together. The network leader has littleformal authority over principals and acts more as acoach. All schools have been organized into CFNs forthe 2010-2011 school year.

The United States emphasis on within-school profes-sional learning communities has combined with theemphasis on school-level autonomy to shape the NewYork City system’s approach to school improvement.Based on a successful data-focused inquiry modeldeveloped by New Visions for Public Schools in collab-oration with the Baruch College School of PublicAffairs, the NYCDOE requires each school to establish“inquiry teams” of teachers and leaders. These teamsare charged with jointly examining the conditions oflearning for low-achieving students and devising, test-ing, and revising educational strategies to address theirneeds. System leaders believe that this direct responsi-bility for shaping instruction and improving achieve-ment is key to investing teachers in their work andcreating a culture of reflective, accountable teachingpractice (Hemphill et al. 2010). As of the 2009-2010school year, the goal was for 90 percent of each school’sstaff to participate in grade-level or subject-basedinquiry teams (Talbert 2011).

A separate and simultaneous reform that has substan-tially reshaped the landscape of high schools is the cre-ation of small, themed high schools to replace large,often-failing traditional neighborhood high schools.This work began in the 1990s and was advanced byCarnegie Corporation through the New Century HighSchools initiative. The Bill & Melinda Gates Founda-tion invested more than $150 million in new smallschools in New York City as part of its national initia-tive to replace large high schools with more intimatesettings (Walz 2010). Mayor Bloomberg is a proponentof small schools and has accelerated the replacement oflarge schools with campuses of new small schools; since2002, 214 new small secondary schools have beenopened in New York City (NYCDOE 2010). (Prior tobecoming an SSO, New Visions was an incubator ofnew small schools; seven of the eight TSIA schools aresmall schools launched with New Visions’ support.)

FINDINGS

Our research revealed some of the ways in which sys-tem leaders in the two countries supported and/or con-strained the development of peer networks of practi-tioners and school leaders to share best practices, pro-mote school improvement, and support innovation.5

England

In England, with its decade-plus–long support of net-working under the Labour government, numerousnationally supported and private organizations workedwith schools, heads, and practitioners to spread bestpractices and improve student achievement, especiallyin areas of historically low student attainment like Lon-don and the Greater Manchester region. This sectionpresents highlights from the findings (see Appendix Bfor preliminary findings from the lead practitioner net-work analysis).

Our interviews and document review yielded severalkey findings about peer networks in England. Londonteachers interviewed reported:

• a wide range of external networks supported throughlocal authorities and private organizations and oftenfocused on subject networks;

• an expectation that schools would be “outward fac-ing” to other schools and the broader community;

• an attempt to balance top-down network expecta-tions with bottom-up, customized ideas;

• a substantial focus on principal networking;

• scheduling within individual schools that allowedteachers and principals the time to be out of the class-room and observe practice in other schools, as well asparticipate in networks;

• local authorities varied in their capacity to supportschools, and many networks bypassed them;

• the development of academies has had complex andnot-well-understood effects on local authorities andother existing networks.

5 The findings from England are based on the approach of the previousLabour government. At this report goes to press, the new Conserva-tive-Liberal Democratic government has just released a white paperoutlining its new approach. Overall, the new approach stresses a self-improving school system with little intervention or support from thecentral government except for schools that are struggling and wellbelow standard. See: <http://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/CM-7980.pdf>.


A wide range of external networks supportedthrough local authorities and private organizationsand often focused on subject networks

In interviews with London practitioners, AnnenbergInstitute researchers – coming from the perspective ofthe United States public education system – werestruck by the number of opportunities for teachers toparticipate in external and internal networks outside ofthe school. Despite variance in local authority qualityin England (described in more detail later in this sec-tion), a high percentage of respondents mentionedlocal authority networks (often related to subject areas)as valuable.

Professional development outside the school was alsomentioned often. The twenty-two London participantsmentioned sixteen professional development networksand highlighted eight as their most valuable. Privateorganizations and networks such as SSAT and TeachFirst were listed often as well. Finally, the TSIA net-work was often listed as a valuable network, though itis obviously limited to this particular group. Comparedwith the New York City teachers (see next section), thenumber and breadth of networks and organizationsproviding opportunities for networking in London wassignificantly higher, both in formal settings as describedabove and in informal settings such as after-worksocializing.

Practitioners took advantage of time available to themto participate in out-of-school networks; those cited as particularly useful by interviewees included SSATprofessional development opportunities that featurednetworking, as well as borough-wide networks thatincluded both traditional secondary schools and academies.

An expectation that schools would be “outward facing” to other schools and the broader community

In England, schools are increasingly being asked to provide more social services to children as well as coordinate with external governmental and non-governmental social service agencies. This “Children’sServices” approach to children’s education and care hasforced schools to be increasingly “outward facing” tothe broader community, interacting and sharing withpublic and private organizations. Similarly, there hasbeen a concerted effort in the past ten years in Englandto collaborate with leaders and teachers in other schoolsto share best practices (Hargreaves & Shirley 2009). AsAndy Buck, operational director for City Challenge atthe National College for School Leadership and Chil-dren’s Services, put it:

Great schools rarely go it alone. The most successfulschools in London are not isolated and separatefrom their local community and other schools butactively encourage and embrace interaction withothers. (Buck 2009, p. 15)

These networks take several forms. The National Col-lege, for example, has developed several programs thatlink school heads to one another depending on the particular needs of individual schools. For example,many principals of successful schools have engaged asLocal Leaders in Education and National Leaders inEducation, where they coach and mentor heads atstruggling schools around a particular area of concern –behavior management, for example, or math instruc-tion (National College for Leadership of Schools andChildren’s Services 2010).

Another program builds on the concept developed bybusiness author Jim Collins (2001) around takingorganizations from “good to great.” Given theincreased achievement across England, but particularlyin urban areas like London, many schools and schoolleaders are in a position where achievement is above the


national standard. However, the National College hasrecognized that these principals may need additionalsupport from other successful principals to earn an“outstanding” rating from the Office for Standards inEducation, Children’s Services and Skills. Schoolsinvolved in this program become part of a largerknowledge-sharing network and receive intensive “con-sultancies” from other successful school heads. Partici-pation in the Good to Great program has increased byfourfold since 2007.

With this increased interaction, however, have comeincreasing responsibilities for school heads to manage agreater number of more-complex external relationships.One head said that a large challenge was determiningwhich of the numerous networking and partnershipopportunities to turn down because those partnershipswould not be aligned with the academic mission of theschool. Another nonprofit leader agreed:

There is a need to achieve balance between beingoutward facing and taking [one’s] eye off the ball.There are examples of organizations not being suc-cessful because people became too interested inwhat’s going on outside. Similarly, some organiza-tions make a conscious effort not to networkbecause they don’t want to lose focus on the day-to-day.

An attempt to balance top-down network expec-tations with bottom-up, customized ideas

There is a tension within the literature on effective net-works between organizing networks centrally andallowing networks to “bubble up” through local actors(Mujis, West & Ainscow 2010). This tension wasapparent in the agenda for City Challenge, an urbaneducation reform focusing on support for low-perform-ing schools that began in London and has since spreadto Greater Manchester and the Black Country. While itbegan with a strong hand from the national govern-ment, there has been a slow but steady movement awayfrom centrally directed mandates to customized plansto improve struggling schools, and a focus on school-to-school peer support and schools making informeddecisions about support. As a City Challenge leaderdescribed:

We are still at the turning point of schools leading.City Challenge is the turning point. Direct inter-vention was the first step – it moved us from poorto mediocre. Now the feeling is you can’t directthat any further from center. [It is now about]empowering head teachers and local government.[There are] lots of tensions in here [and] still a lotof top-down interventions at the Department. . . .The new model relies much more on local authori-ties and schools being stronger and evaluating theirown needs. . . . Most schools really detest the top-down model. The feeling from heads is that it’s aone-size-fits-all [model] [and] doesn’t meet theirchallenges.

Moving from a top-down model to one where schoolsare stronger and evaluating their own needs means thatschools will need to become more business savvy intheir evaluation and use of external expertise. Develop-ing a cadre of quality external providers – whetherthat’s the local authority or a private firm – and theneffectively connecting those providers to schools basedon that school’s particular needs is a key challenge forthis new customized model of network building.


A substantial focus on principal networking

A significant amount of effort in across-school net-working in England has focused on school leadershippersonnel – principals, head teachers, and even middleleaders.6 On its face this is not surprising, given thattypically, school leaders are isolated within their ownschools with little contact with counterparts in otherschools (Hemphill & Nauer 2010). School leaders alsoface an increasingly complex profession (Crow 2006)with significant accountability pressures to increase stu-dent achievement (Public Agenda 2003).

We found a wide array of resources for school leaders in England and opportunities to connect with leadersin other schools through professional development,mentoring opportunities, and other programs. Two key providers for principal/head networking were theNational College (described in earlier section of thisreport) and SSAT (the vast majority of secondaryschools now identify as specialist schools or academiesand are thus members of the organization).

The SSAT, as described by one of its leaders, is a voluntary network, and thus its networks have beendeveloped through the needs expressed by schoolsthemselves. There are a variety of different partnershipsand networks, some based on region, while others arevirtual. Their academy principals’ network, for exam-ple, is online and is an “extremely vibrant” discussionfor the nearly 300 academy principals in the SSAT. TheSSAT also supports school-to-school networks with afocus on a particular kind of school development activ-ity (similar to the National College).

Scheduling within individual schools thatallowed teachers and principals the time to be outof the classroom and observe practice in otherschools, as well as participate in networks

Based on the limited number of interviews conductedwith London heads and practitioners, it appeared thatboth heads and practitioners had significant time avail-able each term to leave their classroom and participatein out-of-school networks practitioners identified ashelpful, such as professional development opportunitiesand borough-wide networks.

Local authorities varied in their capacity to support schools, and many networks bypass them

Several trends have complicated the role of the localauthority in England. The most significant networkand support building in England has been at thenational level (e.g., City Challenge, National College)and through private organizations (e.g., SSAT). Yetalthough these networks have been initiated at thenational level, they involve a substantial percentage oflocal authorities. For example, fully one-third of Eng-land’s local authorities are involved in City Challenge,which encompasses London, Greater Manchester, andthe Black Country.

Andy Buck, from the National College, noted thatlocal authorities were “seen politically and by headteachers as variable in quality [and] . . . often the Challenge works despite the authority.” However, theChallenge is “now trying to work in partnership, buildthe capacity of local authorities,” though ultimately,trust in the effectiveness of local authorities comes“from [their] performance and track record.” Given therelative lack of trust in many local authorities in Eng-land, Buck said, the most effective partnerships andnetworks were based on “head teachers supportingother heads” through programs that do not go throughlocal authorities, but rather are facilitated by the Chal-lenge with the National College.

Finally, the availability of the academy model has led toan increasing number of schools existing outside thelocal authority (even when the school facilities arephysically located within a local authority’s bound-aries). It is not surprising, then, that the role of the tra-ditional local authority is in flux. Several intervieweesat the national and school levels remarked on localauthorities’ uneven capacity to support school improve-ment, though schools we visited remained engagedwith their local authorities, especially with respect totheir role in children’s services. Local authorities havealso started to move in the direction of “selling serv-ices” to schools, creating something of a marketplacefor school improvement activity where local authoritiesnow have to compete to remain relevant.


The development of academies has had complex and not-well-understood effects on localauthorities and other existing networks

The development of academies in England, in someways analogous to the charter school movement in theUnited States,7 has had disruptive effects on the tradi-tional organizational structure in education. Academiesare state-funded independent schools that receive pub-lic funds after securing a modest amount of privateinvestment or in-kind support. They have their ownboards and hiring practices and do not have to followthe National Curriculum, though they are held to thesame accountability standards as other state-fundedschools. Academies’ participation in networks may lookdifferent from other schools, though we do not haveenough data yet to look at the types and quality ofacademy partnerships and networks. In our interviewswith one academy head and two practitioners, theschool was part of several national networks, includingSSAT and the National College, though they were notpart of City Challenge.

Whether academies will find existing networks suffi-cient is an open question. It may depend on whetherthe role of an academy head or academy practitioner issignificantly different from that of their counterparts in traditional state-supported schools, thus necessitat-ing different types of support and networking opportu-nities – and possibly whether, analogously to UnitedStates charter management organizations, an independ-ent organization develops to support multiple academies.

New York City

Our interviews and document review yielded severalkey findings about peer networks in New York:

• limited external networks, generally focused on sub-ject matter (e.g., language arts) or inquiry-based proj-ects, and more robust internal networks;

• an emphasis on within-school professional learningcommunities centered on data inquiry;

• a heavy emphasis on bottom-up, self-directed net-works with little top-down direction;

• disruption of existing peer networks and creation ofnew cross-school networking opportunities;

• less time for cross-school networking than in the Eng-lish system.

Limited external networks, generally focused on subject matter (e.g., language arts) or inquiry-based projects, and more robust internal networks

New York practitioners highlighted work with theirpartner support organizations: New Visions and theScaffolded Apprenticeship Model (SAM), an inquiry-based program operated in partnership between NewVisions and Baruch College. Of particular interest wasa network formed by New Visions of the TSIA schoolsto focus on literacy, which included professional devel-opment and school inter-visitations.

Beyond this TSIA network and SAM, however, therewere limited formal external opportunities for network-ing. Internally, networks were more robust and mostoften included department and grade-level team meet-ings, as well as “inquiry teams” that examined data andinitiated interventions with a subset of low-performingstudents. Overall, then, it was clear that opportunitiesfor external networking were much more limited thaninternal networking and more limited than the externalnetworking opportunities provided to their London-based colleagues. This led us to a deeper exploration ofNew York City policies that might constrain the devel-opment of high-quality external networks.

6 “Middle leaders” in the English context refer to teachers who take onleadership roles in a school. Examples include Head of Departmentand Head of Year.

7 The Free Schools initiative proposed by the new government is closerto the charter school model as practiced in the United States.


An emphasis on within-school professionallearning communities centered on data inquiry

The reforms undertaken in the last decade by theNYCDOE have reflected the emphasis in United Statesresearch on within-school professional learning com-munities as a vehicle for improving teacher practice.The strategy of replacing large schools with smallschools begun in the late 1990s and accelerated byBloomberg and Klein enshrined the value of profes-sional learning communities. A central tenet of thesmall schools movement is that intimate size providesmore authentic opportunities for teachers to worktogether to improve practice (Bloom,Thompson &Unterman 2010). The small size of school staff allowsfor closer relationships and facilitates the developmentof a coherent culture. Many large high schools in NewYork have divided their students and staff into smalllearning communities to replicate the benefits of asmall-school environment.

The adoption of the inquiry team model as the majorvehicle for professional development has intensified theemphasis on within-school networks. Beginning withthe 2006-2007 school year, the NYCDOE has scaledup “inquiry teams” modeled on a process developed byNew Visions and Baruch College. Inquiry teams con-sisting of teachers and school leaders meet regularly toattempt to move a small group of students strugglingwith a particular skill into the school’s “sphere of suc-cess” by closely analyzing those students’ struggles andtheir conditions of learning and then refining practicesto better meet their needs. The team then examines theoutcomes of the new practices and makes furtherrefinements as necessary in a continual cycle ofimprovement. Inquiry teams draw on a range of data,including standardized test results, the school’s qualityreview, formative assessments, periodic assessments,and class work.

Based on a successful pilot of the inquiry team modelin about 300 schools, the teams were expanded to allNew York City schools in the 2007-2008 school year.While implementation and success, of course, variesfrom school to school, there is evidence that inquiryteams are functioning as effective networks on a largescale. The teams have been supported by SSO staff as

well as a senior achievement facilitator, a NYCDOEstaff position under the purview of the Office ofAccountability. The NYCDOE has invested in build-ing inquiry teams’ capacity through a comprehensiveinquiry handbook, materials to support each stage ofthe inquiry process, a new comprehensive data system,and online space for teacher collaboration (Talbert2011).

A formative assessment of the inquiry team model,conducted by the Consortium for Policy Research inEducation (CPRE) at Teachers College, Columbia University, found that in the first year, the majority of inquiry teams had completed the inquiry cycle(Robinson et al. 2008). Most inquiry teams had established positive, collaborative norms of workingtogether, and three quarters of teachers reported thatparticipation on an inquiry team had improved theirown practice. The inquiry teams have helped to estab-lish a strong culture of collaborative data use to informinstruction in New York City schools. Talbert (2011)also found that inquiry team participation promptedpositive shifts in individual teachers’ classroom practiceand built shared accountability and teacher leadership.

In addition to formal inquiry teams, high school teach-ers in New York City often work collaborativelythrough other structures. In the eight New York CityTSIA schools, teachers met regularly by grade level andoften by subject area as well. It is unclear how oftenthese other internal networks have focused deeply onissues of teaching and learning rather than on adminis-trative or discipline issues.

Principals saw these professional learning communitiesas important sources of professional development andinstructional improvement. By the 2009-2010 schoolyear, schools were expected to have 90 percent of theirteaching staff participating in grade-level or subject-based inquiry teams. In high schools, many of theexisting grade- and subject-area teams have likelyremained in place and adopted the inquiry teammodel.


A heavy emphasis on bottom-up, self-directednetworks with little top-down direction

The emphasis on empowerment and autonomy hasfavored the development of bottom-up, self-directednetworks in New York. There is a strong belief not onlythat teachers and principals are best equipped to makedecisions, but that the process of teachers in eachschool discovering what works best for their students iscentral to improving instruction. Eric Nadelstern, adeputy to the Chancellor and a key architect of theCFN structure, explained:

If you don’t give people the opportunity to reinventthe wheel, they don’t have the opportunity toimprove the wheel. People have to invent it forthemselves, and then they own it. It’s that owner-ship that inspires them to do their best work.(Hemphill et al. 2010, p. 23)

While the inquiry team model provides extensive guid-ance on the process of inquiry and building function-ing teams, the content of teams’ work and theapproach they take to addressing students’ needs isentirely self-directed. Principals select their own net-works and choose whether and how closely to workwith other schools and are free to leave a network thatis not meeting their needs. Network leaders serve at thepleasure of principals and have no formal authorityover them. Critics note that that this approach mightbe insufficient to develop the capacity of new principalsand new teachers (Hemphill et al. 2010). While experi-enced principals may benefit from autonomy, the hun-dreds of new principals and tens of thousands of newteachers might require more direction and guidance.

Disruption of existing peer networks and creation of new cross-school networking opportunities

Formal peer networking among schools has never beena strategy explicitly pursued by the New York Cityschool system; it is unclear to what extent networkshave formed or received support at various points.Under the local school district structure that existedfrom 1966 to 2002, some districts supported collabora-tion between schools (for example, see Elmore & Bur-ney 1998), and some informal networks arose amongschools within local districts. These networks were inpart the product of geographical proximity and theability of local district administrators to bring togetherschool leaders and teachers and facilitate communica-tion.

Under the local district structure, high schools wereclustered by borough and supported by a borough highschool superintendent. The extent to which these bor-ough groupings functioned as networks varied greatly,according to observers, but in some cases principalsdeveloped strong working relationships and sharedideas about practice. The stability of this structure overtime, the relatively small number of high schools ineach borough, and the longer typical tenure of princi-pals fostered relationships that facilitated networking.

The shift to organizational structures emphasizingschool-level autonomy and self-directed networking hasimpacted the opportunities for cross-school networkingin multiple and contradictory ways.

We found a sense among some principals and observersthat the current climate is not one that encouragescooperation or collaboration among schools. Theheightened accountability for constantly improving testscores that comes as the flip side of increased autonomyhas, according to some principals, created a culture ofcompetition and territoriality that militates against theformation of strong relationships. The repeated shiftsin the support structure since 2002 may have disruptedinformal geographically based networks that previouslyexisted. Hemphill and colleagues (2010) found that


principals had no mechanisms for learning from orworking with nearby schools facing the same neighbor-hood issues and serving similar populations. The strat-egy of replacing large traditional high schools withsmall themed schools has meant the recruitment ofhundreds of new principals and assistant principalsspread across the city, a growing proportion of whomare recruited from fields other than education and havefew relationships with other school leaders.

On the other hand, principals have been given newfreedom to organize themselves in ways that best meetthe needs and interests of their schools. Principals self-select into SSOs and now organize their own ChildrenFirst networks. Theoretically, these groupings based onaffinity should provide more impetus for lateral net-working and sharing of practice than did local schooldistricts based on geography. Rather than focusing oncompliance with district mandates, the job of the net-work leader and his or her staff is to learn what schoolsneed in order to improve and provide scaffolding andaccountability for growth.

While there has been little formal research and very lit-tle documentation of how these networks function,most seemed to use some combination of electroniccommunication platforms, school inter-visitations, andregular meetings of principals and teachers acrossschools as tools for school improvement. According toa NYCDOE official, a good deal of informal and self-initiated networking also arose among schools in eachnetwork. A study of school empowerment andaccountability in New York City found that some prin-cipals appreciated the opportunities to network withschools that are higher-achieving or that excel in a par-ticular area, rather than being organized by geography(Hemphill et al. 2010).

Less time for cross-school networking than inthe English system

Carrie Leanna (2010) has noted the importance of“slack resources” for creating the time and space forteachers to learn from each other in professional com-munities. The emphasis on efficiency often createsschools in which teachers are overwhelmed and princi-pals resort to short-term incentives and monitoring, sheargues, particularly in under-resourced schools.

In comparison with teachers in England, teachers inthe United States appeared to have relatively limitedopportunities to leave their schools during the courseof the school day to observe other teachers and partici-pate in networks. United States schools tended to haveleaner staffs, and teachers carried a heavier course load.While New York City schools have developed strongcultures of teacher collaboration within schools, thesame expectations did not exist, either in New YorkCity specifically or the United States as a whole,around teachers working with and learning from teach-ers in other schools. In New York City, the leanness ofschool staffing was exacerbated by the proliferation ofsmall schools, in which teachers tended to wear multi-ple hats and teacher absences, even for part of a day,took a large toll on the rest of a school’s staff.

The New York City high schools participating in TSIAhad formalized expectations and extra resources to sup-port inter-visitations, online sharing, and regular meet-ings of principals and teachers. TSIA schools receivedfunds for release time for teachers, and a New Visionsfacilitator planned inter-visitations and facilitated col-laborative activities. New Visions found that the TSIAschools had begun to see how a lateral network cancomplement the work they do in their inquiry teamsand other professional learning communities andstrengthen practice. While other schools supported byNew Visions also engaged in cross-school collabora-tions, they had been less successful and sustained with-out the formalized structures and resources providedthrough TSIA.


DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Over the past decade, the United States and Englandhave both worked to reshape their respective educa-tional systems at scale using different reform levers andinfluenced by their respective cultures and political andregulatory structures. In the United States, increasingpower has been granted to the previously weak federalauthorities, working in tandem with states to developrigorous standards and an accountability system thatholds individuals – especially teachers and students –responsible for increasing achievement as measured bystandardized assessments.

Recently, the United States federal government hasexpanded its influence to push common (though stillvoluntary) national standards, “turnaround” policiesfor underperforming schools, systems for collecting,managing, and analyzing data, and new systems ofteacher evaluation. While the emphasis on particularreform areas has shifted and expanded, and the UnitedStates system remains decentralized compared to othereducational systems in developed countries, the overallstrategy has remained one that is top-down. The federalgovernment, through the United States Department ofEducation, sets priorities and funds states and organiza-tions to create and disseminate knowledge to districts,schools, principals, and teachers. There has been rela-tively little attention paid to building what MichaelFullan (2010) calls “collective capacity” within andacross schools to share locally developed knowledge andbest practices.

By contrast, England, through both the public andcharity (i.e., nonprofit) sectors, has invested heavily indeveloping this local collective capacity through thedevelopment of peer and school-to-school networks.While England previously was similar to the UnitedStates in its top-down standards and accountabilitymovement (and it should be said, still retains some ofthat authority through standards development andschool inspection regime), there has been a major effortto change the culture of education to one whereschools are “outward facing,” looking to peers forknowledge and expertise on specific issues.

While the evidence on lateral networks is still emerg-ing, there is evidence that such networks can improvestudent achievement, especially in England. Both theLondon Challenge/City Challenge initiatives, as well as the Raising Achievement, Transforming Learningreforms in England described by Shirley and Harg-reaves (2009) placed school-to-school and peer net-working at the center of their school improvementwork, with very positive results. However, the varietyand varying intensity of many peer networks makesmeasurement of their impact difficult. Still, it is clearthat educational policy plays a key role in facilitatingthe development of high-quality lateral networks.

Looking toward the future, both systems have opportu-nities and challenges to expanding lateral networks toimprove teaching and learning.

England

In England, there has been a heavy investment in net-works over the past decade. While many of these net-works have been facilitated by national organizationslike City Challenge and the National College, severalinterviewees spoke about a “hand-off” transition tomore self-directed networks. Part of this transitioninvolves schools developing and joining these self-directed networks, along with being able to purchaseservices from a “menu” of external public and privatevendors. This movement to a more bottom-upapproach to network creation and development has thepotential to radically shift the notion of where expertiselies in the educational system from national experts tolocal ones.

However, there are several complicating factors andchallenges to this vision of locally directed networks.The first is the recent change in English governmentfrom Labour to a coalition between Conservatives andLiberal Democrats. The new government direction ineducation, as described in the white paper, “TheImportance of Teaching” (see footnote 5, page 7 for


link), pushes traditional Conservative policies such aslocal governance, a decreased national role, support forsome level of privatization of services, and lower overallfunding for education.

The new government has also adopted some UnitedStates-like educational initiatives, including the cham-pioning and adoption of the “free school” model, basedon a Swedish approach as well as United States charterschools. These new state-funded schools can be formedbased on an approved application from business, chari-ties, nongovernmental organizations, parents, or groupsof interested teachers. Free schools will have similarautonomy as academies, including operating outsidethe jurisdiction of local authorities. As of September2010, the government had approved twenty-five freeschools. Another goal of the new government is toexpand the number of academies at both the secondaryand primary levels.

Finally, while formal mechanisms for collaboration willnot be supported in the future, the Conservative-Lib-eral Democratic government aims to significantlyincrease the number of national and local leaders ofeducation, as well as to establish a network of teachingschools that would develop and disseminate effectiveand innovative teaching practices across the country.

These approaches could play out in several ways. Oneencouraging possibility is that an increased level oflocal governance and autonomy could positively impactthe development of local networks, giving schools afree hand to link together in voluntary networks basedon interest and need. On the other hand, if peer-to-peer networking has not been fully integrated into theculture of schooling in England, it is unclear how cur-rent networks will fare going forward without furtherencouragement from the national government. Finally,a decreased level of education funding may change thepriorities for resource use away from allowing teachersand leaders the time to leave their classrooms and col-laborate with others inside and outside their schools.

From all appearances, the increase in the number ofacademies in England will be accelerated under thenew government. This will provide opportunities andchallenges to networking. Again, increased autonomyand control at the local school level could lead to inno-vative networking initiatives, and private charities suchas the SSAT, supported by dues from individualschools, will presumably continue to support network-ing. On the other hand, without central support, academies, which are independent from local commu-nities and the national government, may turn awayfrom cross-school networking. Another intriguing possibility might be that academies will begin organiz-ing themselves into the United States equivalent withinthe charter school movement of educational manage-ment organizations, or EMOs, to leverage services andsupports.


United States

In the United States, the growing attention to the useof data to inform decision-making in schools has influ-enced the development of professional learning com-munities to study, discuss, and act on critical issues ofpractice. In the New York City TSIA schools, for exam-ple, the involvement of practitioners in a local TSIAnetwork and the SAM process, both sponsored andfacilitated by New Visions, is allowing teachers theopportunity to collect and use data, and collaboratearound issues of mutual concern.

One important policy, or rather set of policies, revolvesaround the idea of the slack resources available toteachers and principals that allow the time and flexibil-ity to collaborate, talk about data, and share best practices with others. This is part of developing a pro-fessional culture within education, and without it theUnited States educational system will remain tied to itshistorical “egg crate” model of teaching and learning.In the United States, the average teacher has five toseven hours per week for lesson planning and collabora-tion with other teachers. Carrie Leanna (2010) notesthat the lack of resources in schools for extra staff timerestricts professional growth for teachers and leaders;while other professions and industries commonly pro-vide these resources.

Secondly, building effective networks requires institu-tional memory. Without a common history, under-standing, language, and terminology, it is very difficultfor educators to develop high-functioning networks.This lack of institutional memory is manifested in twoways that we observed. First, unlike in England, thereis no common curriculum or pedagogy across (or evenwithin) schools in the United States or New York City.Sharing effective practices is difficult, though the devel-opment of common tools for schools to use within theinternal New York City TSIA network has bridgedsome of those differences. Second, and more specifi-cally to New York City, the multiple reorganizations ofthat school system have, on the one hand, increasedindividual school autonomy and accountability, whileat the same time dismantling many of the older struc-tures that allowed and even encouraged schools to share

knowledge and best practices. This movement from amore collaborative to a more competitive system hasproduced real tradeoffs.

Building a supportive infrastructure to foster peer net-working in New York City and the United States morebroadly is critical to leverage local knowledge. Nation-ally, the current emphasis on common standards andcommon assessments may help to develop a shared lan-guage and framework to facilitate cross-school collabo-ration. Senator Michael Bennet of Coloradointroduced a bill in the last Congress to create nationaland regional leadership development centers, run bypartnerships of nonprofit organizations, universities,and state education agencies, to prepare teachers to leadturnarounds of low-performing schools. Prospects forthis legislation are now uncertain, but if created, thesecenters could potentially play a role similar to that ofEngland’s National College and City Challenge infacilitating network development.

In New York City, it remains to be seen whether thenew Children’s First Networks will develop into truecross-school communities of practice. One observer ofthe system posits that the intensive focus on profes-sional learning communities within schools that NewYork City has pursued was a needed step in creating aculture of teachers-as-learners who engage in sharedreflection before that culture could be extended acrossschools. It remains to be seen whether schools will nowbe supported in turning outward to learn from oneanother.

As the United States enters an era in which the major-ity of states have already agreed to implement morechallenging common core standards, educators andpolicy-makers must be thinking about the policies andpractices that will support these higher standards. Forimplementation of common core standards across thenation to be successful, educators need curricular sup-ports and formalized professional development – butthey also need formal and informal opportunities tolearn with and from their peers through observation,communication, and collaborative work.


APPENDIX A

ABOUT THE STUDY

In an effort to better contextualize the work of theTSIA within the United States and English systems, the Annenberg Institute – the lead TSIA partner in the United States – and the Institute for Education atthe University of London examined how within- andacross-school networks in New York City and Londonfoster effective practice for school leadership and teachers.

This exploratory study examined networks from theteacher/leader, school, local authority (LA) or interme-diary organization, and national perspectives. Webegan this research exploration through the lenses ofprincipals and teachers at the TSIA schools in NewYork City and London. The New York City highschools involved in TSIA are all affiliated with theschool support organization New Visions for PublicSchools. In London, the secondary schools involved inTSIA are a mixture of traditional publicly supportedschools and academies.

In the first phase of work, we gathered data from fif-teen English and seven United States leaders and teach-ers. We asked participants to prioritize and describetheir networking experience both within and beyondtheir school. This preliminary research set the stage foran examination of how the policy environment in thetwo countries impacted the development and operationof peer networks. We examined the following questionsboth within England (national level) and the UnitedStates (city level):

• What does the current networking-collaborationlandscape look like?

• Who is funding/supporting networking initiatives?

• What are the intended outcomes?

• What evidence exists related to the success of the net-works in attaining their stated goals?

• What evidence do teachers and heads/principals shareabout their experiences with these networks?

Because of the greater involvement of the national gov-ernment in England in education, we focused much ofour interviewing on national actors; conversely, thestrong local control in United States schools meant thatwe focused on local and district organizations in NewYork City.

At the local authority, intermediary, and national levels,we sought to better understand how networks in whichthe TSIA schools are embedded are developed and sup-ported and how promising, or even innovative, prac-tices identified at the local school level are disseminatedand scaled. We were also interested in if, and how,those practices are mediated and constrained. Webegan by identifying organizations that promote andfacilitate networks of leaders, practitioners, and/orschools, including government and non-governmentactors. We also consulted with colleagues in Londonand New York City for recommendations related toorganizations and individuals that should be includedin our policy interviews. We conducted 45- to 90-minute interviews with members of eight Englishorganizations and five United States organizations,both government-funded and nonprofits or charities.

These interviews were supplemented by a documentreview of materials provided by these organizationsrelated to the development and support of peer net-works.

At the local level, researchers interviewed practitionersand leaders in four TSIA schools to better understandthe local conditions within these schools, the networks(including TSIA) that staff participate in, and howthose local conditions impact network participation.These interviews supplemented the practitioner focusgroups described above.


APPENDIX B

LEAD PRACTITIONER NETWORK ANALYSIS

External Networks

Our analysis of the networking data from the leadpractitioners and head teachers produced some inter-esting preliminary insight into the types of internal andexternal networks they are currently engaged in. Whilewe acknowledge we were working with a very smallsample (twenty-two leaders and teachers), we wereinterested in both testing the tools and gaining initialunderstanding into the context of networking experi-ence among our TSIA colleagues.

The external networks cited by the New York City andLondon participants fall into six distinct categories.

Program-Based Networks

Participants listed their involvement in thirty-sevenprogram-based networks. Of the twenty-two partici-pants, nineteen Londoners and New Yorkers listed theTSIA as one of their networks with four of the sevenNew Yorkers listing TSIA and their New York–basedTSIA work as one of their two most valuable network-ing experiences. Twelve of the fifteen Londoners listedTSIA as one of their external networks, and threespecifically mentioned their work on the Students asResearchers program with the Institute of Education.

Personal Relationships

Participants listed personal networks on thirteen occa-sions including, in descending order: friends fromtraining, friends outside education, family, and com-munity/neighborhood. Three Londoners and two NewYorkers highlighted personal relationships as one oftheir most valuable networks. Evenings in the pub andlunch with friends and colleagues were the most valu-able networks for five Londoners and one New Yorker.

Professional Relationships

Professional relationships were listed twenty times byparticipants including fifteen times by Londoners andfive times by New Yorkers. Four New Yorkers listedteaching fellow colleagues as a key external network,and one Londoner and one New Yorker mentionedtheir students’ parents. When discussing importantprofessional relationships, Londoners listed: teachers at their current school/colleagues, teachers at otherschools, and former colleagues. It is interesting to notethat New York participants did not mention teachersoutside of their schools in the same way.

Professional Development

Participants listed professional development-relatednetworks twenty-one times with just more than half(eleven) labeled as a most valued network. The twenty-two London participants mentioned sixteen profes-sional development networks and highlighted eight astheir most valuable. New York City participants listedfive professional development networks and identifiedthree as their most valuable.

Meetings/Boards/Formal Networks

While six London participants listed a total of eighteenmeetings/boards/formal networks, none of the NewYork City participants listed similar networks. Lon-doner networks included local authority/district level,subject networks, teachers organizations/union-related,and alumni associations. Londoners chose six of thesenetworks as most valued networks.

Extracurricular

Two Londoners listed a total of eight extra-curricularactivity networks, including one who listed seven dif-ferent extracurricular networks that influenced that stu-dent’s personal work and development. No New YorkCity participants listed extracurricular activities withintheir networks of influence.


Internal Networks

Our analysis of the reported internal networks withinschools that provide support and influence to partici-pating head teacher and lead practitioners producedfour discrete categories: staff networks, leader-related(e.g., heads, senior leadership team, etc.) networks, stu-dent/parent networks, and school initiative/programnetworks.

Staff

Each London and New York City participant men-tioned at least one staff-related network as a most val-ued network with a total of 118 networks listed.Nineteen of twenty-two participants (twelve Londonersand seven New Yorkers) listed their department ormeetings with their department as an important net-work. Fourteen participants noted that their depart-ment was one of their most valuable networks. Fifteenparticipants (ten Londoners and five New Yorkers)listed their year/grade/tutor team as an influential net-work. However, only four New York City participantslisted them as one of their most important networks.Some other staff-related networks mentioned wereteaching and learning committee, inquiry team, andsubject faculty.

Leader-Related (e.g., Heads, SLT etc.)

Nine participants listed seventeen leader-related net-works, including head of department, own or other,head of year, own or other, and TSIA lead practitioner.One Londoner and one New Yorker mentioned theirsenior leadership team as an important network. FourLondon participants listed middle management orleadership networks as important, and two participantsidentified them as most valued networks.

Student/Parent

Participants mentioned seven networks including stu-dent and/or parents as important. Two London partici-pants identified school briefings, and one New Yorkeridentified the parent-teacher association as a mostimportant network.

School Initiatives/Programs

Participants identified twenty-three schoolprograms/initiatives as influential networks. Eight Lon-doners listed seventeen networks, and four New York-ers listed six networks as important to their work andprofessional development. Six participants mentionedTSIA as an influential network with two participantshighlighting the TSIA as one of their two most influen-tial networks.


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