Over the past few decades, many different perspectives, ideas, opinions, philosophies, and policies have been presented as reform. National, state, district, and local agencies all make educational policy, leading one researcher to say that "the latter half of the twentieth century probably witnessed the enactment of more education policies—maybe several times more—than the whole prior history of schooling back to ancient Greeks" (Loveless, 1998, p. 283). In addition, an astounding number of groups have been involved in changing curriculum, instruction, assessment, graduation requirements, community involvement, school structure, teacher education, and the list goes on. For teachers, it is not easy to decide which directives to listen to and follow. When making these decisions, teachers may try to respond to too many diverse messages and dilute the effect of any one idea. They may choose to listen to the messages of only one reform effort and miss opportunities to provide students with more effective educational experiences. Or they may become confused and resentful and refuse to listen to any of the new messages (Knapp, 1997).

McDermott (2000) states that it is also common for policies and programs to be partially implemented because of the number of institutional interests to be served. Political and public pressures increase the propensity for partial implementation to continue.

Additionally, high staff turnover makes it difficult to apply policy consistently and changes in school administration often result in termination of programs associated with the previous administration.

Are there any clear directions emerging in the area of school improvement? Cohen and Hill (1998) note that by the mid 1980s,

researchers and reformers had begun to argue for more intellectually ambitious instruction. They contended that teaching and learning should be more deeply rooted in the disciplines and much more demanding. Reformers also began to argue that schools should orient their work to the results that students achieve rather than the resources that schools receive. (p. 1)

They go on to say that by the early 1990s, "many states were moving more forcefully on instruction, and many sought coordinated change in instructional frameworks, curriculum, and assessment" (p. 1).

So, the focus of reform is becoming more clearly aimed at improving instruction and student learning. One strategy of the last decade was the push for coherence in educational policy with the expectation that aligned policy would result in better teaching and learning. As this strategy proved less effective than hoped, the focus has shifted to teachers and their preparation, high-quality teaching, and teacher learning.

The Systemic Approach to School Reform

Systemic school reform, a national focus for educational improvement during the early 1990s, was promoted to address the lack of cohesion typical of previous reform periods. According to this approach, the direction for reform is provided by a common vision informed by "underlying values concerning intellectually stimulating and engaging education for all students" and a set of goals (standards and benchmarks) that can be communicated and measured (CPRE, 1991, p. 6). Key policies are aligned to support outcome expectations (student learning goals). Finally, the governance system is restructured to give schools more flexibility in meeting student needs (CPRE, 1991; Fuhrman, 1993).

Systemic reform, thus, is a policy approach to school improvement that emphasizes high standards, aligned assessments, an accountability system, and site-based management. Fuhrman explained that the approach was "built around two supremely logical notions: societal decision about outcome goals and coordination of important policy instruments" (1993, p. 3). Both the scope and coherence of the efforts and the balance between state and local controls distinguish this approach to reform from those of previous decades. Using the establishment of performance-based standards as the organizing principle, policymakers could evaluate all aspects of the system to see if they promoted the desired outcomes (Blank & Pechman, 1995).

In her book, Designing Coherent Educational Policy: Improving the System (1993), Fuhrman shared her understanding of coherent policy:

The idea of coherent policy is not consistency for its own sake but consistency in service of specific goals for student learning. Coherent policy means giving a sense of direction to the educational system by specifying policy purposes...it means establishing high-quality goals about what students should know and be able to do and then coordinating policies that link to the goals. (p. xi)

Systemic reform is based on several premises: that a major constraint on the quality of teaching is the lack of alignment among elements of the system; that better teaching will result when there is alignment with challenging standards; that the lack of alignment is best addressed at the level at which policies are set; and that systemic reform strategies are not incompatible with local discretion (Knapp, 1997). In the early 1990s, it seemed that the teacher had little direct role in the reform process. The objective was to provide instructional guidance without actually involving the teacher very much.

Initially, some of the new state and professional standards documents contributed to the problems they were supposed to solve by being so "bloated and poorly written÷that almost no one can realistically teach to or ever hope to adequately assess" them (Schmoker & Marzano, 2000, p. 19). However, these authors contend that "clear, intelligible standards are a pillar of higher achievement" (p. 19). They explain,

Standards—when we get them right—will give us the results we want÷The lesson of TIMSS should considerably diminish the perceived risk of downsizing the curriculum. The very nature of organizations argues that we succeed when all parties are rowing in the same direction. We will realize the promise of school reform when we establish standards and expectations for reaching them that are clear, not confusing; essential, not exhaustive. (p. 21)