642517

research-article2016
EPAXXX10.3102/0162373716642517Strunk et al.Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

September 2016, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 549577
DOI: 10.3102/0162373716642517
2016 AERA. http://eepa.aera.net

Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo: A Mixed-

Methods Study of School Reconstitution

Katharine O. Strunk
Julie A. Marsh
Ayesha K. Hashim
Susan Bush-Mecenas
University of Southern California

School reconstitution, a turnaround strategy that prescribes massive staffing turnover, is expected to
result in more committed and capable school staff and innovative practices. However, little evidence
supports this assumption. We use quasi-experimental designs to assess the impact of reconstitution
on student achievement and teacher mobility, finding that reconstitution affected teacher mobility
and improved student achievement in the first year of the reform, with continued but smaller impacts
in the out years. We draw on mutual learning theory to conduct an exploratory analysis of reform
implementation. We find that initial re-staffing and strategic planning may have promoted balance
between exploring new and exploiting existing knowledge. Over time, however, balanced, mutual
learning was not sustained.

Keywords: reconstitution, turnaround, accountability

Education leaders are increasingly relying on The federal government has included school
school reconstitution as a policy solution for turn- reconstitution in several of its recent reforms. For
ing around low-performing schools (Malen & instance, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)
Rice, in press). This reform strategy targets the specifies school staff replacement as a potential
human capital stock of schools, replacing existing corrective action for schools that fail to meet aca-
teachers, administrators, and support staff with demic performance standards for 4 consecutive
more motivated, qualified, and collaborative years (Linn, 2005; Novak & Fuller, 2003).
employees. Typically, school reconstitution allows Similarly, the School Improvement Grants (SIG)
existing staff members to reapply for their jobs program features school reconstitution as the
and be rehired up until a certain threshold (usually turnaround model for school improvement
50% of the schools existing staff), or to otherwise (U.S. Department of Education, Office of
transfer to another position in the school district Elementary and Secondary Education, 2010).1
(Malen, Croninger, Muncey, & Redmond-Jones, Many states and school districts have also relied
2002; Malen & Rice, in press). In addition, recon- on school reconstitution to provide a fresh start
stituted schools may receive financial resources for low-performing schools, with reforms being
and technical assistance to facilitate shifts in orga- implemented in cities such as San Francisco,
nizational design and practice. Through these Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles,
efforts, reconstituted schools are expected to Colorado Springs, New York City, and
develop a more committed and capable school Philadelphia (Malen & Rice, in press).
staff, innovate school and classroom practices, Although informed by a deliberate theory of
and support rapid gains in student achievement. action, there is little empirical evidence to suggest
Strunk et al.
that school reconstitution actually transforms low-
performing schools. Extant research has produced
mixed evidence on the impacts of school reconsti-
tution on student achievement (Dee, 2012;
Hamilton, Heilig, & Pazy, 2014; Malen etal.,
2002) and indicates that school reconstitution
might lead to negative and unintended conse-
quences for the human capital of schools (Malen
etal., 2002; Malen & Rice, 2004; Rice &
Croninger, 2005; Rice & Malen, 2003). To pro-
vide further evidence to inform the use of reconsti-
tution in education reform, this article examines
the implementation and outcomes of three recon-
stituted schools in a large urban school district.
Identified based on past performance, these low-
performing schools engaged in a local school
redesign process, including reflection and detailed
instructional and operational planning, which cul-
minated with district-led reconstitution. In partic-
ular, we ask the following research questions:
Research Question 1: How does school
reconstitution affect teacher mobility and
the teacher workforce of low-performing
schools?
Research Question 2: How does school
reconstitution affect student outcomes in
low-performing schools?
Research Question 3: What conditions
and factors contributed to the observed
outcomes of reconstitution in our case
study schools?
In answering these questions, our article con-
tributes to the existing literature on school recon-
stitution, as it is one of the first to use multiple
methods both to examine the implementation and
impacts of reconstitution on teacher and student
outcomes. In addition, we draw on mutual learn-
ing theory (March, 1991, 1994) in our qualitative
analyses to posit a more nuanced understanding
of the reconstitution process, including giving
attention to how and why changes in teacher and
student outcomes may occur.
The article proceeds as follows. In the next
section, we outline the theory of action on which
school reconstitution is based, reviewing the
empirical and conceptual literature that addresses
reconstitution and outlining Marchs (1991,
1994) mutual learning model, which we use as a
lens for the exploratory implementation analysis.
550
Next, we review the quantitative and qualitative
data and methods that we use in this study. We
follow this with a discussion of our results from
each of the three research questions and conclude
with further discussion and implications for pol-
icy, practice, and future research.
Empirical and Conceptual Underpinnings:
Grounding the Inquiry
In this section, we outline the theory of action
underpinning school reconstitution and summa-
rize the key findings of the school reconstitution
literature regarding the effects of school reconsti-
tution on (a) staffing, focusing on teacher mobil-
ity and quality; (b) school redesign and
innovation; and (c) student achievement. We
then review Marchs (1991, 1994) mutual learn-
ing model and describe how this theory of orga-
nizational learning can be applied to studies of
school reconstitution.
The Theory of Action Behind School
Reconstitution
Although school districts have implemented
school reconstitution under different labels (e.g.,
turnaround, redesign, reengineering) and pro-
gram designs, these reforms all share a common
theory of action. In particular, school reconstitu-
tion efforts are grounded in research indicating
that teachers and administrators matter for stu-
dent achievement (e.g., Aaronson, Barrow, &
Sander, 2007; Chetty, Friedman, & Rockoff,
2014; Leithwood, Seashore, Anderson, &
Wahlstrom, 2004; Nye, Konstantopoulos, &
Hedges, 2004; S. G. Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain,
2005; Rockoff, 2004) and play a central role in
reform implementation (e.g., Coburn & Stein,
2006; Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 2001).
As such, efforts to improve school performance
must target the quality of teachers and school
leadership. School reconstitution policies further
assume that low-performing schools are dys-
functional organizations, meaning that incre-
mental changes such as new teacher professional
development or evaluation procedures will not
improve organizational performance (Malen &
Rice, in press, p. 5). Instead, low-performing
schools must be reinvented anew by replacing
existing school staff with highly qualified and
Figure 1. Theory of action of school reconstitution.
motivated educators, administrators, and support
personnel (Malen etal., 2002; Malen & Rice, in
press).
Figure 1 outlines the sequence of events
expected to follow once low-performing schools
undergo re-staffing. First, new hires come with
more experience, higher qualifications, and greater
levels of motivation than existing school staff, thus
improving the human capital stock of schools
(Malen etal., 2002; Malen & Rice, in press). Next,
these reconfigured school staffs engage in school
redesign (Malen etal., 2002), adopting innovative
and efficient school practices that improve student
achievement. Examples of such practices include
community-based governance, faculty collabora-
tion, tailor-made professional development, and
teacher-initiated, inquiry-based approaches to
instruction (Malen etal., 2002, p. 123). As part of
this school redesign process, new employees build
an organizational culture of staff collaboration,
learning, and adaptation (Malen etal., 2002; Rice
& Croninger, 2005), which further enhances school
capacity for innovation and improvement.
Education leaders use two policy tools to
facilitate the above chain of events. First, educa-
tion leaders rely on the threat of school reconsti-
tution, often alongside other rewards and
sanctions in high-stakes school accountability
systems, to incentivize returning or newly hired
staff to work more productively and make effi-
cient use of school resources (Malen & Rice, in
press; Rice & Malen, 2010). Second, education
leaders provide school capacity reinforcements
in the form of resources that are aligned to school
goals such as new personnel, technical assis-
tance, and professional development (Malen &
Rice, 2004, in press; Rice & Malen, 2010). All
together, these incentives and capacity measures
are expected to promote organizational learning
and changes to school practices (discussed later
in this section), guaranteeing that school staff
replacement eventually leads to improvements in
student achievement and school performance.
A Review of the Empirical Literature on
School Reconstitution
There is little empirical evidence on the effi-
cacy of reconstitution reforms to improve student
and school outcomes. Although there is a larger
and growing body of literature on the implemen-
tation and impacts of school turnarounda
broader reform movement that encompasses
multiple strategies for creating rapid, substantial,
and sustained improvements in school perfor-
mance (e.g., Herman etal., 2008; Knudson,
Shamburgh, & ODay, 2011)we focus on stud-
ies of school reconstitution efforts, which empha-
size the human capital component of school
change. In this section, we summarize the key
findings of the school reconstitution literature in
terms of three key milestones as identified in our
theory of action (Figure 1), namely, the effects of
reconstitution on (a) staffing (teacher mobility
551
Strunk et al.
and quality), (b) school redesign and innovation,
and (c) student achievement. We conclude with a
review of Marchs (1991, 1994) mutual learning
model, which we use as a lens in our qualitative
study, and a discussion of how this work contrib-
utes to the empirical and conceptual literature
base on school reconstitution.
Teacher Outcomes of School Reconstitu-
tion. Although the theory of action behind
school reconstitution hinges on school workforce
improvements, research has shown that reconsti-
tuted schools experience negative human capital
consequences. A series of case studies of three
reconstituted schools in a single urban district
find disruptive short-term outcomes including
high rates of teacher exit, with first-year and non-
certified teachers often replacing more experi-
enced and reputedly effective teachers (Malen
etal., 2002; Malen & Rice, 2004; Rice & Cron-
inger, 2005; Rice & Malen, 2003). These results
suggest that newly hired teachers at reconstituted
schools might actually be less qualified and com-
mitted to school improvement than their prede-
cessors (Malen & Rice, in press). Empirical
studies of school reconstitution in Texas (Hamil-
ton etal., 2014) and Chicago (de la Torre etal.,
2013; Hess, 2003), along with state and national
reports on SIG reforms (Center on Education
Policy, 2012; U.S. Government Accountability
Office, 2012), report similar findings.
To explain these human capital challenges,
education scholars suggest that challenging
working conditions, the threat of future correc-
tive action, and the stigma of working at a recon-
stituted school create strong incentives for
effective and veteran teachers to transfer to other
district schools (Hamilton etal., 2014; Hess,
2003; Malen etal., 2002; Rice & Malen, 2003).
In addition, school districts often face shortages
of qualified and experienced teachers and school
administrators (Center on Education Policy,
2012; de la Torre etal., 2013; Hamilton etal.,
2014; LeFloch etal., 2014; Rice & Croninger,
2005), which reduces the quality of incoming
staff assigned to reconstituted schools.
School Redesign and Innovation in Reconstitu-
tion Reforms.Given the apparent negative
effects of school reconstitution on teacher qual-
ity, it is not surprising that extant research finds
552
inconclusive evidence about reconstituted
schools capacity for innovation and improve-
ment. Some studies suggest that school reconsti-
tution enhances the cultural capital of schools
when new staff come from similar ethnic back-
grounds as students (Malen etal., 2002; Rice &
Croninger, 2005), as well as improves school
professional culture with new hires working lon-
ger hours and exerting more effort than previous
staff (Hamilton etal., 2014; Hansen, Kraetzer, &
Mukherjee, 1998; Rice & Malen, 2010). How-
ever, the extent to which these benefits translate
into innovative and effective school practices
that ultimately improve student achievement is
unknown (Malen & Rice, in press; Rice & Malen,
2010). This knowledge gap is due, in part, to the
fact that existing studies on school reconstitution
have paid little attention to processes of organi-
zational learning that contribute to school
improvement.
The human capital advantages of school
reconstitution can also be offset by the disrup-
tive and punitive nature of this reform, which
increases both the intensity of work and pres-
sure for success (Malen etal., 2002; Malen &
Rice, 2004, in press). These high-stress condi-
tions can deplete the social capital of schools
(Malen & Rice, 2004, in press; Rice &
Croninger, 2005), as well as focus staff efforts
on reestablishing organizational routines rather
than implementing new and comprehensive
school improvement strategies (Malen etal.,
2002; Malen & Rice, 2004, in press; Rice &
Croninger, 2005). For example, due to frequent
staff and leader turnover, teachers at reconsti-
tuted schools often find it difficult to develop
collaborative relationships, coordinate efforts
for addressing student and school needs, or
build institutional knowledge (Malen etal.,
2002; Malen & Rice, 2004; Rice & Croninger,
2005; Rice & Malen, 2003). Observations and
reports of classroom instruction further reflect
superficial changes in teacher practices (Hess,
2003; Malen etal., 2002), low-quality instruc-
tion (Rice & Malen, 2003), and the dilution of
academic standards (Hess, 2003). These chal-
lenges, in turn, can deplete teachers morale and
increase their sense of disillusionment, further
diminishing schools human capital stock and
capacity for innovation and improvement
(Malen etal., 2002; Malen & Rice, 2004).

Student Outcomes of School Reconstitution. Cur-
rently little is known about the impacts of school
reconstitution on student and school perfor-
mance. Most prior studies have focused on the
effects of school turnaround rather than on the
impacts of school reconstitution on student out-
comes (de la Torre, etal., 2013; Strunk, Marsh,
Hashim, Mecenas-Bush, & Weinstein, in press).
The few studies that have explicitly focused on
school reconstitution find either inconsistent
trends in student achievement (Hamilton etal.,
2014; Malen etal., 2002) or short-term gains due
to reconstitution (Archibald & Odden, 2000;
Dee, 2012; Hess, 2003; Mintrop & Trujillo,
2005; OBrien & Dervarics, 2013; Rojas, 1996).
Given the findings that paint a negative picture of
the effects of reconstitution on teacher quality
and school capacity, the somewhat positive
results regarding performance outcomes are sur-
prising. However, as with the studies examining
the effects of reconstitution on teacher outcomes,
most student achievement studies do not use
methodologies that enable the assessment of
causal impacts of school reconstitution and
should be interpreted with caution.
One notable exception to this literature is a
recent study by Dee (2012), which suggests that
school reconstitution can improve student out-
comes when coupled with complementary
resources, such as additional funding, training,
and/or personnel to implement new programs.
Using a regression discontinuity design, Dee
demonstrates that SIG-funded reforms in
California produce significant school perfor-
mance gains, with the school reconstitution
model driving these achievement gains. Given
that the SIG program couples school reconstitu-
tion with sizable financial grants and local dis-
cretion for implementing school improvement
plans, Dees findings lend credence to the notion
that school reconstitution can improve school
performance when ample resources and local
discretion are provided.
As is clear from this review, not all of the
tenets of the reconstitution theory of action hold
up to empirical examination. In particular, the
descriptive work on the teacher outcomes of
school reconstitution offers warnings of negative
consequences stemming from drastic reshaping
of school-based labor forces. In addition, there
has been little work that examines how schools
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
innovate and grow as learning organizations as a
result of reconstitution efforts, and the extant
work that exists suggests that school capacity,
culture, and climate suffer. Nonetheless, the
long-term goal of reconstitutionimproved stu-
dent outcomesappears, from the literature, to
be achieved.
As noted before, our article contributes to this
literature by utilizing multiple methods to exam-
ine the impacts of reconstitution on teacher and
student outcomes and explore the implementa-
tion of reconstitution in individual case sites. As
will be further described below, our qualitative
analyses draw on mutual learning theory (March,
1991, 1994) to posit a more nuanced understand-
ing of the reconstitution process, and how and
why changes in teacher and student outcomes
may occur.
Using Mutual Organizational Learning to
Understand Reconstitution. Because the theory
of action on which reconstitution is based
assumes that treated schools will benefit from
having a mix of new and existing staff, along
with the knowledge and skills that they possess,
and enhanced school organizational learning, we
draw on Marchs (1991, 1994) mutual learning
theory to understand the nuances and intricacies
of how school reconstitution occurs and to
explore how and why reconstitution may influ-
ence teacher and student outcomes.2 March pos-
its that organizations allocate their limited
resources to exploring new possibilities and
exploiting old knowledge. Exploration describes
the introduction of new knowledge into the orga-
nization, through both active (as in the case of
purposeful search for new alternatives) and pas-
sive processes (for example, the infusion of new
ideas possessed by new employees). Thus, explo-
ration supports organizational adaptation through
the discovery of more effective and efficient
practices, but also involves risk as organizations
must invest time and resources, in terms of finan-
cial, social, and human capital, to implement
unfamiliar practices that may or may not lead to
improved performance. Exploitation, or drawing
on existing knowledge within the organization, is
theorized to provide more certain and faster
returns. It is through exploitation that organiza-
tions may realize the returns on their investment
in new knowledge. Ultimately, organizations
553
Strunk et al.
establish balance between exploitation and
exploration to support ongoing learning and opti-
mal performance.
Consider a simple case of mutual learning in a
school setting. A hypothetical high school oper-
ates on a traditional schedule of 1-hour class
periods. The school has long operated in this
way, so teachers have developed 1-hour lessons
and students are comfortable with this structure.
The school, however, has seen declining student
achievement in recent years, perhaps related to
environmental changes such as decreased fund-
ing and a shift to Common Corealigned curricu-
lum. This school is used to exploiting its
knowledge about how to function with the cur-
rent schedule. Achievement may be declining
due to environmental factors, but it does so
steadily and predictably. We can interpret this
school as having a high rate of environmental
change and a low rate of exploration, which
together reduce its efficiency and effectiveness.
One day, a new teacher arrives at our hypo-
thetical high school. She finds it difficult to fit
her Common Corealigned lessons into the
1-hour class periods, so she suggests to the
administration that they shift to a 2-hour block
schedule. Agreeing with her idea, the administra-
tors invest time in convincing teachers that the
2-hour block will improve student achievement
and adjusting school operations. They also
expend financial resources to provide profes-
sional development to teachers about teaching in
the extended-block format. Teachers, in turn,
invest time in redesigning their lesson plans.
Students, too, will expend effort in modifying
their study routines. Considering these costs, it is
possible that this new schedule will allow for
more in-depth instruction and enhanced student
academic outcomes; however, it is also possible
that the school may see null or negative growth
in student achievement. In this way, exploration
involves a level of risk that exploitation does not,
but also offers the potential of enhanced effec-
tiveness and efficiency. The return on investment
in the new schedule might only be realized once
the new schedule has become routine (and is, at
that point, an exploited practice).
Clearly, solely focusing on either exploration
or exploitation makes sense only in particular
environments. Researchers assert that organiza-
tions need to strike a balance between exploration
554
and exploitation (March, 1991; Rivkin &
Siggelkow, 2003) because both short-term pro-
ductivity and long-term innovation are essential
for organizational success and survival (Lavie &
Rosenkopf, 2006, p. 800). These researchers
acknowledge, however, the challenges (e.g., com-
petency traps) that organizations face in pursuing
two contradictory activities concurrently and
finding an appropriate balance (Levinthal &
March, 1993; March, 1991). As a result, many
organizations seek to attain a balance between the
two, such that they are exploring enough to be
able to adapt to changing conditions, but not so
much that they either exhaust their resources dur-
ing search or change course so frequently that the
organization never achieves competence or strong
returns on its investment.
Mutual learning theory asserts that individual,
organizational, and environmental factors influ-
ence to what extent and how organizations
engage in exploitation (see Figure 2). The capac-
ity and learning rate of individuals influence how
knowledge is found, managed, and used. Indeed,
turnover of individuals itself promotes explora-
tion as outside knowledge is introduced through
new hires (in contrast to the redundant knowl-
edge embodied by employees with longer tenure
in the organization). New employees, however,
are expected to learn the organizational code (or
existing practices) over time, adapting to the
norms and practices of the organization and its
employees. The pace of learning among organi-
zational members, therefore, is another key influ-
ence on mutual learning; if new employees
acclimate too quickly, the valuable integration of
outside knowledge is lessened.
Organizational characteristics may strongly
influence how individuals interact and the content
of their interactions (and thus, the extent to which
exploitation and exploration occur). High aspira-
tions, or shared performance goals of the organi-
zation, are thought to promote exploration because
the organization pursues multiple alternatives to
reach high performance goals. Experimentation,
in turn, increases the organizations failure rate.
Over time, high failure rates may decrease the
organizations motivation to seek new alternatives
and therefore lead organizations to rely on tried
and true practices (i.e., exploitation).
Leadership style and structure is another orga-
nizational dimension that influences mutual
Figure 2. Marchs (1991, 1994) mutual learning theory as a sensitizing concept for reconstitution.
learning (Pandey & Sharma, 2009; Vera &
Crossan, 2004). A leaders attitude toward cre-
ativity, emotional security, uncertainty tolerance,
and sense of urgency influence the extent to
which the organization and its members engage
in exploration or exploitation. In addition, the
frequency, content, and tenor of collaboration
among an organizations members can support
experimentation and learning. Finally, environ-
mental conditions may influence organizational
learning. For example, organizations in turbulent
environments must establish more adaptive prac-
tices and engage in more exploration than organi-
zations in relatively stable environments where
existing knowledge and practices may prove to
be suitable for a longer period of time.
Marchs mutual learning model is well suited
to the case of school reconstitution, as this strat-
egy assumes that dramatic staff turnover, matched
with planning, professional development, and
increased aspirations associated with account-
ability, will promote exploration within organiza-
tions that have over-exploited and are thought to
be in need of new knowledge to attain balanced
mutual learning. In fact, despite their best efforts
at creating structures to balance these activities,
empirical research demonstrates the tendency of
exploitation to crowd out exploration in organi-
zations (Benner & Tushman, 2002; Lavie &
Rosenkopf, 2006). Essentially, the theory of
action of reconstitution implicitly communicates
that low-performing schools are in need of an
infusion of new knowledge and practices,
embodied in new staff and organizational pro-
cesses, to supplement their existing knowledge
and practices. The reconstitution process, as
shown in Figure 1, therefore depends on pro-
cesses of mutual learning and improvement. As
such, we draw on Marchs framework for our
exploratory analyses of the school reconstitution
process in two schools.
Data and Methods
Our study takes place in an urban school district3
that reconstituted a small set of schools. In the
20102011 school year, the district identified three
low-performing schools in need of turnaround
based on student performance measures. During
their reconstitution year, school leaders and outside
partners engaged in designing and writing a school
improvement plan, subsequently approved by the
555
Strunk et al.
district. Reconstitution (re-staffing) occurred dur-
ing the spring and summer of 2011. These schools
received new administrators, interviewed existing
teachers (retaining up to 50% of them), and
selected new teachers to fill in remaining vacan-
cies. During the first year of implementation as a
reconstituted school (in 20112012), the district
provided additional resources in the form of staff
professional development, after which this resource
was discontinued. We examine teacher mobility
and school operations in the year of reconstitution
(20102011) and the following Implementation
Years 1, 2, and 3 (20112012, 20122013, and
20132014), whereas our student outcomes analy-
sis is limited to the reconstitution year and
Implementation Years 1 and 2 due to statewide
changes to the standardized testing regime.
Quantitative Data and Analytic Approach
To estimate the impacts of school reconstitution
on teacher mobility and student achievement, we
rely on a rich panel of the districts teacher-, stu-
dent-, and school-level administrative data. Our
teacher panel spans from 20072008 to 20142015
and includes employee demographics (e.g., race/
ethnicity, gender,), educational attainment, job
title, contract status (i.e., permanent, probationary,
etc.), school placement, and measures of teacher
effectiveness (evaluation scores and value-added
measures [VAMs] of teachers contributions to stu-
dent achievement for teachers in tested grades and
subjects [see Appendix A in the online version of
the journal for detail about how we construct
VAMs].) We restrict our sample to teachers who
have worked at a reconstituted or comparable
school (defined later) at some point from 2007
2008 to 20142015. Our final analytic data set
includes 11,715 teacher-year observations and
3,300 unique teacher observations of elementary,
secondary, or special education teachers at tradi-
tional K-12 schools.4
Our student panel spans from 20032004 to
20132014 and includes information on student
demographics (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, eligi-
bility for free and reduced price lunch [FRL]),
school enrollment, and academic performance
(standardized test scores in ELA and math normed
by grade and year). Within this panel, we limit
our sample to students who are enrolled in tested
grade levels (i.e., second through 11th grades) at
556
K12 traditional schools and some charter
schools.5 Although our student panel extends till
20132014, we only have achievement data up
until 20122013, as the district under study
stopped administering assessments in 20132014
when transitioning into the Common Core State
Standards. As such, we can only estimate the
impacts of school reconstitution on student
achievement during the first 2 full years of reform
implementation (20112012 and 20122013). We
limit our student sample to those students who
were enrolled in reconstituted schools or compa-
rable sets of schools during these treatment years,
leaving us with approximately 500,000 student-
year observations or 270,215 individual student
observations.6 Finally, we combine our teacher-
and student-level panels with school demograph-
ics (e.g., percent of students who are
socioeconomically disadvantaged, underrepre-
sented minorities, etc.) and enrollment data from
20032004 to 20132014.7
Teacher Mobility: Focal Variables and Analytic
Approach. To evaluate the impacts of school
reconstitution on teacher mobility, we measure
three mutually exclusive mobility outcomes: (a) If
teachers return to the same school, (b) if teachers
return to another school in the school district, and
(c) if teachers leave the school district. In addition,
the school reconstitution literature suggests that,
contrary to the outcomes hypothesized by the the-
ory of action, treated schools are more likely to lose
experienced and effective teachers and to hire inex-
perienced and noncertified teachers. To observe
whether these trends manifest in our data, we exam-
ine the heterogeneous effects of school reconstitu-
tion based on the following teacher characteristics
commonly used as indicators for teacher quality in
research and practice: (a) experienced teachers
(with 10 or more years of experience),8 (b) teachers
with low evaluation scores, which we define as
those who receive a rating of needs improvement or
below standards on any area of a teachers annual
performance evaluation, and (c) teachers with high
and low VAMs, which we define as teachers with
VAMs that are one standard deviation above or
below the school districts mean.
We utilize multinomial logistic regression
models in a difference-in-differences framework
to run our mobility analysis. A difference-in-dif-
ferences approach allows us to separate the

impact of school reconstitution on teacher mobil-
ity from other hard-to-observe factors that might
have simultaneously influenced teachers deci-
sions to switch schools or leave the school dis-
trict. This inference is made possible by
comparing the change in mean mobility rates of
teachers at reconstituted schools with that of
teachers in a comparable group of schools that
were not affected by school reconstitution
(Bloom, 1999; Duflo, 2001; Shadish, Cook, &
Campbell, 2002). We define comparison schools
as those that narrowly missed being selected for
treatment in the year that schools were reconsti-
tuted.9 From this group of schools, we exclude
low-performing schools that went on to be iden-
tified for other turnaround reforms by the school
district in the following year (i.e., the 20112012
school year; n = 23 comparison schools).10
We run the following multinomial regression
model:
P ( m)
log ist = 0 m + 1m RECONS s
Pist (0)
+ 2 mYEARt + 3m RECONS s
YEARt + 4 m X ist
+ 5m S st + m ,
where Pist(m) is the probability that a teacher
moves to a different school within the district or
leaves teaching in the district relative to staying in
the same school. We estimate the log odds of the
P (m)
probability of these outcomes, log ist , as a
P ( 0 )
ist
function of our treatment indicator, RECONS s,
which equals one for reconstituted schools and
zero for comparison schools. To estimate the year-
by-year effects of school reconstitution, we interact
our treatment indicator with a vector of year dum-
mies, YEARt . We also control for individual
teacher characteristics, X ist , such as employment
status (permanent vs. nonpermanent), job title (ele-
mentary, secondary, and special education teach-
ers), highest degree of educational attainment
(bachelors, masters, or doctorate), years of expe-
rience, underrepresented minority status, gender,
and school characteristics, S st , such as the natural
log of enrollment, and the percent of English lan-
guage learners, disabled, and socioeconomically
disadvantaged students. m is a random error with
mean zero and clustered at the teacher level.11
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
3m, representing interactions between
RECONSs and the year indicators, represents our
main coefficients of interest. Interactions
between RECONS s and the years leading up to
reconstitution (t 2 and t 1, or 20082009 to
20092010) show the log odds of teachers in
schools that would be reconstituted in the years
before treatment switching schools or exiting the
district, relative to teachers in comparison
schools. Interactions between RECONS s and
the reconstitution year (t, 20102011) or the
years post reconstitution (t + 1 through t + 3, or
20112012, 20122013, and 20132014) show
the log odds of teachers in reconstituted schools
switching schools or exiting the district during
reconstitution and after schools have been recon-
stituted, again relative to teachers in comparison
schools. We then use these coefficients to esti-
mate the marginal effects of school reconstitu-
tion on teacher mobility in the reconstitution and
posttreatment years relative to prior years
(enabling our difference-in-differences estima-
tion). Finally, to estimate the heterogeneous
effects described earlier, we re-run our models
with three-way interactions between our indica-
tor, year dummies, and teacher characteristics of
interest.12
Student Achievement: Focal Variables and Analytic
Approach. Our student outcomes of interest are
ELA and math scores, standardized by subject grade
to have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of
one. To estimate the effects of school reconstitution
on student achievement, we use a Comparative
Interrupted Time Series (CITS) estimation approach.
The intuition behind this strategy is the same as our
difference-in-differences approach for teacher
mobility, except that we are now comparing changes
in both the mean and trend in student achievement
of reconstituted versus comparison schools.13 We
estimate the following model:
Yist = 0 + 1YEARt + 2 RECONSt
+ 3YEARS _ SINCE _ RECONSt
+ 4 (Tis YEARt )
+ 5 (Tis RECONSt )
+ 6 (Tis YEARS _ SINCE _ RECONSt )
+ 7 Z ist + 8 S st
+ i + ist ,
557
Strunk et al.
where Yist represents student is test scores in
ELA and math, normed by gradesubjectyear in
School s in Year t. YEARt is a trend variable,
which we center to begin at 1 in the 20032004
academic year, the first year for which we have
student-level administrative data. RECONSt is a
dichotomous indicator variable equal to 1 in all
years since schools were reconstituted and stu-
dents would be exposed to the treatment condi-
tion (i.e., 20112012 and 20122013).
YR _ SINCE _ RECONSt is defined as the num-
ber of years of reform implementation that have
been completed or equivalently, YEARt 2012.
As such, this variable takes on a value of 1 in the
second year of implementation (i.e., 20122013).
Z ist is a vector of time-varying student-level
covariates including FRL eligibility, special edu-
cation status, an indicator of nonstructural stu-
dent mobility in each year,14 and lagged
achievement scores. S st is a vector of the school-
level covariates described earlier.15 Ts is a time-
invariant dichotomous variable that measures the
treatment imposed by school reconstitution. This
variable equals 1 if a student is ever enrolled in a
reconstituted school in the treatment years, and 0
if the student is ever enrolled in a comparison
school in these years. i is a student fixed-effect,
and st is a random error with mean zero that is
clustered at the school level.16 Overall, this speci-
fication allows for a school reconstitution effect
that can be reflected in both a level shift in the
outcome variable ( 5 ) as a well as a shift in the
achievement trend ( 6 ), or alternatively an over-
all effect of 5 + 6 .
Robustness Checks for Teacher and Student
Results. Given the comparative nature of our
difference-in-differences and CITS models, our
ability to make causal inferences relies on the
identification of plausible comparison groups. To
account for potential biases arising from our
selection of comparison schools, we re-run our
models with variations of our comparison group.
First, we expand our control group to include
comparison schools that were selected for turn-
around reforms in the following school year, as
these soon-to-be treated schools are arguably the
most similar to the reconstituted schools in our
analysis (n = 29 comparison schools). Next, we
compare reconstituted schools to all low-per-
forming schools in the school districtthose
558
labeled as in Program Improvement Year 3 or
higher under NCLB classifications (i.e., those
consistently failing to make Adequate Yearly
Progress (AYP) under NCLB; n = 247 PI3+
schools). We find consistent results across these
comparison groups, thus confirming the internal
validity of our main findings (see Appendix Table
B1 in the online version of the journal for results
from these analyses).
Our final robustness check strictly concerns
our student-level models. We account for the fact
that the year in which schools were identified for
reconstitution (i.e., 20102011) might have also
affected student achievement (a sort of
Ashenfelters Dip). Because schools were
aware of the threat of reconstitution early in the
school year and engaged in planning activities in
attempts to avoid reconstitution, these activities
might have caused administrators, teachers, and
possibly students to behave differently and there-
fore may have affected student achievement. We
determine whether there is a reconstitution year
effect by estimating the same CITS model as
defined earlier, except that our indicators for
RECONSt and YR _ SINCE _ RECONSt now
switch from zero to one in 20102011 and 2011
2012 respectively. We do not observe significant
effects of reconstitution identification on student
achievement (see Appendix Table B2 in the online
version of the journal for results).
Qualitative Data and Method
To explore the implementation of school
reconstitution, we collected data on two of the
three reconstituted schools included in the quan-
titative analyses. This article draws on data from
a larger study that examined a broad set of
schools engaged in reform. As such, we purpose-
fully sampled two reconstituted schools, along
with a subset of other school reform efforts.
These two schools were located within the same
urban region with similar staff and student demo-
graphics. The schools differed substantially,
however, in their level of outside funding and
support (e.g., grants and programs). Given the
limits of our sample, we consider this analysis
exploratory.17
We visited the schools at least once annually
for their first 3 years of reform implementation as
reconstituted schools. During these visits, we

conducted semistructured interviews with princi-
pals (n = 6), other school administrators (n = 5),
and teachers (n = 22). During their first year of
reconstitution, we also conducted focus groups
with parents (n = 2 focus groups, 18 parents).
The content of these interviews and focus groups
included aspects of school operations and con-
text, such as staffing procedures, motivation and
morale, school culture and teacher collaboration,
instructional approach, professional develop-
ment, and management (see Appendix C in the
online version of the journal). We also inter-
viewed district leaders (n = 35) to inform our
understanding of the policy and its implementa-
tion generally.18 All interviews were transcribed
and coded, using axial and selective methods
(Strauss & Corbin, 1990) in NVivo qualitative
research software.
We utilized the constant comparative method
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to guide our data col-
lection and analysis. That is, after identifying
school turnaround as a phenomenon of interest,
we guided our interviews to examine key con-
cepts from the literature. Following each phase
of data collection, we coded and analyzed data
within and between cases, and within and across
years. Specifically, we completed detailed, coded
case reports, which served as our source for com-
parison. These reports were organized around the
key areas of reconstitution implementation, such
as staffing procedures, leadership, levels of col-
laboration, professional culture, parent engage-
ment, professional development, curriculum and
instruction, use of data, and student school cli-
mate. We utilized these formative analyses to
guide our future data collection. For example, we
modified interview protocols from year to year
and adjusted the time spent on particular con-
cepts of school turnaround and reconstitution
during interviews.
We began our analysis by conducting cross-
case analysis using our case reports. That is, we
compared each thematic section across schools
and analyzed emergent patterns. Interestingly,
our cases demonstrated parallel trends. To help
understand these trends, we then experimented
with several relevant theoretical lenses to exam-
ine our results. Marchs (1991, 1994) mutual
learning model aligned with the policys underly-
ing theory of action and best captured the pat-
terns in our cases in early secondary analyses, so
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
we utilized it as a sensitizing concept. Sensitizing
concepts are commonly understood as useful
tools for framing qualitative research (Bowen,
2006; Patton, 2002). Rather than provide pre-
scriptions of what to see, they merely suggest
directions along which to look (Blumer, 1954,
p. 7). Applied to qualitative data, sensitizing con-
cepts offer ways of seeing, organizing, and
understanding experience (Charmaz, 2003, p.
259). In this case, we applied the mutual learning
model as a sensitizing framework, post hoc, as
part of our iterative analytic process.
Specifically, we developed codes according
to key ideas, including individual capacity, staff
turnover and staffing procedures, organizational
capacity, leadership, collaboration, and envi-
ronmental turbulence, to examine how Marchs
concepts of knowledge exploration and exploi-
tation played out in school reconstitution (see
Appendix C in the online version of the journal
for a full list of codes, the interview protocol
questions from which coded material derived,
and example coded text). Coded data were ana-
lyzed using matrix displays (Miles, Huberman,
& Saldaa, 2013) to allow us to uncover pat-
terns, trends, and conflicts in the data. Using
Marchs lens in this way, we were better able to
explore how and why reconstitution led to stu-
dent and teacher outcomes identified by our
quantitative analyses.
For example, we observed and measured the
construct of balance in our data by comparing
the amount and quality of evidence coded as
exploration (reported use of new practice) to the
amount and quality of evidence coded as exploi-
tation (reported use of existing practice or rever-
sion to previous practice). Of course, balanced
mutual learning is not necessarily achieved when
exploitation and exploration are utilized in equal
proportion; it is context-dependent and, in the
extant literature, is the point at which an organi-
zation demonstrates short-term productivity and
long-term competitiveness (Lavie & Rosenkopf,
2006; March, 1991; J. W. Rivkin & Siggelkow,
2003). To examine these patterns in our qualita-
tive data, we estimated relative balance based on
three factors: (a) whether new practice was
reported, (b) whether new practice was attributed
to the reconstitution (new staff, disruption,
change in motivation) and/or improvement plan,
and (c) how the balance ratio changed over time.
559
Strunk et al.
We do not present numerical ratios or frequen-
cies, as these formats do not adequately reflect
the nuances and intricacies of interview data.
Rather, we rely on thorough triangulation of data
to confirm and validate our findings. Therefore,
we are limited to presenting a selection of our
data; the quotations presented in our discussion
below represent broader findings validated
through triangulation. Excerpts from interviews
included throughout this article illustrate the typ-
ical language used in and across sites. Although
the qualitative analysis is exploratory in nature,
we believe that it is an important first step in
examining the inner workings of reconstitution
and that it lays the groundwork for future research
in this area.
Limitations
Both our quantitative and qualitative analyses
rely on a small sample of reconstituted schools,
which limit both the internal and external valid-
ity of our findings. Although we account for this
small sample size in our student-level analyses
by clustering our standard errors to the school
level, we realize that this adjustment still may be
insufficient for estimating correct standard errors
and making valid statistical inferences (Donald
& Lang, 2007). As noted earlier, we do not clus-
ter our standard errors in our teacher-level analy-
ses because of how we define our treatment
variables of interest. Although we cannot rule out
school-level factors that might affect the preci-
sion of our teacher-level results, school-clustered
effects are less important in an exploratory study
of this size. Moreover, our teacher-level models
still allow us to describe how trends in teacher
mobility at reconstituted schools vary across
teachers with different attributes.
Although our small sample restricts the gener-
alizability of our findings from an empirical
standpoint, our results are still highly relevant
from a policy standpoint. This is because school
reconstitution is a high-intensity intervention,
and as such, districts generally do not reconsti-
tute large quantities of schools in any given year,
or even over multiple years.19 In fact, undertak-
ing three reconstitutions in a single year taxes the
resources of even large school districts. Given
that we utilize administrative data for all three
reconstituted schools and qualitative case data
560
for two of the three reconstituted schools in the
treatment set, and because we match these
schools to similar comparison schools for our
quantitative analyses, we believe that we have
addressed potential limitations of our research
design to the best of our ability. Future research
on reconstituted schools will help us to under-
stand whether our results can be generalized to
reconstitution in other contexts and with more
schools.
Findings
How Does School Reconstitution Affect Teacher
Mobility and the Teacher Workforce of Low-
Performing Schools?
Teacher Mobility. Our teacher mobility analyses
reveal that, on average, teachers at reconstituted
schools are significantly more likely than teach-
ers in similar schools that are not reconstituted to
switch schools and leave the district. Given the
massive re-staffing that initiates the reconstitu-
tion process, these mobility trends are, unsurpris-
ingly, particularly high in the year in which
schools are reconstituted and undergo re-staffing,
and either diminish (in the case of switching
schools) or escalate (in the case of leaving the
school district) over time. Tables 1 and 2 present
the results from these mobility analyses. The left
column of Table 1 shows the results from our
main difference-in-differences estimates com-
paring the mobility rates of teachers in reconsti-
tuted schools with those in comparison schools.
The middle and right columns of Table 1 and all
of Table 2 provide these results for specific sub-
groups of teachers including those with 10 or
more years of experience, low evaluation ratings,
and low and high VAMs. Each row in Tables 1
and 2 is calculated as the marginal probability of
a teacher in reconstituted schools switching
schools or leaving the school district in the recon-
stitution year or a posttreatment year, relative to
teachers in comparison schools and relative to
the reconstitution or pretreatment year.
The top left panel in Table 1 shows that teach-
ers at reconstituted schools, relative to teachers
in comparison schools, are 41.8% and 37.4%
more likely to switch schools in the year when
schools are identified for reconstitution (2010
2011) than in the pretreatment years (20082009
and 20092010, respectively). This is to be
Table 1
Difference-in-Differences Estimates of the Marginal Probabilities of Teachers With Varying Characteristics at
Reconstituted Schools Switching Schools or Leaving the School District (Relative to Staying in Their Current
School) in Reconstitution and Posttreatment Years Relative to Prior Years

Overall 10+ years exp Low evaluation

Switch Leave Switch Leave Switch Leave

vs. stay vs. stay vs. stay vs. stay vs. stay vs. stay

Reconstitution year (t, 20102011)

20102011 to 20082009 (t 2) .418*** .070** .501*** .118** .681*** .146
(.035) (.026) (.045) (.035) (.126) (.097)
20102011 to 20092010 (t 1) .374*** .071* .487*** .105** .615*** .150
(.038) (.027) (.046) (.036) (.135) (.101)
Posttreatment year (t + 1, 20112012)
20112012 to 20082009 (t 2) .190*** .009 .346*** .026 .406*** .035
(.034) (.024) (.059) (.035) (.095) (.034)
20112012 to 20092010 (t 1) .146*** .010 .332*** .013 .340** .032
(.037) (.025) (.060) (.036) (.107) (.045)
20112012 to 20102011 (t) .228*** .061* .155* .092* .275 .181
(.047) (.030) (.069) (.044) (.148) (.098)
Posttreatment year (t + 2, 20122013)
20122013 to 20082009 (t 2) .067 .122** .080 .125 .259** .085
(.039) (.041) (.064) (.064) (.092) (.067)
20122013 to 20092010 (t 1) .023 .123** .066 .113 .193 .089
(.041) (.041) (.065) (.065) (.105) (.073)
20122013 to 20102011 (t) .351*** .052 .421*** .008 .422** .061
(.052) (.044) (.076) (.069) (.153) (.114)
20122013 to 20112012 (t + 1) .123* .113** .266** .099 .147 .121
(.051) (.044) (.084) (.069) (.125) (.068)
Posttreatment year (t + 3, 20132014)
20132014 to 20082009 (t 2) .068* .151** .017 .167* .057** .414*
(.031) (.046) (.030) (.067) (.021) (.172)
20132014 to 20092010 (t 1) .025 .152** .003 .154* .009 .418*
(.034) (.046) (.031) (.067) (.053) (.174)
20132014 to 20102011 (t) .350*** .081 .484*** .049 .624*** .268
(.044) (.049) (.050) (.072) (.124) (.195)
20132014 to 20112012 (t + 1) .121** .142** .329*** .141 .349*** .450**
(.044) (.048) (.063) (.072) (.093) (.172)
20132014 to 20122013 (t + 2) .001 .029 .062 .041 .202* .329
(.047) (.058) (.067) (.089) (.090) (.181)

No. of teachers 2,680 2,680 2,680 2,680 1,943 1,943

No. of schools 25 25 25 25 25 25

Note. Difference-in-differences estimates are calculated by subtracting the marginal probability to switch schools or leave the
school district for all teachers or teachers with certain attributes (e.g., 10 years or more of experience) at comparison schools
from that of reconstituted schools in each year. We then subtract these net differences in each year from one another to observe
how the mobility rates of teachers at reconstituted schools change over time. These marginal effects are calculated from models
that control for individual teacher characteristics (employment status, job title, educational attainment, years of experience, race/
ethnicity, gender) and school characteristics (natural log of enrollment, and percent of students who are English language learn-
ers, disabled, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students). VAM = value-added measures.

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

561
Table 2
Difference-in-Differences Estimates of the Marginal Probabilities of Teachers With High or Low VAMs at
Reconstituted Schools Switching Schools or Leaving the School District (Relative to Staying in Their Current
School) in Reconstitution and Posttreatment Years Relative to Prior Years

Low VAMs High VAMs

Switch Leave Switch Leave

vs. stay vs. stay vs. stay vs. stay

Reconstitution year (t, 20102011)

20102011 to 20082009 (t 2) .484*** .024 .317* .070
(.090) (.054) (.136) (.092)
20102011 to 20092010 (t 1) .411*** .009 .324* .084
(.109) (.065) (.138) (.099)
Posttreatment year (t + 1, 20112012)
20112012 to 20082009 (t 2) .220* .026 .033 .125
(.109) (.029) (.087) (.122)
20112012 to 20092010 (t 1) .148 .058 .040 .139
(.125) (.049) (.091) (.128)
20112012 to 20102011 (t) .264 .050 .284 .055
(.142) (.050) (.154) (.134)
Posttreatment year (t + 2, 20122013)
20122013 to 20082009 (t 2) .066 .172 .275 .124
(.104) (.131) (.201) (.134)
20122013 to 20092010 (t 1) .007 .140 .283 .138
(.119) (.120) (.203) (.140)
20122013 to 20102011 (t) .418** .148 .042 .055
(.131) (.119) (.238) (.153)
20122013 to 20112012 (t + 1) .203 .198 .242 .001
(.314) (.112) (.219) (.180)

No. of teachers 1,077 1,077 1,077 1,077

No. of schools 25 25 25 25

Note. Low VAMs are defined as one standard deviation below the school districts mean, whereas high VAMs are defined as
one standard deviation above the school districts mean. Difference-in-differences estimates are calculated by subtracting the
marginal probability to switch schools or leave the school district for teachers with low or high VAMs scores at comparison
schools from that of similar teachers at reconstituted schools in each year. We then subtract these net differences in each year
from one another to observe how the mobility rates of teachers at reconstituted schools change over time. These marginal
effects are calculated from models that control for individual teacher characteristics (employment status, job title, educational
attainment, years of experience, race/ethnicity, gender) and school characteristics (natural log of enrollment, and percent of
students who are English language learners, disabled, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students). VAM = value-added
measures.

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

expected, given that reconstituted schools do not
rehire the majority of existing staff. In addition,
teachers at reconstituted schools are approxi-
mately 7% more likely to leave the school district
in the year of reconstitution than in the pretreat-
ment years. This is less expected, given that the
non-re-hired teachers from reconstituted schools
are supposed to return to the teacher pool in the
district and be picked up by other schools with
vacancies. That teachers from reconstituted
schools are significantly more likely to leave
suggests that the reform may be driving them
from the district.
The remaining panels in the left column of
Table 1 show that the relatively heavy rates of
school switching from reconstituted schools fade

562

over time and eventually tail off completely. By
the end of 20132014, teachers in reconstituted
schools are 35.0% less likely to switch schools
than in the reconstitution year itself, 12.1% less
likely to switch schools than in the year follow-
ing reconstitution, and no more likely to switch
schools than in the year before reconstitution.
However, these patterns are different for rates of
district exit. Specifically, teaches are less likely
to exit the school district in the year after recon-
stitution than they were in the year of reconstitu-
tion itself, but then again grow more likely to exit
the district in the out years.
Teacher Quality. Although increases in teacher
mobility may create harmful instability in schools
(Guin, 2004; Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2013),
it might be beneficial depending on the quality of
teachers who are leaving and entering schools.
Our results suggest that reconstituted schools
may experience net-gains in teacher quality in
the year of reconstitution, but less so in subse-
quent years. The middle and right panels of Table
1 and all of Table 2 show that, first, reconstituted
schools experience initial gains from low-quality
instructors transferring to other district schools
during the re-staffing process. In particular,
teachers with low evaluation ratings at reconsti-
tuted schools, relative to teachers with low evalu-
ation ratings at comparison schools, are 62% and
68% more likely to switch schools in the recon-
stitution year than in the first and second years
pretreatment, respectively. Similarly, teachers
with low VAMs at reconstituted schools, relative
to low VAM teachers in comparison schools, are
49% and 41% more likely to switch schools in
the reconstitution year than in the first and sec-
ond years pretreatment, respectively. At the same
time, reconstituted schools also lose experienced
and high-quality instructors: Teachers with 10 or
more years of experience at reconstituted schools,
relative to senior teachers at comparison schools,
are approximately 50% more likely to move to
other schools in the district,20 and teachers with
high VAMs, relative to high-VAM teachers in
comparison schools, are 32% more likely to
switch schools in the reconstitution year relative
to either pretreatment period. Notably, however,
the propensity for high-VAM teachers to switch
from reconstituted schools is still much lower
than that observed for low-VAM teachers.
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
However, over time, low-quality teachers in
reconstituted schools become less likely to
switch to other district schools, but are more
likely to exit the district entirely (in the case of
observational evaluations only, where low rat-
ings indicate subpar quality).21 Veteran teachers
are also less likely to switch to other schools,
whereas teachers with high VAMs are no more or
less likely to leave reconstituted schools. We
interpret these results as suggesting that the ini-
tial gains in teacher quality at reconstituted
schools likely diminish over time.22
How Does School Reconstitution Affect Student
Outcomes in Low-Performing Schools?
Given the patterns in teacher mobility
described above, we next focus on how school
reconstitution affected student achievement.
Table 3 presents results from our CITS models
comparing the ELA and math achievement of
students enrolled in reconstituted schools versus
comparison schools. Overall, we find that stu-
dents in reconstituted schools experience signifi-
cant and sizable gains in ELA achievement in the
first and second years of reconstitution, and posi-
tive but insignificant effects for math.
Specifically, in the first year, students in reconsti-
tuted schools demonstrate 8.2% of a standard
deviation unit increase in ELA achievement rela-
tive to students in comparison schools. In the
second year, students in reconstituted schools
continue to demonstrate significant gains in ELA
achievement, albeit at a smaller magnitude (5.7%
of a standard deviation unit increase). Both of
these effects are relatively large by education
reform standards. The overall change in ELA
performance of students after 2 years of reconsti-
tution is the sum of these individual year effects,
which amounts to 13.9% of a standard deviation
increase, as shown in the bottom row of Table 3.
We find positive but insignificant effects of
reconstitution on math achievement. In the first
year of reconstitution, students demonstrate
1.6% of a standard deviation unit increase in
math achievement relative to students in com-
parison schools. In the second year, students in
reconstituted schools demonstrate an additional
2.8% of a standard deviation unit increase in
math achievement. The overall change in math
achievement after 2 years of reconstitution is
563
Table 3
ELA and Math Achievement for Students Enrolled in Reconstituted Relative to Comparison Schools

ELA Math

YEARt .024*** .017

(.006) (.013)
RECONSt .057*** .044**
(.012) (.017)
YEARS_SINCE_RECONSt .086*** .017
(.018) (.031)
Tis YEARt .018*** .009
(.003) (.008)
Tis RECONSt .082** .016
(.025) (.052)
Tis YEARS_SINCE_RECONSt .057** .028
(.021) (.040)
FRL ELIGIBLE .009 .015*
(.006) (.007)
SPED ELIGIBLE .063*** .034**
(.009) (.011)
MOBILITY .009 .058***
(.009) (.016)
LAG ACHIEVEMENT SCORE .095*** .102***
(.007) (.009)
% SOCIOECONOMICALLY DISADV .084* .003
(.040) (.068)
% ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER .221*** .114*
(.033) (.051)
LN(ENROLLMENT) .009 .001
(.009) (.015)
MIDDLE SCHOOL .012 .098*
(.022) (.040)
HIGH SCHOOL .109** .112
(.037) (.074)
CONSTANT .082 .003
(.061) (.127)
R2 adj. .762 .649

No. of students 28,620 27,984

No. of schools 26 26
F stat. 40.402 47.769
Total effect (as of 20112012) 0.139*** 0.044
(0.032) (0.055)

Note. Results are from our main CITS specification comparing the ELA achievement of students enrolled in reconstituted
schools versus comparison schools (not including comparison schools that went on to be restructured by the school district in
the following year). Our main variables of interest are Tis RECONSt, which represents the effect of school reconstitution on
achievement in the first year of the reform; Tis YEARS_SINCE_RECONSt, which represents the growth effect of school
reconstitution in the second year of the reform; and the total effect, which is the sum of the above first year and growth effects.
Standard errors are clustered to the school level. ELA = English Language Arts; FRL = free and reduced price lunch; CITS =
Comparative Interrupted Time Series.

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

564

4.4% of a standard deviation unit increase,
although not significant at conventional levels.23
How and why did reconstitution result in
some achievement gains and increased teacher
mobility in the early years, but greater challenges
in strategic staffing during subsequent years?
What trends in student achievement might we
expect to see in future years? We turn to our case
studies to explore these key issues.
What Conditions and Factors Contributed to the
Observed Outcomes of Reconstitution in Our
Case Study Schools?
Our qualitative analyses provide important
insights into the mechanisms of reconstitution
that is, what may have occurred within the
schools that likely contributed to the observed
outcomes over time. Guided by mutual learning
theory, we uncover two distinct phases of change
within the schools: a shift toward balance
between exploration and exploitation in the first
year (Phase I), followed by a gradual regres-
sion back to exploitation and reliance on old
practices in subsequent years (Phase II).
Individual capacity, school culture and leader-
ship, and environmental conditions greatly
affected these organizational shifts. Together,
these findings illustrate the challenges of sustain-
ing organizational learning and change after the
initial re-staffing of a reconstituted school.
Phase I: Gradual Shift Toward Balance. Consis-
tent with observed positive gains in student per-
formance and improvement in teacher quality in
the early years, our case study data indicate that
after the mandatory re-staffing and adoption of
an improvement plan, reconstituted schools
appeared to approach balanced, mutual learning,
which is predicted to achieve improved organiza-
tional performance. This balance resulted in part
from an immediate removal of lower quality
teachers, but also from a more gradual process of
improving morale and building a culture of learn-
ing and collaboration. The exodus of uncommit-
ted (and perhaps lower quality) staff, a school
improvement plan, committed and distributed
leadership, and calm environmental conditions
played critical roles in this recalibration and
change within the schools. We examine the
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
evidence below, organized by the level of influ-
ence on organizational learning: individual, orga-
nizational, and environmental (see Figure 2).
Improvements in human capital (individ-
ual). Although our quantitative analyses showed
the immediate removal of lower quality teachers,
staff at both case schools questioned whether or
not the reform actually drove improvements in
the human capital at their schools.
Teacher turnover
On one hand, respondents did not report see-
ing an overall shift in the quality of the staff that
was hired into the schools. One administrator
noted, The ones [new teachers] weve gotten in
their [removed teachers] place are not any better
than they were . . . Respondents attributed this
perceived failure to improve the quality of the
workforce to the fact that the re-staffing process
itself was not especially rigorous at either case
site. Due to time constraints, limited resources,
and the restriction of staffing to district applicant
pools, principals reported experiencing chal-
lenges finding high-quality applicants for open
positions.
On the other hand, case respondents noted
that the reconstitution process was valuable as a
way to remove teachers who were burnt out or
not a good fit. In particular, reconstitution
along with planning allowed administrators to
develop a staff willing to try new ideas. As one
principal shared,
So, it really got us a chance [to get rid] of people who
werent really on board with certain things. We got an
opportunity to give those people another place to be,
and gave them an opportunity to go somewhere else,
if they were interested in being somewhere else.
Furthermore, one teacher reported that his prac-
tice had dramatically shifted and he had engaged
in experimentation in practice due to exposure
to new teachers:
The principal] did [his] best to hire very new, a very
young staff with the intention of having a student
first, lets change things mentality. There is very
little of the old guard left and very few teachers at my
level of seniority even hired in, which I think is the
best thing in my educational practice, because right
now in the other meeting thats my team and two of
them are brand new teachers. I threw away all my old
565
Strunk et al.
lesson plans and we were really reinventing and
starting from scratch. I had the advantage of
experience, but I am longer relying on, oh, I think
that lesson is going to go well, I have done that
before. I am not relying on that crutch. I am really
experimenting with new practice. And they have the
enthusiasm that first year teachers bring to the table, I
miss it, so it is fantastic.
Improved teacher morale and culture
Rehired teachers believed that the fact that
they were kept at the school spoke to the quality
of their existing practices, whereas new teachers
believed that the schools turnaround process
was an opportunity to innovate. As one teacher
said,
The idea that my team is meeting right now to plan
next weeks lesson together so that all fits together,
its a big part of [the schools improvement] plan . . .
When the principal was hiring me, [he] says, Well
this is the plan that weve got, and I understand its
very similar to the sort of thing you are interested in.
I was like . . . [this is my] dream school.
In addition, and as expected, the substantial
turnover in staff also positively disrupted exist-
ing relationships and dynamics within the school,
enabling exploration. A teacher shared,
We have a whole bunch of new people . . . [before
reconstitution] our turnover rate was lownobody
left. So it was like now you got a whole new group of
people, whole new personality set, whole new value
system. The whole dynamic was changed.
Previous networks were replaced with planned
collaboration, as stipulated in each schools
improvement plan. In this first year of implemen-
tation, teachers who had been retained noted that
collaboration was substantially improved and
more focused on instructional matters (rather
than previous collaboration targeting student
behavioral problems).
Mechanisms for innovation and heightened
aspirations (organizational).In addition to
evidence of improvement in human capital at
the reconstituted sites, we found evidence that
several aspects of the reform activities, occur-
ring at the organizational level, may have led to
a balance between exploration and exploitation.
These include strengthened instructional leader-
ship, the schools improvement plan (written as
566
part of the reconstitution effort), improvements
in professional development and opportunities
for collaboration, and new behavioral support
systems for students.
Strengthened instructional leadership
In both cases, new principal leaders were well
received by teachers in the first year of the reform
and there was evidence of distributed leadership
among other administrators, coaches, and teach-
ers. One teacher noted the importance of active
leadership and, in particular, principal involve-
ment in instruction:
The one thing that I have really appreciated [is that
he] expects instruction to be delivered. And when
thats not happening [he] takes the measures that a lot
of administrator dont. I mean [he] has been very
proactive about that, which has taken up a lot of [his]
time for other stuff, but I think that it needs to be done
especially when you are starting fresh.
At both case sites, the principals significantly
increased the focus on data, and thus may have
increased the aspirations (and likelihood of explo-
ration) of the organizations. Teachers reported that
the principal conveys targets and dates and data
goals consistently, and that data has become an
important piece of our instructional reflection.
Similarly, teachers noted that they have increased
the use of data, not just the frequency, but the dis-
cussion . . . its not perfect yet, but we are starting
to use it to inform our practices.
Improvement planning
In particular, the school improvement plans
essentially functioned as both a search mechanism
(enabling exploration) and a source of organiza-
tional memory (enabling exploitation). Embedded
in the plans were previously successful school
practices along with new ideas and protocols for
finding new practices (such as the provision of
outside consulting or professional development).
Professional development and
collaboration
In addition to, and as a part of, the school
plan, professional development programs may
have enabled improvements in instruction and
morale. One teacher highlighted the planned pro-
fessional development, along with staffing turn-
over, as a source of exploration. He explained,

We have been seeing an improvement though with the
PDs [professional developments] only because there
has been a bigger focus on teachers leading the PDs.
And when you have the best teachers in the school
leading the PDs, thats when the teachersthe other
teacherslike benefit a lot. So there is a push for best
practices, yeah. It did exist before [reconstitution]
because it [the school] did have phenomenal teachers
but what also existed before were really bad teachers
that just like didnt really care . . . So I am really
thankful actually for this bigthe big push this year
to make PDs be way better. And what helps is that it is
the new people that are hired in because they have a
fresh perspective and really we have a good variety of
teachers this year.
At another case, a new teacher noted that the
principal had encouraged him to try out new
ideas regarding interdisciplinary planning and
team teaching and allowed one grade level to
experiment with an alternative collaboration
arrangement.
New behavioral support systems
Notably, both schools engaged in substan-
tially reworking their student behavior manage-
ment plans, using positive (rather than punitive)
methods and incentives to motivate students.
Teachers at both schools reported a substantial
shift in student behavior during the first year of
implementation. In particular, one administrator
observed,
[The school is] certainly moving in a good direction.
Like the actual behavior of the kids is 1,000 times
better than it used to be. They used to . . . do whatever
they wantedcrazy. Its not like that anymore.
Theyre very compliant in class. I think the problem
that were having now is like you used to spend all
period telling them sit down, be quiet, dont get out
of your seat, sit down, be quiet. Now theyre sitting
down being quiet and you actually have to teach them
something and . . . some people are not used to that.
They might have taught for 30 minutes before [and]
they now have 50 minutes to teach because the kids
are sitting there. So thats where I think were
struggling to really increase the level of instruction.
Although this administrator acknowledged the
need for further instructional improvement,
teachers across both schools agreed that student
behavior improvements allowed them to engage
in more rigorous and engaging instructional
strategies. These changes were also accompanied
by a sharp decline in student suspensions, result-
ing in more instructional time for students who
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
might have previously been absent due to
suspensions.24
Together, these purposeful changes to school
leadership, school culture, and student behavior
management communicated an overall increase
in the expectations for the students, in terms of
their behavior and performance potential; the
staff, in terms of their capacity to better serve stu-
dents and continually improve their practice; and
the school, in its ability as an organization to
function more efficiently and effectively. As
March (1994) suggests, increased aspirations of
this kind may increase the likelihood of explora-
tion, as individuals and organizations seek out
new practices to reach their heightened goals.
Insulation from policy change (environmen-
tal). Environmental turbulence is commonly felt
in school settings, as a result of changing federal
or state laws, state or district policies, or man-
dated district practices. As part of their reconsti-
tution process, however, our case schools were
effectively sheltered from changes in district
policy during their first year. That is, because
the schools had undergone such a dramatic turn-
around effort, the district intentionally protected
them from other interventions and policies (e.g.,
release from participation in standardized pro-
fessional development). Furthermore, they were
encouraged, in this first year, to implement the
instructional and operational strategies outlined
during their school planning process. As a result,
this first phase represented a period of relative
calm in the environment surrounding the school,
which likely facilitated more optimal organiza-
tional learning.
In summary, multiple factors appeared to
enable the reconstituted schools in our case sam-
ple to move toward balance between exploration
and exploitation in the first year. As anticipated
by the theory of action behind school reconstitu-
tion (Figure 1), turnover in personnel alongside
various supports likely moved reconstituted
schools in a positive direction. In particular, addi-
tional professional development time, adherence
to school improvement plans, and increased col-
laboration time facilitated investments in devel-
oping teacher capacity, improvements in school
operations, and school culture. These substantive
changes to practice are likely to have improved
instruction and contributed to improvements in
567
Strunk et al.
student performance, in part by raising the aspira-
tions of the individuals and the organization.
Phase II: Balance in Peril.Although student
achievement continued to increase in the second
year of reform (at least in ELA), our case data
suggest that changes in individual, organiza-
tional, and environmental conditions began to
threaten balanced mutual learning and the pros-
pects of sustaining this improvement in later
years of the reform. In their second year after
reconstitution, staff at both schools expressed
that initial improvements in the school were not
fully sustained. As one administrator noted,
The big bang was this whole restructuring of the
school and the community also seeing that this is a
new [school] and were making changes, were
making strides, were improving. I almost feel that
that sort of energy and that vision is just going away,
like its just kind of slowly melting away.
Similarly, a teacher expressed concerns that the
schools improvement plan, in particular the
more innovative aspects, was not being imple-
mented. In his words,
Honestly, I dont know that anybodys even mentioned
the plan in the last two yearsfunctionally, were
running the same way that we did prior to the plan.
Theres been more of an emphasis on [collaboration]
. . . but that was something that waswe were moving
towards anyway, prior to the [reconstitution] . . .
Really, nothing has changed.
By Year 3, these concerns escalated to a marked
return to pre-reconstitution practices. Two teach-
ers described this Phase II shift in this way:
I would say that . . . year one and two, we were
making some positive gains in a lot of the components:
instructionally, and the school culture was getting
better. Now we are six, seven years back again. We
are back in the position that got us into [reconstitution]
in the first place.
We were making gains. We were improving, and we
decided for adult agendas to change some things . . .
Now were back in a mess again . . . We were on an
upward trajectory for the last two years and had some
things in place. I think that last year [year 2], while,
not everything was working perfectly, it was working
a whole lot better. Now people are, like I said, were
going to see a huge turnover in staff. Were going to
see people that are just going to wash their hands of
this and walk away.
568
In the second and third years post reconstitu-
tion, staff turnover, declining morale and collab-
oration, and increased environmental turbulence
began to chip away at the organizational learning
and improvement experienced in the first year. In
fact, much of the data collected from our case
sites suggest a shift away from exploration and a
return to the pre-reform status quo. In what fol-
lows, we examine how the second and third years
of operations post reconstitution unfolded in
ways that moved our case schools toward a reli-
ance on exploitation.
Challenges sustaining improvements in
human capital (individual). Consistent with the
mobility analyses presented earlier, staff reported
high levels of teacher turnover in the second year
as well as declining staff morale. For example,
one teacher noted that
a lot of people are leaving this school year. I know a
lot of people are choosing to transfer to other school
sites because it feels unbearable at times, and I dont
know what to tell you [is causing this].
Reflecting on how the reconstitution process
influenced staff capacity, one teacher reported
little change in quality:
I believe that mix of teachers didnt change quality
much. I believe that even though they shook the bag
up, you still pulled out some of the same quality of
teachers; maybe not the same ones. You might end up
with fewer of them, but ultimately you kind of get the
teachers that represent the district.
Administrators noted that efforts to improve the
quality of the teaching staff were constrained by
the cessation of staffing flexibilities. In particu-
lar, administrators reported that they would have
benefited from the ability to make changes to
staffing and avoid district layoffs in the years fol-
lowing reconstitution. In essence, reconstituted
schools received staffing autonomy during their
reconstitution year that was not sustained during
subsequent years. According to Marchs mutual
learning framework, we speculate that this struc-
tural rigidity (in contrast to flexible staffing in
the year of reconstitution itself) may have con-
strained the ability of schools to maintain the
optimal mix (and turnover rate) of teachers.
In Year 3, the schools continued to experience
challenges in recruiting, hiring, and retaining

highly qualified teachers, which may have under-
cut the exploratory intent of staffing turnover.
Much like the teacher cited above who compared
staffing with randomly picking teachers from a
bag, an administrator cited similar staffing
challenges:
We are really, really doing all that we can to hire
really qualified staff, and it is the most difficult thing
to do . . . because sometimes you have to go through
those pools, which is a very, very difficult thing to do.
To get from out from underneath the poor hiring
practices or poor teachers that have been retained and
put into the pool has been extremely difficult.
A decline in staff morale, as well as in the
schools professional culture and school climate,
was also evident in both case sites. In Year 3,
teacher morale continued to decline, particularly
in one school where teachers reported feeling
unheard, fed up with student behavior, and
burned out, and described the school culture as
toxic and dysfunctional.
Finally, teachers reported strained relation-
ships with administrators. In Year 2, one teacher
attributed the slow pace of change during the
schools second year to these relationship issues:
Its been a frustrating year. The first semester,
the staff morale was bottomed out. I think the
second semester the admin figured out that the
staff was not happy with them, so they just quit
pushing anything. Concurrently, administrators
reported experiencing mounting stress due to
increased environmental turbulence, saying
every year I feel like Im starting over. I can
never be on solid ground and move up.
Specifically, the schools were subject to several
new state and district mandated policy changes
and practices. Faced with competing demands,
one principal noted, I think that there needs to
be some clarity around: What are we following?
Whats important? If youre writing one [school
improvement] plan, why do you have five or
three or two of them? What are we doing?
Aspirations lowered due to organizational
challenges (organizational). Despite early posi-
tive perceptions of leadership, staff attributed
declining staff morale to leadership changes at
both schools. One new principal reported plans
to shake up the power dynamics he encountered
on arrival:
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
Its a very territorial fiefdom-oriented, step-on-my-
curb mentality that still exists here. Once I eradicate
that and we play as a team, this whole school [will]
blossom . . . In the vacuum of leadership, they have
relied on each other, which is what humans do, but
what Im saying now is there is a chain of command.
This shift toward top-down, hierarchical leader-
ship was evident in both schools, albeit in a
milder form at the other case site.
In addition, administrators felt pressure to
make adjustments and implement competing
practices, whereas teachers reported feeling that
there was inadequate flexibility to deviate from
their school improvement plan. One teacher said,
you want to have the flexibility to throw some
of those things out if theyre not working instead
of being rigid. I feel like some of that rigidness
isit impedes our growth. Together, the shifts
toward relying on past practice (e.g., going back
to collaboration focused on student behavior)
and responding to turbulence with rigidity indi-
cate that both case schools engaged in more
exploitation than exploration during their second
year. A teacher at one case school said,
The big bang was this whole restructuring of the
school, and the community also seeing that this is a
new [school], and were making changes, were
making strides, were improving. I almost feel that
that sort of energy and that vision is just going away,
like its just kind of slowly melting away.
Although flexibility from school improvement
plans was necessary to meet changing school
conditions, it appears that such changes may have
diluted the balance of new and existing knowl-
edge within the school, and lowered the height-
ened aspirations codified in the plan. By Year 3,
teachers noted that the school was running the
same way we did prior to the reconstitution and
that the improvement plan was probably on top
of a filing cabinet somewhere in somebodys
office. Moreover, the planned collaborative
structures intended to promote teacher capacity
building and organizational learning became less
frequent and more focused on student behavior in
both schools. Teachers shared that its been chal-
lenging to build that sense of collaboration that
Ive known and theres no team building activi-
ties. By Year 3, decreased motivation and chal-
lenges to professional culture also appeared to
influence the schools aspirations. As these two
569
Strunk et al.
teachers state, expectations for school improve-
ment, staff efficacy, and student potential declined
substantially.
Other data from our cases echoed these find-
ings, with staff noting that efforts to implement
positive behavior management with students had
been diluted over time and student behavior
improvements had been lost. As a result, teachers
reported that student behavior had returned to
pre-reconstitution norms. As one teacher shared,
Its out of control. For students, there is a big
push for positive behavior support, restorative
justice, and that has translated to zero discipline.
The kids pretty much know that there are no con-
sequences. Of course, increasing exploration
activities in an organization necessarily involves
the risk of failure. Unfortunately, in these cases,
challenges during implementation may have con-
tributed to lowered staff morale and reliance on
knowledge exploitation.
Turbulence in the external policy context (envi-
ronmental).By Year 3, the case schools were
feeling increasing pressures stemming from the dis-
tricts larger policy and budgetary environment. For
example, during their third year, the new Common
Core curriculum was rolled out. Staff struggled to
reconcile these new demands with their planned
practices. In addition, constrained budget and staff-
ing stemming from the recession and associated
decreases in funding affected schools abilities to
implement elements of their school improvement
plans. For instance, externally developed profes-
sional development and interdisciplinary teacher
collaboration ceased as funding dried up.
In summary, the combined changes in exter-
nal policy environment, diminishing aspirations,
decline in morale, shift in power dynamics, and
challenges with staff turnover appeared to
dampen teachers willingness and ability to
experiment and innovate. In fact, staff in both
case sites reported returning to exploiting past
knowledge and using past practice. In particular,
both schools reverted to previous student behav-
ior management practices, which, according to
many teachers, resulted in major student behav-
ior challenges in their third year of implementa-
tion. Similarly, staff collaboration time and
professional development once again focused on
student behavior and professional culture, rather
than instructional improvement.
570
In the words of one teacher, I think whats
happened is because theres been so much change
. . . I think people have just basically hunkered
down to do what they do best. That is, do what
they know best. At the other case, the principal
reported that the staff tune out when faced with
changing policies, plans, and practices.
Interestingly, one teacher demonstrated an aware-
ness of the reconstitution context and highlighted
the crucial importance of continued exploration
to respond to environmental turbulence:
Yes, were teachers and education, but its still a
business, so this is no different than a company
reorganizing itself, in going through a reorganization
period, because these is new leadership or the climate
in the particular market has changed. Therefore, you
cant use those same value systems anymore, so I
think thats what a lot of it was going on. The value
systems in the community, and society as a whole, has
changed, whereas you cant do the same. The way you
taught in 73, you cant do that in 2013 now, so you
have to adapt and change. Yeah, but you have to
remain flexible. I think the thing about [school
turnaround] is that, with anything, if youonce you
stop becoming flexible, your lifes going to be
stressed, because theres always going to be
something.
Although student achievement data are not avail-
able to verify the effects of this shift back to
exploitation, these qualitative findings raise
questions about the prospects of sustaining the
learning gains schools experienced in the early
years of reconstitution.
Discussion and Implications
Overall, our analysis of student outcomes sug-
gests that school reconstitution in the early years
led to positive gains in student achievement in
ELA that then diminished over time, and to no sig-
nificant effects on student achievement in math.
These results go hand-in-hand with some of the
insights from our analysis of teacher outcomes,
where we find that reconstituted schools experi-
enced significant turnover in their teaching staff
and a seeming tendency to retain lower quality
teachers after the first year of reform implementa-
tion. Taken together, our student and teacher find-
ings suggest that the challenges of retaining a
stable and effective teaching workforce might
have slowed down or prevented school progress in
improving student achievement.

Our qualitative analyses also align with our
findings related to diminishing gains in student
outcomes. In particular, our case data suggest that
new practices and conditions that might have ini-
tially driven gains in student achievementsuch
as positive student behavior management,
improved professional development, shared, open
leadership, and increased, meaningful collabora-
tiondiminished in later years of implementa-
tion at reconstituted schools. The cases also show
how reconstituted schools struggled to maintain
mutual learning balance in turbulent environ-
ments. Although these schools demonstrated ded-
ication to experimentation and use of prior best
practices during their first year, the willingness of
staff to try new practices decreased substantially
in their second and third years of implementation.
School staff attributed the decline in intermediate
school outcomes to funding constraints, staffing
challenges, and leadership problems. These on-
the-ground developments help us understand our
mixed student outcomes, as we see that schools
initially increased their exploration practices to
reach better balance and subsequently reverted to
exploiting prior knowledge more and more.
Policy and Practice
Given the increasing popularity of reconstitu-
tion methods of school turnaround and the lim-
ited empirical literature available on this topic,
this article contributes new evidence that can
inform broader policy efforts focused on system-
atic school reform. Our findings indicate that,
although reconstitution has the potential to facili-
tate organizational learning and improve student
outcomes, schools may experience challenges
sustaining these improvements within turbulent
environments.
Case reports indicate that issues related to
resources, aspirations (and reform fatigue),
autonomy, leadership, and stability may have
hindered school progress. For this reason, it may
be beneficial for district administrators to explore
ways to insulate reconstituted schools from
excessive turbulence, at least in early years. In
particular, substantial shifts in funding, which
resulted in loss of staffing, were particularly dis-
ruptive to teacher collaboration and trust in lead-
ership. Following the purposeful search and
codification processes embedded in the school
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
planning process, it may be helpful to provide
flexibility for schools from new, potentially con-
flicting policies and programs. Furthermore,
holding schools accountable for achievable,
short-term goals may help schools to maintain
high aspirations without experiencing reform
fatigue. For example, benchmarking schools on
their implementation of experimental programs
and expected performance indicators may help to
sustain high organizational aspirations while
avoiding reform fatigue resulting from a sense of
failure or lack of monitoring or follow-through.
Another policy change to consider is allowing
reconstituted schools ongoing staffing flexibility
as well as time to engage in rigorous staffing pro-
cedures. In particular, principals reported want-
ing to have the time and resources to select
employees based on observation of classroom
practices in addition to interviews. After pur-
posefully staffing for heterogeneity, our case
principals experienced ongoing district layoffs,
which shifted their staff make-up. When faced
with district reductions in force, these principals
requested the ability to select which staff to
remove or receive an exemption from layoffs.
Such flexibility may help schools sustain balance
between exploration and exploitation over time.
One-time infusions of new ideas or people may
not be sufficient to lead to longer term, balanced
organizational learning.
In addition, it may be beneficial to identify
and invest in new ways to retain high-quality
teachers to ensure that initial gains in organiza-
tional learning (and student performance) are
sustained. For example, one case principal advo-
cated the use of performance-based compensa-
tion to entice high-quality teachers to stay at the
school (particularly given the challenging con-
text of working in an urban school). Furthermore,
our case reports indicate that shifts to a more top-
down, hierarchical approach to leadership may
have alienated teachers who value experimenta-
tion and autonomy. One policy solution may be
to create shared leadership structures and path-
ways for teachers to take on additional responsi-
bility and leadership. Finally, purposeful search
or experimentation structures may facilitate
ongoing exploration while also enhancing
teacher engagement. For example, new practices
developed by teachers may be purposefully
implemented in pilot lab classrooms to
571
Strunk et al.
encourage ongoing search as well as codification
of practice into the organizational memory.
Research and Theory
Our methods provide a promising model for
future study of related phenomenon. The use of
purposive, rigorous qualitative case studies com-
bined with our causal analyses uniquely high-
lights the successes and challenges of
reconstitution, as well as the nuances involved in
ongoing implementation. Expanding on our
work, we suggest that future research examine
how reconstitution plays out over the longer
term. Do learning gains persist? Do schools sus-
tain the learning and changes in practice over
time? Given the exploratory nature of our quali-
tative research, future studies could investigate
the individual, organizational, and environmen-
tal factors we identified as important in larger
samples and with other methods to further our
understanding of the mechanisms operating
within reconstitution, and how improvements in
performance might be sustained. This knowledge
could further help policymakers decide whether
and when reconstitution is an appropriate fit for
their context.
With the promise of enhanced measures of
teacher qualityfrom rigorous observations of
teacher practice, stakeholder surveys, and VAMs
of effectivenessthe study of teacher mobility
patterns is an important area for future research.
When examining interventions that rely on staff-
ing changes, it is crucial to understand the char-
acteristics of teachers working in reconstituted or
otherwise re-staffed schools. Our results from
this study suggest that reconstitution is, at least
initially, successful in removing low-quality
teachers from schools. However, it appears that
the success with which low-quality teachers are
exited from reconstituted schools diminishes
over time. This may well be tied to the aforemen-
tioned removal of staffing flexibilities, as well as
the ways in which professional environments
conducive to autonomy and collaboration dimin-
ished over the post-reconstitution period.
However, we also find that very experienced
teachers are more likely initially to exit and to
continue exiting reconstituted schools. These
findings point to important areas for future
research on the ways that re-staffed schools can
572
use techniques to recruit, develop, and retain tal-
ent in hard-to-staff environments.
We also suggest that mutual learning, as a sen-
sitizing framework, may be useful in the study of
other school improvement efforts. In particular,
studies of charter schools may shed additional
light on how to promote and sustain optimal orga-
nizational learning. Studies with larger samples
of reconstituted or turnaround schools would also
allow researchers to systematically test the appli-
cability of the mutual learning model and the pre-
liminary case study findings presented herein.
Additional work examining the relationship
between indicators of teacher quality, heterogene-
ity of teachers within schools, and school organi-
zational factors may help to inform researchers
and practitioners about the efficacy and scalabil-
ity of reconstitution as a reform strategy.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of inter-
est with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received external funding for this research
from the U.S. Department of Education Investing in
Innovation Grant #U396C100336.
Notes
1. The turnaround model in School Improvement
Grants (SIG) requires school districts to replace school
leadership, rehire no more than 50% of existing teach-
ing staff, and grant new school principals sufficient
flexibility to implement a comprehensive plan for
school improvement (U.S. Department of Education,
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2010).
2. Although we acknowledge that there are several
other theories that may contribute to and/or explain
how reconstitution played out (e.g., goal theory, social
capital, threat rigidity), the mutual learning model fit
best with the data we collected and generated the great-
est insight in this case (we discuss this further below).
3. To ensure anonymity, we have not named the
district, schools, or individuals participating in this
research, and we use only male gender pronouns in
reference to respondents throughout this article.
4. We exclude magnet schools and other alterna-
tive schools of choice, and do not have data for teach-
ers at independent charter schools. The time frame of
our analysis coincides with a time period when many
school districts were downsizing their workforce.

As such, we exclude from our sample any teacher
who received a Reduction in Force (RIF) notice and
might therefore have switched schools or left the
school district for reasons unrelated to school recon-
stitution. We also account for another school district
policy of breaking up large school campuses (mainly
high schools) into smaller academies or building new
campuses to relieve overcrowding in neighborhood
schools. Because teachers movement between these
schools is a function of larger structural changes as
opposed to individual decision making in response to
school reconstitution, we exclude these teachers from
our analysis.
5. Charter schools are not required to provide
student-level data to this school district. However, we
gained permission to use data from all reconstituted
schools (charter and traditional) and for 50% of the
charter schools in our control groups. Our sample
excludes the 25% of enrolled students who are in non-
tested grades (K, 1, and 12) and students in charter
schools for which we could not obtain data. Our sam-
ple excludes 1.2% of students who do not demonstrate
normal grade progression, as we are concerned that
these students grades are miscoded. Normal grade
progression is defined as students who progress one
grade in each year, who are ever retained in the same
grade, or who skip ahead a grade once in 2 consecu-
tive years.
6. This sample includes students at reconstituted
schools and multiple comparison groups that we use
for our main analyses and specification checks.
7. As public school data are currently not avail-
able for 20132014, we imputed our school-level data
from the districts student-level data. To ensure that
our imputed data are accurate, we correlate our aggre-
gated student-level measures with available school-
level data in prior years, finding that most variables are
highly correlated at .80 or higher. The one exception
is our aggregated measure for the percent of students
who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, which is
only correlated at .62. To ensure that this measure does
not bias our analyses that draw on 20132014 data,
we re-run our main models by substituting the percent
of students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged
with the percent of students who are underrepresented
minorities, confirming that our main results do not
change.
8. We focus on teachers with 10 or more years of
experience because, given budgetary reductions and
associated RIFs, they represent the largest group of
teachers in the district with the greatest potential influ-
ence on teacher turnover in schools. In 20102011,
the year of school reconstitution in our study, teachers
with 10 or more years of experience represented 72%
of all non-RIFed teachers in the district. In contrast,
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
teachers with 3 to 5 years of experience only repre-
sented 7.73% of all non-RIFed teachers and teach-
ers with 3 to 7 years of experience only represented
16.16% of all non-RIFed teachers. We understand that
it might be more conceptually interesting to examine
the effects of school reconstitution on teachers with
fewer years of experience and also run our models
identifying teachers with 5 or more years of experi-
ence and with 7 or more years of experience as teach-
ers. Our results remain largely consistent across these
different specifications, demonstrating that experi-
enced teachers are more likely to switch schools in
the year of reconstitution, relative to similarly experi-
enced teachers in comparison schools, and less likely
to switch schools in the years following reconstitution
(results available on request). Although the most inter-
esting comparison might be that between teachers with
10 or more years of experience (as a possible indicator
of high quality) and those with 3 or fewer, we cannot
run the model looking at inexperienced teachers (those
with 3 or fewer years of experience) because there
were very few inexperienced teachers in the district.
9. Specifically, schools were selected for treatment
based on meeting a set of indicators for low-school
performance, including (a) school program improve-
ment status (needs improvement under No Child Left
Behind [NCLB]), (b) an aggregate score consisting
of a weighted combination of various achievement
measures, generated by the state department of educa-
tion, (c) percentage of students scoring proficient or
advanced on the state achievement tests, (d) meeting
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets, and (e) drop-
out rates. Comparison schools missed any one of these
indicators of low performance regardless of whether
or not that data point was missing.
10. Our comparison group is slightly smaller (n
= 22) for our teacher-level models as we do not have
teacher data from independent charter schools.
11. Because we measure the effects of school
reconstitution on teachers decisions to leave recon-
stituted schools, our treatment indicator, RECONSt ,
restricts our sample to only teachers who work at treat-
ment and comparison schools. Given the small number
of treatment and comparison schools in our study (n =
25), we do not cluster our teacher mobility results to
the school level as our models, which include in excess
of 30 covariates, would not have sufficient degrees of
freedom for estimation.
12. We only report marginal effects in this article.
Results as log odds ratios are available on request.
Most of the teacher covariates used to estimate the
heterogeneous effects of school reconstitution are
specified as teacher-level controls in our main model,
except for our indicator for teachers who are rated
as needing improvement or below standards on their
573
Strunk et al.
performance evaluation and our value-added measure
(VAM) estimates. We exclude these covariates because
only a subset of teachers participate in a performance
evaluation in each year and because we only have data
on teachers VAMs up until the 20122013 school
year, reducing our sample size substantially. We run
our main models with these covariates included to
make sure that our main results do not change (results
available on request).
13. A Comparative Interrupted Time Series (CITS)
approach is appropriate for our student-level analy-
ses given our ability to observe the trend in student
achievement for several years (from 20032004
to 20102011) prior to school reconstitution. This
approach is not appropriate for our teacher-level anal-
yses for which we have less sufficient pretreatment
data. Nevertheless, we observe consistent results when
we re-run our teacher-level analyses in a CITS frame-
work and account for the fact that we are comparing
teacher mobility in the postintervention period with a
pretreatment trend as opposed to teacher mobility in
individual years of the pretreatment period (results
available from authors on request).
14. We control for student mobility because endog-
enous sorting of students between reconstituted and
comparison schools could threaten the internal valid-
ity of our design. We also confirm that school recon-
stitution did not have a significant impact on student
mobility during the time frame of our analysis (results
available on request). Although we might account for
endogenous student mobility by comparing students
who are consistently enrolled in reconstituted schools
in the pre- and postintervention period with those con-
sistently enrolled in comparison schools, this would
substantially narrow our sample to those students in
elementary or secondary grade levels who continue at
their original school for the entire time frame of analy-
sis, reducing the generalizability of our results.
15. We do not control for the percent of disabled
students in our CITS model, as we do not have these
public data in earlier years of our analysis. In our
student-level models, we also control for school-level
(e.g., elementary, middle, high), which we specify as a
teacher covariate in our teacher-level models.
16. The treatment indicator in our student-level
models, Ts, is more conservative in that we are mea-
suring the effects of school reconstitution on student
achievement in all postintervention years (i.e., 2011
2012 and 20122013) even if students were only
enrolled in a treated school for just one of these years.
Because students can be enrolled in other schools in
the pre- and postintervention period, we cluster our
error term to the school level.
17. Case schools are also comparable with the
reconstituted school excluded from the qualitative
574
component of our study in terms of school staff, stu-
dent demographics, and academic performance.
18. Again, these data were drawn from a larger
study, which accounts for the high number of dis-
trict administrator interviews relative to case-level
interviews.
19. Extant studies of reconstitution efforts sug-
gest that most districts cannot or do not reconstitute
large quantities of schools in a given year. Chicago
reconstituted seven schools in 1997, after which they
reconstituted 16 schools between 2006 and 2010,
averaging three to four schools per year (de la Torre
etal., 2013). In the studies of reconstituted schools in a
large Maryland school district, Rice and Malen (2010)
note that the district reconstituted six schools (also see
Malen, Croninger, Muncey, & Redmond-Jones, 2002).
20. We observe similar findings when we define
experienced teachers as those with 5 or more or 7 or
more years of experience (results available on request).
21. Although we see that teachers with low evalu-
ation ratings are significantly more likely to leave the
school district in 20132014, these results might be
driven by a concurrent change in the school districts
teacher performance evaluation system. As such, we
view these results as suggestive.
22. We note that we cannot make definitive claims
about the net teacher quality gain in reconstituted
schools relative to comparison schools given that we
do not examine the quality of entrants into reconsti-
tuted versus comparison schools. As such, again, we
view these results as suggestive.
23. It is unclear why we observe gains in ELA but
not math. However, anecdotal evidence from discus-
sions with district and school personnel indicate that
treated schools focused primarily on ELA instruction.
24. Simultaneous with this reform, the district
enacted an effort to decrease suspension rates across
all schools.
References
Aaronson, D., Barrow, L., & Sander, W. (2007).
Teachers and student achievement in the Chicago
public high schools. Journal of Labor Economics,
25, 95135.
Archibald, S., & Odden, A. (2000). A case study
of resource reallocation to implement a whole
school reform model and boost student achieve-
ment: Parnell Elementary School. Retrieved
from http://cpre.wceruw.org/papers/parnell%20
sf%203-00.pdf
Benner, M. J., & Tushman, M. (2002). Process man-
agement and technological innovation: A longitu-
dinal study of the photography and paint industries.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 676707.

Bloom, H. S. (1999). Estimating program impacts on
student achievement using short interrupted time
series. New York, NY: Manpower Demonstration
Research Corporation.
Blumer, H. (1954). What is wrong with social theory?
American Sociological Review, 18, 310.
Bowen, G. (2008). Grounded theory and sensitizing
concepts. International Journal of Qualitative
Methods, 5(3), 1223.
Center on Education Policy. (2012). Opportunities and
obstacles: Implementing stimulus-funded School
Improvement Grants in Maryland, Michigan, and
Idaho. Washington, DC: Author.
Charmaz, K. (2003). Grounded theory: Objectivist
and constructivist methods. In N. K. Denzin & Y.
S. Lincoln (Eds.), Strategies for qualitative inquiry
(2nd ed., pp. 249291). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., & Rockoff, J. E. (2014).
Measuring the impacts of teachers II: Teacher
value-added and student outcomes in adulthood.
The American Economic Review, 104, 26332679.
Coburn, C. E., & Stein, M. K. (2006). Communities of
practice theory and the role of teacher professional
community in policy implementation. In M. Honig
(Ed.), New directions in education policy imple-
mentation: Confronting complexity (pp. 2546).
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Dee, T. (2012, April). School turnarounds: Evidence
from the 2009 stimulus (Working Paper No.
17990). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/
papers/w17990
de la Torre, M., Allensworth, E., Jagesic, S., Sebastian,
J., Salmonowicz, M., Meyers, C., & Gerdeman,
R. D. (2013). Turning around low-performing
schools in Chicago. Chicago, IL: The University
of Chicagos Consortium on Chicago School
Research.
Donald, S. G., & Lang, K. (2007). Inference with
difference-in-differences and other panel data. The
Review of Economics and Statistics, 89, 221233.
Duflo, E. (2001). Schooling and labor market con-
sequences of school construction in Indonesia:
Evidence from an unusual policy experiment. The
American Economic Review, 91, 795813.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discov-
ery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative
research. Chicago, IL: Aldine Transaction.
Guin, K. (2004). Chronic teacher turnover in urban
elementary schools. Education Policy Analysis
Archives, 12(42). Retrieved from http://epaa.asu
.edu/ojs/article/view/197
Hamilton, M. P., Heilig, J. V., & Pazy, B. L. (2014).
A nostrum of school reform? Turning around
reconstituted urban Texas high schools. Urban
Education, 49, 182215.
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
Hansen, J. B., Kraetzer, A. V., & Mukherjee, P. (1998,
August). Adams-Hunt achievement initiative final
evaluation report (Rep. prepared for the Colorado
Springs School District 11, Colorado Springs, CO).
Paper presented at American Educational Research
Association Annual Conference, Montreal,
Quebec, Canada.
Herman, R., Dawson, P., Dee, T., Greene, J., Maynard,
R., Redding, S., & Darwin, M. (2008). Turning
around chronically low-performing schools: IES
practice guide. Washington, DC: National Center
for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.
Hess, G. A. (2003). ReconstitutionThree years later
monitoring the effect of sanctions on Chicago
high schools. Education and Urban Society, 35,
300327.
Knudson, J., Shamburgh, L., & ODay, J. A. (2011).
Beyond the school: Exploring a systematic
approach to school turnaround. San Mateo:
California Collaborative on District Reform.
Lavie, D., & Rosenkopf, L. (2006). Balancing explo-
ration and exploitation in alliance formation.
Academy of Management Journal, 49, 797818.
LeFloch, K. C., Birman, B., ODay, J., Hurlburt,
S., Mercado-Garcia, D., Goff, R., . . . Wei, T. E.
(2014). Case studies of schools receiving School
Improvement Grants: Findings after the first year
of implementation. Washington, DC: National
Center for Education Evaluation and Regional
Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences.
Leithwood, K., Seashore, L. K., Anderson, S., &
Wahlstrom, K. (2004). How leadership influ-
ences student learning. New York, NY: Wallace
Foundation.
Levinthal, D. A., & March, J. G. (1993). The myo-
pia of learning. Strategic Management Journal,
14(Suppl. 2), 95112.
Linn, R. L. (2005). Conflicting demands of No Child
Left Behind and state systems: Mixed messages
about school performance. Education Policy
Analysis Archives, 13(33). Retrieved from http://
files.eric.ed.gov.libproxy1.usc.edu/fulltext/
EJ846738.pdf
Malen, B., Croninger, R., Muncey, D., & Redmond-
Jones, D. (2002). Reconstituting schools: Testing
the theory of action. Educational Evaluation and
Policy Analysis, 24, 113132.
Malen, B., & Rice, J. K. (2004). A framework for
assessing the impact of education reforms on
school capacity: Insights from studies of high-
stakes accountability initiatives. Educational
Policy, 18, 631660.
Malen, B., & Rice, J. K. (in press). School reconstitu-
tion as a turnaround strategy: An analysis of the
evidence. In J. Mathis & T. Trujillo (Eds.), Test-
575
Strunk et al.
based education reforms: Lessons from a failed
agenda. Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in
organizational learning. Organization Science, 2,
7187.
March, J. G. (1994). Primer on decision making:
How decisions happen. New York, NY: Simon &
Schuster.
Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaa, J. (2013).
Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook.
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Mintrop, H., & Trujillo, T. (2005). Corrective action in
low performing schools: Lessons for NCLB imple-
mentation from first-generation accountability sys-
tems. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 13(48).
Retrieved from http://epaa.asu.edu.libproxy1.usc
.edu/ojs/index.php/epaa/article/view/153
Novak, J. R., & Fuller, B. (2003). Penalizing diverse
schools? Similar test scores, but different stu-
dents, bring federal sanctions (Policy Brief 03-4).
Berkley, CA: Policy Analysis of California
Education.
Nye, B., Konstantopoulos, S., & Hedges, L. V.
(2004). How large are teacher effects? Educational
Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26, 237257.
OBrien, E. M., & Dervarics, C. J. (2013). Which way
up? What research says about school turnaround
strategies. Center for Public Education, National
School Boards Association. Retrieved from http://
www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/
Policies/Which-Way-Up-At-a-glance/Which-
Way-Up-Full-Report.pdf
Pandey, S., & Sharma, R. R. K. (2009). Organizational
factors for exploration and exploitation. Journal
of Technology Management & Innovation, 4,
4858.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Designing qualitative studies. In
Qualitative research and evaluation methods (Vol.
3, pp. 230246). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Rice, J. K., & Croninger, R. G. (2005). Resource gen-
eration, reallocation, or depletion: An analysis of
the impact of reconstitution on school capacity.
Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4, 73103.
Rice, J. K., & Malen, B. (2003). The human costs of
education reform: The case of school reconstitu-
tion. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39,
635666.
Rice, J. K., & Malen, B. (2010). School reconstitu-
tion as an education reform strategy: A synopsis
of the evidence. Atlanta, GA: National Education
Association.
Rivkin, J. W., & Siggelkow, N. (2003). Balancing
search and stability: Interdependencies among
elements of organizational design. Management
Science, 49, 290311.
576
Rivkin, S. G., Hanushek, E. A., & Kain, J. F. (2005).
Teachers, schools, and academic achievement.
Econometrica, 73, 417458.
Rockoff, J. E. (2004). The Impact of Individual
Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from
panel data. The American Economic Review, 94,
247252.
Rojas, W. (1996). Reconstitution, reculturing, and
reform: Adding options for urban education
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Teachers
College, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Ronfeldt, M., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. H. (2013).
How teacher turnover harms student achieve-
ment. American Educational Research Journal,
50, 436.
Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T.
(2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental
designs for generalized causal inference. Boston,
MA: Houghton-Mifflin.
Spillane, J. P., Halverson, R., & Diamond, J. B.
(2001). Investigating school leadership practice: A
distributed perspective. Educational Researcher,
30(3), 2328.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of quali-
tative research: Grounded theory procedures and
techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Strunk, K. O., Marsh, J. A., Hashim, A. K., Mecenas-
Bush, S. C., & Weinstein, T. L. (in press). The
impact of turnaround reform on student outcomes:
Evidence and insights from the Los Angeles
Unified School District. Education Finance Policy.
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary
and Secondary Education. (2010). Guidance on fis-
cal year 2010 School Improvement Grants under
section 1003(G) of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965. Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Education.
U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2012).
School Improvement Grants: Education should
take additional steps to enhance accountability for
schools and contractors. Washington, DC: Author.
Vera, D., & Crossan, M. (2004). Strategic learn-
ing and organizational learning. The Academy of
Management Review, 29, 222240.
Authors
Katharine O. Strunk, PhD, is an associate
professor of education and policy at the University
of Southern California. Her research centers on
K12 education policy with a focus on education
labor markets, accountability policies, and gover-
nance. In particular, she studies teachers unions and
the collective bargaining agreements they negotiate
with district administrators and the implementation

and impacts of various teacher retention, evaluation,
and compensation policies, as well as broader
accountability policies.
Julie A. Marsh, PhD, is an associate professor of
education policy at the University of Southern
Californias Rossier School of Education, who spe-
cializes in research on K12 policy. Her research
blends perspectives in education, sociology, and
political science. Her research focuses on the imple-
mentation and effects of accountability and instruc-
tional reform policies, including the roles of central
office administrators, intermediary organizations,
and community members in educational reform and
the use of data to guide decision making.
Innovation and a Return to the Status Quo
Ayesha K. Hashim is a Deans PhD fellow at the
University of Southern Californias Rossier School of
Education. Her research focuses on the implementa-
tion and effects of instructional reform, accountability,
and school choice policies.
Susan Bush-Mecenas is a Provosts PhD fel-
low at the University of Southern Californias Rossier
School of Education. Her research interests include
organizational learning, district reform, district and
school capacity building, and accountability.
Manuscript received May 11, 2015
Revision received February 5, 2016
Accepted March 10, 2016
577