Who and What Influences School Leaders’ Decisions: An Institutional Analysis of the Implementation of Universal Prekindergarten

Abstract

School-community interactions facilitate connections between schools and their local surroundings; however, these relationships are subject not only to local political, economic, and social influences but also to broader political and institutional forces. Educational administrators’ decisions about programming and partnering can be considered in light of who influences these decisions and why, as well as why administrators make these decisions. Leaders make partnering decisions using either or both local input and institutional level beliefs (Arum, 2000). Why educational leaders make decisions, like with whom and why to partner, is often related to regulations, norms, or deep-seated beliefs in the school or local culture (Scott, 2001). Data from case studies of five rural school districts in New York State provides a window onto the decision-making process surrounding the implementation, maintenance, and partnering involved in the implementation of a new statewide Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) program. Contrary to arguments that non-local professional influences are displacing local influences, out findings suggest that the local and normative forces are strong while the non-local and regulative influences are weak. Implications for the politics of education, institutional theory, state and national UPK policy, and the practice of educational administrators in rural communities are discussed.

Keywords

policy implementation politics of education preschool education public education qualitative research rural education

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Arum, R. ( 2000). School and communities: Ecological and institutional dimensions. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 395-418.

Barnett, W.S. , Epstein, D.J. , Friedman, A.H. , Sansanelli, R. , & Hustedt, J.T. ( 2009). The state of Preschool 2009. New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early Education Research . Retrieved from http://nieer.org/yearbook/

Bauch, P.A. ( 2001). School-community partnerships in rural schools: Leadership, renewal, and a sense of place. Peabody Journal of Education , 76, 204-221.

Carr, P.J. , & Kefalas, M.J. ( 2009). Hollowing out the middle: The rural brain drain and what it means for America. Boston: Beacon Press.

Corbett, M. ( 2007). Learning to leave: The irony of schooling in a coastal community. Black Point, Nova Scotia, Canada: Fernwood.

DeYoung, A.J. ( 1987). The status of American rural education research: An integrated review and commentary. Review of Educational Research, 57(2), 123-148.

DiMaggio, P.J. , & Powell, W.W. ( 1991). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. In W. W. Powell & P. J. Dimaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 63-82). Chicago : University of Chicago Press.

Fuller, B. ( 2007). Standardized childhood: The political and cultural struggle over early education. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Lyson, T.A. ( 2002). What does a school mean to a community? Assessing the social and economic benefits of schools to rural villages in New York. Journal of Rural Research in Education, 17(3), 131-137.

10.

Meyer, J.W. , & Rowan, B. ( 1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340-363.

11.

Meyer, J. , & Rowan, B. ( 1978). The structure of educational organizations. In M. W. Meyer (Ed.), Environments and organizations (pp. 78-109). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

12.

Meyer, H. , & Rowan, B. ( 2006). The new institutionalism in education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

13.

Meyer, J.W. , Scott, R. , & Deal, T.E. ( 1983). Institutional and technical sources of organizational structure: Explaining the structure of educational organizations. In J. W. Meyer & W. R. Scott (Eds.), Organizational environments: Rationality and ritual (pp. 45-67). Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.

14.

Patton, M.Q. ( 2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

15.

Rogers, T.L. ( 2006). Snapshot 2006: The 6th Triennial Study of the Superintendency in New York. Albany, NY: The Council of School Superintendents.

16.

Scott, W.R. ( 2001). Institutions and organizations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .

17.

Sipple, J.W. ( 2004). Local anchors versus state levers in state-led school reform: Identifying the community around public schools. In W. K. Hoy & C. G. Miskel (Eds.), Educational administration, policy, and reform: Research and measurement (pp. 25-57). Charlotte, NC : Information Age.

18.

Sipple, J.W. , McCabe, L.A. , Ross-Bernstein, J. , & Casto, H.G. ( 2008, September). The movement toward universal pre-kindergarten: 1998-2008 in New York State. Available from www.NYruralschools.org

19.

Weick, K.E. ( 1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems . Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1-19.

20.

Zigler, E. , Gilliam, W.S. , & Jones, S.M. ( 2006). A vision for universal preschool education. New York: Cambridge University Press