Abstract
Many U.S. school districts now rely on instructional coaching to promote reform. Yet facets of coaching policy remain vague, and there is considerable variation in the structures and practices of coaching. We use longitudinal, qualitative data to analyze changes in instructional coaching, as a capacity building policy instrument, in one mid-sized urban-emergent school district from 2014 to 2019. Applying concepts of organizational learning theory, this paper documents how district leaders designed and implemented three distinct forms of coaching. We argue coaching shifted from a tool for teacher support, to a resource for school improvement, and lastly to a lever for boosting coherence. Further, we demonstrate how particular problems and leaders triggered different degrees of organizational learning on–and changes to–coaching. In sum, the paper explains how a district alters the definitions and structures of instructional coaching. By illuminating how educational leaders tinker with capacity building instruments, this paper contributes to the instructional reform literature and advances the field’s understanding of the evolution of capacity-building instruments.
Districts have shifted from bureaucracies managing operations to engines of instructional change (Honig, 2008; Stein & Coburn, 2008; Strunk et al., 2016; Weiner & Woulfin, 2017). Responding to pressures to improve outcomes and experiences at the school, teacher, and student levels, district leaders across the United States have focused seriously on instructional initiatives (Daly & Finnigan, 2011; Honig, 2008; Marsh et al., 2021). For these initiatives, district leaders designed and implemented levers and strategies that intend to motivate positive changes in teaching, leadership, and learning (Elfers & Stritikus, 2014). Extending McDonnell and Elmore (1987), we argue district leaders use numerous policy instruments to catalyze change, including: mandates, inducements, system-changing, and capacity-building (McDonnell and Elmore, 1987). We further argue that, over the past 20 years of the accountability policy era, capacity-building instruments, including systems and routines for professional learning, have ascended as strategies for educational improvement (Domina et al., 2015; Hochberg & Desimone, 2010).
Rather than relying on regulations, incentives, or alterations to power arrangements, capacity-building instruments increase the knowledge and skills of implementers to engage in change (McDonnell & Elmore, 1987). Capacity-building instruments, therefore, provide support for adult learning to motivate change in a particular direction (Woulfin & Gabriel, 2022). Here, we underscore district leaders serve a pivotal role in designing as well as implementing capacity-building instruments (Elfers & Stritikus, 2014; Mangin & Dunsmore, 2015).
Because it hinges on developing the knowledge and skills of educators, instructional coaching functions as a capacity-building policy instrument (Bean, 2015; Coburn & Woulfin, 2012; Woulfin & Rigby, 2017). 1 And district leaders craft—and enable—the reform lever of coaching. That is, district leaders create guidelines that structure coaching as well as other forms of professional development (Hochberg & Desimone, 2010; Kane & Rosenquist, 2019; Knight, 2012; Mangin & Dunsmore, 2015; Woulfin, 2020). District leaders also make decisions regarding the allocation of resources for professional development and coaching (e.g., time in schedules, funding for coaches and consultants) (Knight, 2012; Trujillo & Woulfin, 2014; Woulfin, 2017; Woulfin & Jones, 2021).
District leaders wield instructional coaching as an instrument to develop individual educators’ knowledge and skills as well as to promote system-wide coherence (Bryk et al., 2015; Woulfin & Rigby, 2017; Woulfin et al., 2023). Strikingly, coaching has been deployed to address a wide range of issues, including overburdened principals, ambitious mathematics and science instructional frameworks, and persistent gaps in reading proficiency scores (Coburn & Russell, 2008; Woulfin, 2020; Woulfin et al., 2023). Though it is evident districts rely on coaching to develop and support educators and ultimately improve outcomes (Kane & Rosenquist, 2019; Mangin & Dunsmore, 2015), less is known regarding district leaders’ roles in structuring this capacity-building instrument. Specifically, how do district leaders conceptualize and promote coaching? What factors influence district leaders to structure and enable coaching in particular ways?
To better understand the design and implementation of capacity-building policy instruments, it is useful to attend to how district leaders structure coaching. As part of a multi-year research-practice partnership with a mid-sized urban district, we collaborated with district leaders on issues linked to the improvement infrastructure. This project offered a robust opportunity to examine the structuring of coaching, and specifically ask: How did the district-level structures and practices of coaching evolve over a 5-year period? To aid in answering this question, we applied concepts from organizational learning theory to guide qualitative, longitudinal analysis of coaching as a capacity building instrument. We do not evaluate the effectiveness of coaching models but, instead, explore how the structures, conceptualizations, and practices of coaching shifted in a context. Specifically, this article on the evolution of coaching demonstrates key shifts in one district’s design and implementation of coaching. We elucidate how single and double loop learning contributed to shifts from school-level support to district-level curricular coaching. And we illuminate how resource constraints, accountability pressures, and new district administrators triggered changes in the coaching model. This study contributes to the instructional reform literature by portraying how district leaders defined and enabled coaching over a 5-year period. Further, this study advances the field’s understanding of the evolution of capacity-building instruments.
Literature Review
To situate our study of district leaders’ design and implementation of instructional coaching, we review foundational literature on the nature and potential impacts of coaching. This includes delving into current understandings regarding how coaching, as a capacity-building instrument, fosters coherence. Asserting coaching is weakly institutionalized, we then synthesize current research on how coaching varies across contexts.
Instructional Coaching
Instructional coaching aims to raise the capacity of teachers and leaders (Bryk et al., 2015; Kraft et al., 2018). Due to its contextualized, active approach to professional development, coaching has much potential as a capacity-building instrument (Garet et al., 2001; Joyce & Showers, 1981). As surfaced by Coburn and Woulfin (2012), coaches can develop teachers’ understanding of reform elements to promote the coupling of policy and practice. Thus, coaching can reinforce (or downplay) policy messages, affect the nature of instruction, and also contribute to gains in student-level outcomes (Coburn & Woulfin, 2012; Kraft & Blazar, 2016; Matsumura et al., 2013; Woulfin, 2018).
As a lever for building capacity and effecting change, coaching raises coherence in schools by weaving together curriculum, instructional frameworks, assessment, evaluation, and professional development (Galey-Horn & Woulfin, 2021; Hopkins et al., 2013; Woulfin & Rigby, 2017). Hopkins et al. (2013) explained that coaches play a role in aligning messages about a district’s approach to curriculum and instruction for teachers. Building upon this, Galey-Horn and Woulfin (2021) demonstrated how coaches interlink ideas about reforms to guide teachers’ understanding of disparate improvement efforts. In sum, there is considerable evidence that coaching functions as a lever for crafting coherence across levels of the education system and among varied reforms.
Although coaching has proliferated over the past two decades, it is not yet deeply institutionalized (Domina et al., 2015; Woulfin, 2020). Across states and districts, there are numerous types of coaches, with different foci and applying different coaching techniques: from reading and mathematics coaches to data and leadership coaches. There is considerable variability across district-level policies and school-level guidelines regarding coaching (Mangin, 2009; Woulfin, 2020). For example, in some systems coaching is mandated, while in others it remains optional for educators to engage in coaching. Additionally, across systems, coaching may be more or less tightly coupled to reform efforts (Coburn & Woulfin, 2012; Mangin, 2009; Woulfin, 2018). That is, coaches are, at times, promoting specific policies or improvement efforts (e.g., new district reading curriculum) (Woulfin, 2017, 2018). Other times, however, coaches provide generic support and mentoring to teachers with loose linkages to current reforms or initiatives. These variations for coaching—as well as coaches’ work—partially stem from differences in district leaders’ framing of coaching (Kane & Rosenquist, 2019; Mangin & Dunsmore, 2015). Taken together, the weak institutionalization of coaching makes it a salient case for understanding district leaders’ role in modifying policy instruments.
Theoretical Framework
Organizational learning (OL) theory provides lenses for understanding how organizations, in addition to individuals, learn (Dodgson, 1993). Honig (2003) emphasizes organizational learning entails collective changes that “are not simply the sum total of individual learning but a new set of preferences, capabilities, and worldviews” (p. 298). Such changes can be precipitated by shocks. These changes hinge on organizations, and their actors, searching for and applying information to alter both individual and organizational practices (Honig, 2003).
Concepts of OL theory help account for the ways organizations learn by adapting to environmental forces, modifying goals, and shifting activities (Prange, 1999). These concepts also have utility for examining how organizations change, improve, and innovate over time (Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Honig, 2003; Prange, 1999). As such, OL enables scholars to more fully understand how schools engage in deep versus shallow change in response to the shocks of reform (Bryk et al., 1999; Kruse, 2001).
The What and How of Organizational Learning
OL theory devotes attention to the variability in organizational responses (Argyris, 1977; Schön & Argyris, 1996). OL scholars term superficial changes in organizations as single loop learning; these scholars label more substantive changes as double loop learning. Argyris (1977) delineated that single loop learning involves an organization making minor adjustments to improve activities and outcomes, while maintaining its preexisting structures, policies, and goals. Importantly, for educational organizations conducting reform, tinkering with systems and practices represents single loop learning (Cohen, 1990; Donaldson & Woulfin, 2018). In contrast to the superficial changes of single loop learning, double loop learning involves an organization more substantively modifying structures, policies, and goals to address an issue (Argyris & Schon, 1996). Double loop changes, therefore, might involve creating new structures or revising the organizational mission (Argyris, 1977). Turning again to the case of education reform, double loop learning might involve a district accommodating reform elements or engaging in transformational change (Coburn, 2004; Cohen et al., 2018). Scholars seeking to understand whether organizations are merely adapting or deeply transforming can track and depict how single versus double loop learning unfolds regarding particular issues.
Endogenous as well as exogenous shocks initiate OL. These shocks produce a surge of meaning making and increase organizational awareness (Christianson et al., 2009; Lampel et al., 2009). Notably, shocks generate ambiguity and uncertainty that encourage actors to engage in interpretation and decision making. In turn, these shocks spark organizational actors to enact change (Christianson et al., 2009). Moreover, shocks provide opportunities for actors to make sense of current organizational structures and practices and also conceptualize new possibilities (Lampel et al., 2009). For example, the endogenous shock of changes in district leadership—or the exogenous shock of a new curricular mandate—opens windows for sensemaking and decision making and, therefore, stimulates organizational learning. In the next section, we further explain three triggers for organizational learning.
Factors Triggering Organizational Learning
Scholars have identified the following key triggers of OL: problems, resources, and people (Hedberg, 1981). Episodes of OL are often triggered by organizational problems, such as resource limitations, conflicting priorities, or poor outcomes (Hedberg, 1981). In particular, gaps between goals and outcomes may trigger an organization to engage in learning and then make adaptations to improve. Resources also trigger OL, since they provide conditions for organizational change. Specifically, time and space for enacting collaborative work enable organizational learning and, ultimately, improvement efforts (Bryk et al., 2015; Daly & Finnigan, 2011; Rohanna, 2017).
Leaders also play roles in triggering OL (Farrell et al., 2019; Hedberg, 1981; Leithwood et al., 1998). By “unleashing the energy and resources to fuel the change process” (Mohrman & Mohrman, 1995, p. 101), leaders can catalyze collective learning. Specifically, district leaders can “identify and assess current sources of knowledge within the department, scan the broader field for available sources of knowledge, and synthesize acquired knowledge by linking it with current knowledge and routines” (Farrell et al., 2021). In so doing, district leaders catalyze and guide the direction and depth of OL (Leithwood et al., 1998).
Furthermore, district leaders can serve as the champion for certain ideas, including innovative ways of implementing reform (Farrell et al., 2021; Fligstein, 1997). Drawing on their agency, these leaders frame problems and solutions to promote change in certain directions (Woulfin et al., 2016). Through this strategic framing, educational leaders encourage other actors to change the nature of their work. Finally, because leaders who are new to an organization carry variegated—and even innovative—ideas, turnover also triggers OL (Van de Ven & Polley, 1992). Schechter and Atarchi (2014) declared that hiring new leaders contributes to organizations acquiring knowledge. In sum, educational leaders play key roles in OL—with consequences for change processes (Farrell et al., 2021; Leithwood et al., 1998).
Applications of OL in the Educational Change Literature
For over two decades, scholars have drawn on OL to answer crucial questions about educational change (Caduff et al., 2023; Leithwood et al., 1998). This typically involves applying OL to interrogate the nature and depth of reform in districts and schools (Farrell et al., 2019; Finnigan & Daly, 2012; Honig, 2003, 2008; Leithwood et al., 1998; Schechter & Atarchi, 2014). Asserting OL theory is useful for understanding hurdles for substantive district improvement, Seashore Louis and Lee (2016) explain how educational organizations can become stuck—and then unstuck—in their approaches. They surfaced how factors enabling OL can promote adaptive changes to organizational structures and practices. Importantly, Seashore Louis and Lee (2016) point to the conditions necessary for collective organizational learning—and change—in districts and schools.
Other researchers have explored how structures, including networks and routines, enable OL. Farrell et al. (2018) applied OL theory to identify factors enabling two departments in a district to integrate ideas from an external partner organization. These researchers determined how communication channels and informal networks permitted collective learning related to ambitious mathematics reform. This study contributes by portraying how a district, and the leaders within this complex organization, engage in OL. Taken together, empirical studies attending to the OL of educational organizations expand our understanding of districts as sites for—and district leaders as drivers of—change.
Summary: District Organizational Learning Related to Coaching
Coaching is an ever-shifting reform instrument; this necessitates collective learning so that districts can refine and promote coaching. We ground this article in the instructional coaching literature, as we seek to show how district leaders structured and enabled coaching. And, to provide a foundation for our attention to the evolution of coaching, we then synthesized facets of OL theory, including its foundational concepts and salient applications from the education literature. In the following section, we explain our methodology for investigating questions regarding a district’s organizational learning related to coaching.
Research Methods
We conducted a longitudinal comparative case study to study the evolution of coaching within one district, District D, between 2014 and 2019. 2 The analyses and results aim to respond to three guiding questions:
1) How did coaching change as a district policy instrument over a 5-year period?
2) How did district leaders define and enable coaching in various phases?
3) How did people and problems trigger organizational learning about coaching?
District Context
District D is an urban district in a northeastern state serving approximately 21,000 students in over 60 schools. Its central office was organized with distinct departments of Talent Management and Academics 3 ; both departments devoted attention to coaching. In 2014, a new superintendent developed a strategic plan to promote coherence, including: leadership for learning, attention to curriculum, instruction, and assessment, and coaching. Although District D had previously adopted coaching as a strategy for reform, including hiring approximately 50 site-based coaches positioned in elementary and secondary schools, the new superintendent devoted greater attention toward the nature of coaches’ work and systems enabling coaching.
To answer questions about changes in coaching as a reform instrument, we used the ethnomethodological approach to analyze the district as an organization, understand common activities in the district, and the concepts which actors deployed in daily work (Garfinkel, 1967; Wilson & Zimmerman, 1979). Our ethnomethodological study relies on interviews, observations, and document analysis conducted in the context of a longstanding research-practice partnership (RPP) to comprehend district leaders’ understandings of and activities associated with coaching.
Focusing on coaching in one district over multiple years permitted us to explore shifts in how the reform instrument was conceptualized and enacted by district leaders. It also permitted us to identify conditions and opportunities for OL in an educational system. Crucially, an author’s embedded role enabled conducting sustained, in-depth fieldwork, including observations over a 5-year period as detailed below. Moreover, the multi-year partnership and extended duration of this project provided vital opportunities to view shifts in structures, leadership, and the broad design and implementation of coaching (Farrell et al., 2018; Merriam, 1998).
Data Collection and Analysis
Over 2014 to 2019, we collected multiple forms of data on coaching in District D. Aligning to principles of the ethnomethodological approach, observational data from PD sessions and meetings over the 5-year period deliver substantial evidence to answer our research questions. With the aim of determining how district leaders defined and supported coaching, we observed approximately 40 professional development sessions (>120 hours) for coaches (i.e., trainings on giving feedback to teachers and writing student learning objectives). We took field notes during observations detailing activities, messaging, materials, and who facilitated and participated. The observation data provided contextual information on how administrators defined coaching and how coaches responded to structures/systems for coaching.
We also draw on interview data (n = 20 interviews with district administrators and n = 32 interviews with coaches) which provides complementary information on coaching and district initiatives (Creswell, 2014). We interviewed nine district administrators to obtain information on how they conceptualized and enacted coaching as a reform instrument. The semi-structured interviews with district leaders included questions about how they defined effective coaching, current structures and expectations for coaching in District D, how their work promoted or enabled coaching, and perspectives on how coaches were responding to district efforts. Thus, the district leader interview data assist with answering questions on district leaders’ conceptions of coaching as a reform instrument and how they worked to advance this instrument. Between 2014 and 2019, we also interviewed 32 coaches about their role and how the district defined and supported their work; the interview protocols included questions on the nature of their coaching work, and how district leaders enabled their work. Interviews ranged from 40 to 70 minutes in length; all interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.
Additionally, we collected and analyzed approximately 100 documents on coaching and district improvement efforts, including strategic plans, district websites, meeting agendas, and handouts from PD sessions. The documents yielded information on the formal structures and expectations related to coaching as well as other reform efforts and district priorities. For instance, PowerPoint decks and handouts from coach professional development sessions provided information on guidelines for coaching at a particular moment in District D.
Data Analysis
To analyze these data, we conducted several phases of qualitative content analysis (Creswell, 2014; Miles & Huberman, 1994). We used techniques aligning to the longitudinal case study design (Yin, 2003) to analyze the organizational learning of a district around coaching. We re-read field notes, interview transcripts, and documents to formulate the chronological trajectory of coaching over the 5-year period. As delineated by Farrell et al. (2019), we constructed a timeline containing insights on key actors, policies and programs, and the nature of coaching. We reviewed artifacts, including meeting agendas, handouts and posters from PD sessions, to ensure the specificity and accuracy of the timeline. After initial analyses identified three phases of coaching, we carried out comparative analyses of shifts in regulations, structures, and leadership between phases and then attended to the nature of organizational learning between phases.
Following this, we conducted deductive and inductive coding of interview transcripts. We developed and applied deductive codes on components of coaching as well as concepts from organizational learning theory (e.g., changes in systems, triggers of learning). For example, we coded interviews for mentions of conceptualizations of coaching and triggers of organizational learning (e.g., organizational problems, resource constraints). And after reading interview transcripts several times to identify themes and categories, we engaged in inductive coding. For instance, we created an inductive code, centralizing coaching. We also looked across coded interviews from district leaders and coaches to refine codes and triangulate preliminary findings.
In the next stage of analysis, we created matrices and drafted memos to identify findings. First, we completed matrices to summarize information and track patterns related to structures and systems for coaching and the nature of coaches’ work in each school year (Miles & Huberman, 1994). For instance, one matrix included a row for each school year, and, in the columns, we listed evidence on how district leaders defined, framed, and enabled coaching during the specific time period. This helped delineate phases of coaching and then recognize shifts in coaching. Second, we wrote memos on each phase that summarized policies, conditions, leaders’ stance toward coaching, and the nature of coaching (Creswell, 2014).
Findings
Table 1 characterizes three distinct phases of coaching as a capacity building instrument in District D from 2014 to 2018. Below we provide evidence on each phase and discuss organizational learning occurring across phases. In so doing, we demonstrate how the policy instrument of coaching evolved and how district leaders actively structured—and tinkered with—coaching in District D.
Summary of Phases of Coaching in District D.
Phase I: Coaching for teacher support
In Phase I, district leaders structured and enacted coaching as a lever for teacher support. In the 2014 to 2015 school year, coaching applied this theory of action: if coaches support teachers inside their school building, teachers will develop as professionals. Phase I coaching, therefore, maintained the autonomy of individual schools, coaches, principals, and teachers, while attempting to deliver contextualized support to teachers. There were approximately 50 school-based coaches during this phase.
District leaders conceptualized coaching for teacher support as an asset for each school. One leader from the district’s Department of Academics expressed that “instructional coaches should keep the focus on instruction at their site.” Another district leader asserted “coaches are not just making friends with good teachers, they are working with other teachers to improve instruction.” This quotes indicate administrators’ stance that coaches should strive to build the capacity of both lower and higher performing teachers.
District Structures Enabling Coaching for Teacher Support
District leaders created several structures promoting teacher support coaching. For instance, the Teaching and Learning department instituted a Coach Professional Learning Community (CoaPLC) to raise the capacity of coaches as school-based instructional leaders. Specifically, a CoaPLC session in Fall 2014 addressed Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and a session in February 2015 addressed components of the district’s literacy program. These structures attempted to develop school-based coaches so that they could support teachers.
District and School Implementation of Coaching for Teacher Support
Though district leaders delivered certain supports–and suggested norms–for coaching, principals had a great deal of day-to-day control over coaches’ work because coaches were school-based. The weakly-specified district goals for coaching and principals’ authority over coaches contributed to many coaches occupying a quasi-administrative role or conducting operational activities (e.g., bus and lunch duty, managing testing) rather than concentrating on activities focused on instructional improvement. Inside schools, the enactment of coaching for teacher support was multifaceted and variable. Several coaches described conducting a wide mix of educative, political, and operational tasks. It is evident, therefore, coaches’ work during Phase I incorporated a broad set of activities, which ranged from mentoring teachers and leading whole staff professional development to unpacking and delivering instructional materials and creating testing schedules.
Single Loop Learning Toward School Improvement Coaching
The transition from Phase I coaching to the accountability-oriented coaching of Phase II involved single loop learning (see Figure 1). District D altered district and school coaching systems and implemented new approaches for school improvement coaching. More specifically, document, interview, and observation data indicate this district shifted away from generic, contextualized supports for individual teachers and toward reform-oriented, data-based coaching targeting school improvement. This entailed District D concretizing their definition of coaching based on district needs and external pressures. Specifically, over the course of Spring and Summer 2015, district leaders revised definitions, structures for, and expectations on school improvement coaching. The Director of Professional Learning, Lauren, engaged in tasks to refine the definition of coaching and broadcast expectations for coaching as an instrument. For example, Lauren created a handbook on coaching with a diagram on coaches’ core responsibilities. Then they distributed the handbook to coaches as well as principals to help share consistent messages about features of coaching.
Three phases of coaching.
Signaling OL, district-level conceptualizations of coaching shifted. Reform-oriented coaching, however, was only loosely coupled to district instructional initiatives. Indeed, district leaders rarely coupled coaching to specific curricula. As a result, coaches retained flexibility to support teachers in enacting school-specific rather than district-dictated initiatives. In particular, coaches developed and promoted instructional materials tied to their own school’s priorities instead of the district’s instructional framework.
Single loop learning altered the focus of this reform instrument from coaching to support individual teacher development to that of improving school-level outcomes. In contrast to Phase I coaching, the primary aim of Phase II coaching was school-level improvement instigated by coaches engaging with teams of teachers and conducting data analysis. To initiate school improvement coaching, district leaders altered guidelines for coaching routines and activities for developing and supporting coaches.
How Leaders Promoted Single Loop Learning
Document and interview data revealed how district leaders promoted OL which contributed to the shift toward school improvement coaching. First, this transition involved leaders replacing the broad notion of coaches carrying out teacher leadership with that of coaches engaging in coaching cycles for school improvement. A 2016 district vision document emphasized: The district will refine the role and responsibilities of instructional coaches to ensure that their specialized expertise will impact the core instruction of as many teachers as possible.
Matching this statement and seeking to clarify coaches’ role and responsibilities, district leaders developed and promoted new routines that coaches were expected to adopt to influence classroom practice. In particular, district leaders advanced the coaching cycle routine to shape coaches’ work and foster instructional improvement. Moreover, District D’s vision document specified “all teachers will receive differentiated coaching support tailored to meet their needs based on student performance data.” Thus, the district replaced coaches’ generic teacher support tasks with data-driven coaching cycles. In this manner, the district elevated an accountability-oriented coaching model to further school improvement.
Second, district leaders changed both the structure and content of professional learning opportunities for coaches. Lauren, in collaboration with other district administrators, allocated considerable time and resources to build coaches’ capacity for carrying out coaching cycles at their sites. Other structures of coaching, however, did not change from this episode of single loop learning. Specifically, coaches continued to operate as school-based instructional leaders, and principals held power to shape coaches’ roles and responsibilities. As a result, principals continued to play a major role in shaping conditions for coaching.
Antecedents of OL
As represented in Figure 1, problems, opportunities, and people triggered single loop learning. First, federal and state accountability policies drew attention towards District D’s low achievement as measured by standardized tests, and district leaders deemed coaches could be martialled to help solve this issue. Relatedly, school-level issues, such as principals carrying heavy burdens, contributed to district leaders considering how coaches could promote instructional improvement through coaching cycles.
Second, district initiatives, including a new teacher evaluation system and a new model for continuous improvement, functioned as opportunities triggering adaptations in District D’s coaching model. District D’s teacher evaluation system provided a rubric on and common terms for effective instruction. And coaches could tie their coaching conversations to the domains of the evaluation rubric or discuss aspects of the rubric while facilitating meetings with teachers. Third, several district leaders motivated changes in coaching; they functioned as institutional entrepreneurs. While advancing their strategic plan focused on systemic instructional improvement, the superintendent prioritized coaches’ engagement in activities matching the plan. Additionally, Lauren wielded knowledge on reform-oriented coaching from their previous experience as an educator in a charter management organization. Importantly, this leader created new definitions and guidelines for school-improvement coaching and facilitated coach professional development addressing how to carry out coaching cycles. In this manner, Lauren, as well as other district leaders, advanced ideas associated with school improvement coaching.
Phase II: School Improvement Coaching
In Phase II, district leaders framed and enabled coaching as a strategy for both teacher learning and school improvement. By December 2015, coaching entailed the district’s 50 school-based coaches conducting a range of tasks, including the coaching cycle routine, in an attempt to raise the quality of instruction and improve school performance. In an interview, Lauren stated how district leaders now applied the following conceptualization: Coaching is a high leverage practice for improvement in schools. Teachers should engage in professional learning every day, not an event in a room. Instead, it occurs every day with the coach at the heart of it.
This comment on coaching as a mechanism for professional learning provides evidence of the shift toward leaders viewing coaching as a lever to promote improvement.
Further, multiple administrators in District D framed coaching as a source of targeted professional learning for teachers to raise student and school outcomes. For example, in an interview regarding the professional learning system, a district administrator articulated: Coaches build school-based capacity to change curriculum in schools. If curriculum and teaching improve, then achievement will improve.
As indicated in the above quote, the theory of action of Phase II coaching was: if school-based coaches conduct cycles and engage in work aligning to district reforms, teachers’ instruction will change and student achievement will increase.
School improvement coaching tasked coaches with promoting several district reforms in their schools, including a new English Language Arts program for K-3 reading instruction and a data use initiative to structure teacher collaboration and school improvement efforts. In light of this, coaches allocated time toward planning and facilitating both grade level team and whole school professional development on these reforms. This indicates coaching was being coupled to district priorities.
At the same time, district leaders began relying on coaching as a tool to achieve alignment across schools. Lauren articulated: “Coaching is different in each school due to autonomy, but how can we norm ourselves, look at things we can control.” In this manner, district leaders began formulating new, common norms for coaching. Even without structural changes, the shift to Phase II coaching for school improvement altered aspects of coaching as a capacity building instrument.
District Structures and Activities Enabling School Improvement Coaching
After modifying the reform instrument of coaching, district leaders attended to crafting coherence for instructional improvement. A district leader told their coaches in Fall 2016 that the district is: aiming for coherence … Our district’s [strategic plan] is connecting the dots. Making it make sense from district to school to principal to teacher. There’s a trickle down of our North Star. If coaches do a great job, principals will do great, school will do a great job, and the district will improve.
This quote related to the district’s strategy signals how they placed coaching in a liminal space, with coaches conducting district-level responsibilities while being based inside schools. It also signals the district’s objective for coaching to mediate district priorities so that principals and teachers consistently adopt reforms.
District administrators placed particular attention toward increasing the number of coaching cycles that coaches facilitated per year. As depicted in Figure 2 from a Fall 2015 coach professional development session, the coaching cycle involved a set of activities specifying how coaches would work with teachers to improve instruction and student outcomes. Lauren, as the Director of Professional Learning, repeatedly stated that the core purpose of coach PD was to support the implementation of coaching cycles to improve teacher and student-level outcomes:
Coaching cycle.
Deeply devoted to coaching cycles as a key element of school improvement coaching, Lauren engaged in consistent framing to district leaders, principals, and coaches related to why and how coaches should conduct cycles with teachers. She articulated that the “instructional coaching cycle will ground the work we do.” To help increase the intensity of messaging on coaching cycles, Lauren intentionally embedded the coaching cycle diagram into the PowerPoint presentation for each coach PD session. Thus, she emphasized the centrality of this specific coaching routine while engaging with various educators over time.
During this period, District D launched routines that enabled school improvement coaching. This included district leaders designing and facilitating monthly PD for coaches to develop their understanding of reform-oriented coaching. Further, district leaders facilitated professional learning opportunities for coaches on coaching routines and district reforms (e.g., teacher evaluation, early literacy instruction, DataWise data team meetings). These sessions addressed how coaches should carry out coaching cycles and facilitate data team meetings. As described above, most PD sessions were led by Lauren and reviewed steps of the coaching cycle in an attempt to shape coaches’ work routines and, ultimately, advance reform-oriented coaching. By engaging in activities to delineate the roles and responsibilities of coaching for school improvement, district leaders attempted to reduce ambiguity of Phase II coaching.
District and School Implementation of School Improvement Coaching
During Phase II, coaches tended to focus on leading teacher team meetings and whole-school professional development sessions. These team meetings addressed teacher evaluation, data analysis, and lesson planning. In particular, district leaders expected coaches to facilitate PD related to district initiatives. For example, district leaders assigned coaches to lead PD on the teacher evaluation system. Michael, the director of Talent Management, declared “Coaches should facilitate rubric PD because our rubric is about good teaching, and you’re in the classroom and can engage in conversations about rubric. This is making connections to the rubric.” This administrator’s view about coaching reveals the district was open to coaches facilitating professional learning opportunities for teachers about the evaluation rubric.
School improvement coaching also entailed coaches carrying out cycles and providing feedback aligned to the district’s teacher evaluation rubric. Michael expressed that: [The district rubric] is about effective teaching. We use it for feedback and professional learning. The bigger work is the quality of the feedback from the coach … Coaches should be giving feedback to teachers.
This highlights the expectation that coaches should provide feedback to teachers that matches the evaluation system and fosters teacher learning.
Several barriers remained, however, for conducting school improvement coaching. For instance, many principals did not frame coaches’ roles and responsibilities to teachers. As a result, coaches needed to repeatedly introduce themselves, justify their role, and explain their activities, including their approach to the coaching cycle. Additionally, teachers’ schedules lacked adequate time for meeting with coaches, especially to debrief observations. Based upon these issues, even in Spring 2018 and even after a series of coach PD sessions on the cycle, only a few sampled coaches regularly conducted coaching cycles with teachers.
Double Loop Learning for Curricular Coherence Coaching
Double loop learning, which was triggered by problems, opportunities, and people, entailed the district altering both the structures and conceptualizations of coaching. During Summer 2018, the policy instrument of coaching morphed to coaching for curricular coherence. District leaders leaned on the notion that centralized, unified coaching and curriculum could catalyze quality instruction. As articulated by the Director of Mathematics, District D sought “excellent instruction, every day, every student” and expected coaches to squarely focus on that objective. Further, district leaders emphasized the necessity of consistent, curriculum-aligned instruction across schools. These foci contributed to District D applying a new theory of action for coaching: if coaches are district curriculum leaders, they can promote changes aligned with curriculum to improve instruction and achievement. In sum, Phase III coaching took seriously the objective of fostering district improvement through curriculum-aligned coaching.
How Leaders Promoted Double Loop Learning
Double loop learning involved substantial changes in the structures, routines, and practices of coaching. There were structural changes in who held authority for coaching, with district curriculum leaders defining coaching, supervising coaches, and monitoring coaches’ work. District D centralized both coaching and curriculum. The restructuring during summer 2018 centralized coaching, so that the 25 coaches were based in central office. The restructuring enabled district leaders to be more proximal to coaches, with greater possibilities for coaching coaches and obtaining evidence on their work.
During 2018 to 2019, a new group of district leaders took responsibility for coaching. These leaders framed the goals of coaching and inquired about the nature of coaches’ work in superintendent cabinet meetings. In an interview with Mary, an Assistant Superintendent, she shared: This [coaching] is a high leverage district priority. Going through the budget process and fighting like hell—stressing that we need more [coaches]. We’re making a humongous investment to bring the best to our teachers.
In addition, while joining a January 2019 coach PD session, Mary expressed to coaches: We are centralizing instructional coaching as a high leverage practice to raise student achievement. At the end of the day, coaches report to me. I feel you on my shoulder. I value this strategy … I see coaching as the best strategy because we are leveraging assets that we have.
Through this statement, Mary not only articulated her own support for coaching but clarified the district’s purposeful use of coaching to raise achievement.
Antecedents of OL
As depicted by Figure 1, double loop learning was triggered by problems, opportunities, and people. The problems of budgetary constraints and declining student achievement pushed the transition to curriculum coaching. First, the district budget crisis triggered OL. In early-Spring 2018, district leaders posted a strategic plan that foregrounded budget problems and potential solutions to make budget cuts. This plan stated that district-based coaching, rather than school-based coaching, would result in cost-savings. Specifically, the document enumerated: The budget includes reallocation of the District Model for Excellence Year 1 restructuring savings, reductions in professional contracts and services, re-thinking use of district-wide staffing such as instructional coaches and other efficiencies.
Second, the superintendent’s restructuring of central office, including who held authority to supervise coaches, triggered OL for the shift to curriculum coaching. Specifically, after restructuring, content directors (e.g., Director of Literacy Instruction, Director of Mathematics), supervised by the Chief of Academics, held greater authority over issues of curriculum and instruction. As part of this, the superintendent gave control of coaching to the Academics Department. Stemming from these shifts, content directors became responsible for hiring and supervising coaches. District administrators also retooled systems and activities for hiring district-wide coaches. This included creating new, content-specific, district-level job postings in Spring 2018. Subsequently, content directors hired a set of curriculum coaches who were based in central office but were charged with supporting consistent curriculum adoption across schools.
Third, new mandates on curriculum triggered OL after district leaders detected a need to deploy coaching to promote curriculum implementation. By Fall 2018, District D mandated the implementation of a consistent curriculum across schools. The superintendent’s strategic plan described steps to promote improvement, including: “deliver a guaranteed and viable curriculum” and “require all schools implement a limited number of evidence-based instructional strategies.” Additionally, an administrator in the Academics Department declared District D was: Moving away from many curricula and can now look at one curriculum … what can we work towards together.
These perspectives on implementing a common curriculum shed light on district leaders’ attempts to promote the usage of a district-adopted curricular materials. Indeed, during Phase III, leaders in the Academics Department held responsibility for advancing the implementation of common curricula in addition to supervising a team of content-specific coaches. In sum, alterations to the structure of the central office as well as who worked in various positions contributed to transmitting new ideas on and orientations toward the intersection of coaching and curriculum adoption.
Phase III: Coaching for Curricular Coherence
In Phase III, coaching focused on promoting curriculum implementation. By Fall 2018, district leaders framed coaching as an instrument for coherence with the following theory of action: coaches will engage in curriculum-aligned coaching activities, so that teachers will learn more about the curriculum, teach in ways aligned with the curriculum, and then achievement levels will increase. An Assistant Superintendent, Mary, expressed that coaching could: “bring things together and make it aligned.” In this way, leaders conceptualized the role of coaching in crafting coherence among multiple initiatives (Honig & Hatch, 2004). And—with the goal of coaches developing teachers’ knowledge and skills on the curriculum and ensuring teachers follow District D’s pacing guide—district leaders prioritized curriculum-aligned coaching over other forms of coaching.
District Structures and Activities Promoting Curriculum Coaching
District leaders took steps to design the curricular coaching system. Specifically, after noticing distinctions between ELA and Math coaching, Mary stated it was crucial to have a unified stance towards the implementation of coaching across subjects. Further, Mary shared with coaches: “You have expertise in a given area, and we want it coherent when we go to teachers.” In this way, the Chief of Academics advanced the norm that a team of coaches should provide coherent support while working with teachers. In the context of a January 2019 coach PD session, Mary articulated: My ideal is that we’re working together … Go into a third grade classroom, and each of us brings supports to one teacher, so we can lift them and do that work. How do we make that experience a little tighter.
In this manner, district administrators encouraged coaches to support teachers in a unified way to promote improvement aligned with district programs and to ensure coaching is perceived as supportive and feasible for teachers.
To promote and implement Phase III coaching, district leaders refined systems for developing specialized content coaches. This included leaders creating professional learning for their content coaches that focused on the district curriculum and also supervising coaches with a particular focus on how coaches addressed the district’s instructional model. District leaders repeatedly declared that coaches should focus on curriculum-aligned activities. The district’s director of ELA stated in a literacy coach PD session: There’s other stuff swirling around … But our laser-like focus needs to be on [district] non-negotiables. You’ll be pulled away, asked to do Kinder math, but you need to say no and focus on guided reading, close reading, data teams as the three non-negotiables.
This administrator, therefore, was urging coaches to concentrate on the district’s instructional framework as opposed to being distracted by other issues inside schools. Analogous to the ELA director’s points on focusing on particular strands of instructional improvement, during a meeting with math coaches, the director of mathematics declared: Coaching involves relationships, transparency, data, and urgency because we need to change achievement … 18% math proficiency is unacceptable. As coaches, we need to care about and connect with teachers to change this [pattern of math achievement].
This administrator acknowledged pressing problems in District D’s student achievement while encouraging coaches to work closely with teachers on instructional issues.
Several district leaders urged the 25 district-based coaches to take their work seriously, most especially the work of crafting coherence on behalf of District D. During a math coach PD in January 2019, Mary reminded coaches to foster the coherent implementation of curricula: “Bring things together and make it aligned … You, coaches, are the frontline.” Here, we highlight how coaches, and their Phase III curricular coaching, were expected to serve as defenders of district priorities and programs.
District and School Implementation of Curriculum Coaching
By Fall 2018, District D’s structures for curricular coaching included weekly, content-specific professional learning community (PLC) sessions for coaches intended to strengthen coaching practices. The PLCs were planned and facilitated by content directors. For example, a session for math coaches in November 2018 addressed the nature of math intervention programs and reviewed strategies that coaches could use to encourage teachers to enact particular programs. In this case, coaches encountered ideas and information on the mandated curricular program as well as about techniques to foster teachers’ implementation of these programs. Coaches were expected to turnkey information and skills learned in their PLC into their work with teachers.
District content directors sought to raise coaches’ expertise on the district’s instructional programs and their leadership expertise for working with principals and teachers to improve curriculum implementation. As such, district leaders set up structures for curriculum-aligned coach PD, and they facilitated content-specific PD for their team of coaches. Consequently, ELA and Mathematics coaches encountered varied messages about the focus and format of their coaching. As examples, ELA coaches were encouraged to assist teachers with conducting formative assessments of students, while Mathematics coaches were encouraged to analyze school-data alongside principals.
During this phase, both ELA and Mathematics coaches engaged in in-classroom coaching, data analysis with principals to set school improvement goals, and curriculum-focused teacher team meetings. Specifically, the 2018 to 2019 Mathematics Coaching Framework specified: A Math Coach is an on-site professional developer who partners with educators to identify and assist with implementation of proven teaching methods. This may include helping within classrooms to support the planning and delivery of effective instruction through coaching cycle routines such as lesson modeling and co-teaching or designing and facilitating content learning teams to cultivate teacher collaboration and learning.
In line with the above definition of coaches’ role, district leaders delved into high leverage coaching routines during coach PD sessions, including the coaching cycle and other ways to support shifts in teachers’ math pedagogy. Thus, district leaders returned to prior ideas about the coaching cycle from Phase II. For instance, in November 2018, the director of mathematics reminded coaches that “for the coaching cycle, we’re using Math Solutions.” This particular variety of coaching cycle included the steps of: analyzing student data, setting student learning targets, providing professional learning opportunities to teachers on instructional strategies, teachers applying their learning, and the coach and teacher reviewing progress together.
Discussion and Implications
Our analyses of coaching in District D reveal how the policy instrument evolved from primarily addressing teacher support, to school improvement, and then district-controlled curricular coaching. Over a 5-year period, district leaders played active roles in shifting the systems for and practices of coaching. Crucially, rather than engaging in faddish efforts which adopt, attack, and then abandon particular reforms (Cuban, 1990; Rohanna, 2017), district leaders maintained a persistent focus on coaching. We posit leaders’ long-lasting attention to coaching enabled organizational learning. This ethnomethodological study of coaching contributes to the literature on capacity building policy instruments and offers insights on how district leaders propel educational change.
First, although the district reform literature has attended to several components of district learning and change (Honig, 2008; Marsh et al., 2021), it has not tackled how districts improve capacity building instruments. Our depiction of changes in the conceptualizations, structures, and framing of coaching demonstrates how district leaders changed coaching as a reform lever to foster improvement matching local, current conditions. In particular, as district leaders encountered shocks and initiated other improvement efforts, they adapted structures (e.g., policies, mandates, resources) of coaching. Further, district leaders served as entrepreneurs, brokering ideas that motivated particular changes to coaching. Notably, these leaders carved out space for other educators to collectively learn about specific shifts to the coaching model (Rohanna, 2017). Across these results, we emphasize District D, as an organization, learned about—and made multiple changes to—the instrument of coaching. These adaptations were contextualized and took time, attention, and resources.
Second, while scholars have begun targeting how structural features of coaching influence its implementation (e.g., Kane & Rosenquist, 2019; Woulfin, 2020), this study contributes by demonstrating the organizational conditions and leadership activities shaping a district’s approach to coaching. Specifically, we uncovered how district leaders altered multiple aspects of coaching. The results illustrate how district leaders’ structuring and framing of coaching evolved to match conditions and fulfill needs. District leaders, therefore, tailored coaching to “fix” specific organizational problems. It will be important to examine how district leaders adapt other policy instruments after encountering shocks and/or detecting problems.
This article’s portrayal of district leaders’ repeated adaptations to coaching indicates how the structures, routines, and conceptions of coaching are malleable. It appears that, as District D learned about coaching, district leaders sought to shift elements of their coaching model. Additionally, the results on district leaders’ framing of coaching expand our understanding of how leaders define and promote a capacity building policy instrument. Notably, district leaders reframed coaching to provide guidance and motivate change on a capacity building instrument (Coburn, 2006; Elfers & Stritikus, 2014). Here, we point to the ways various district leaders, including multiple department directors and members of the superintendent’s cabinet, framed coaching in different ways and in different venues.
The results also show that, while transitioning from one phase to another, district leaders deinstitutionalized and then reinstitutionalized models, and associated features, of coaching. More concretely, leaders worked to deepen the enactment of some aspects of coaching (e.g., the coaching cycle routine), but they also worked to dislodge—or stop—other aspects of coaching (e.g., coaches conducting extraneous activities including bus duty).
Here, we underscore that, when encountering waves of reform, it can be beneficial for educators to discontinue certain aspects of reform. Based on these findings, future research should investigate the affordances and challenges of leaders repeatedly modifying policy instruments. For instance, how does tinkering with reform levers open windows for change, and to what degree do such shifts contribute to misconceptions?
Turning to OL, the results showcase how organizational conditions and leaders’ activities play roles in changing policy instruments. It is evident that resources, ranging from time to funding for new curricula, enabled sampled district leaders to engage in OL related to coaching and, in turn, create different forms of coaching. In particular, time functions as a crucial resource so that district leaders can engage in framing on modifications to reform levers (e.g., coaching) with other leaders, coaches, and teachers (Rohanna, 2017; Woulfin & Spitzer, 2023). We also illuminated how district leaders play agentic roles in OL (Farrell et al., 2021). Specifically, district leaders conducted purposeful, strategic work to modify coaching over various periods. Future research should consider district OL on other policy instruments, including the depth to which districts change mandates and capacity-building efforts related to discipline policy, tutoring programs, and new curricula. These studies should collect and analyze multiple forms of evidence over a multi-year period to not only assess these reform levers but to determine factors shaping the evolution of policy instruments.
We conclude by sharing that these results on the evolution of coaching can inform the work of practitioners. First, it is necessary for district and school leaders to remain cognizant of alterations to policy instruments, and then develop other educators’ understanding of such changes. Leaders’ precise attention to instruments—as well as to teaching others about these instruments—enables collective sensemaking about reform (Coburn, 2001; Spillane et al., 2002). As such, district and school leaders should clearly explain the current definitions, goals, and guidelines of instruments to help form common understandings across varied constituents. And, if an instrument is revised, leaders should provide learning opportunities so that actors can make sense of the new version of the instrument.
Second, leadership preparation programs and district leaders should improve learning opportunities so that leaders are better prepared to trigger double loop learning that modifies policy instruments in deeper ways. First, leadership preparation programs should devote greater attention in coursework and field experiences toward how leaders manage uncertainty and steer change. Second, district leaders should ensure leadership coaches help develop the capacity of district leaders and principals to modify and frame and instruments to reach strategic goals. These types of leadership development experiences could better prepare district and school leaders to refine levers, such as coaching, to improve working conditions and professional learning opportunities for educators and, ultimately, learning opportunities for students.
Conclusion
We used an ethnomethodological approach to investigate the evolution of coaching as a reform instrument in a mid-sized urban emergent district over a 5-year period. This article portrays how district leaders structured and enabled coaching as well as how factors triggered District D’s organizational learning about coaching. We demonstrate the degree to which coaching, as a policy instrument, was shaped by district leaders’ conceptualizations, priorities, and practices. We also illustrate the multifaceted, malleable nature of coaching, as leaders can wield this instrument in different ways to tackle different problems at different times. Together, results from this study expand the field’s understanding of how districts learn to structure and enable coaching and, in turn, improve as complex organizations.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Supported by funding from the Spencer Foundation, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Connecticut-Neag School of Education.
