Networked Improvement in the US and England: A New Role for the Middle Tier

Glazer, Joshua L.; Greany, Toby; Duff, Megan; Berry, William

Abstract

As education systems across the globe confront increasingly lofty demands for rigor and equity, there is a growing need to investigate the ways in which practice-based knowledge is generated, shared, and used by teachers and school leaders across diverse contexts. This chapter seeks to advance that agenda by focusing on what we refer to as “middle-tier” organizations (MTOs), such as district central offices, local authorities, charter management organizations (CMOs), and other school support organizations that play a critical role in large-scale school improvement efforts. Informed by neo-institutional and learning organisation theories, we suggest that the ability of MTOs to operate as learning organizations is dependent on a combination of environmental forces and internal organizational capabilities. We apply these ideas to three case studies of middle-tier organizations, two in the US and one in the UK. Our aim is to explore how these MTOs develop and enact systems for creating, sharing, and using knowledge within and between schools, and the way in which their meso- and macro-level environments facilitate and complicate this work. We conclude by reflecting on the implications for intra and inter-organisational learning across increasingly complex, local school systems.

Citation

Glazer, J. L., Greany, T., Duff, M., & Berry, W. (2022). Networked Improvement in the US and England: A New Role for the Middle Tier. In D. J. Peurach, J. Lin Russell, L. Cohen-Vogel, & W. Penuel (Eds.), The Foundational Handbook on Improvement Research in Education (165-187). Rowman & Littlefield

• Acceptance Date: Dec 10, 2021
• Publication Date: 2022-04
• Deposit Date: Sep 21, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 1, 2023
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Pages: 165-187
• Book Title: The Foundational Handbook on Improvement Research in Education
• Chapter Number: 8
• ISBN: 9781538152348
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6294156
• Related Public URLs: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538152348/The-Foundational-Handbook-on-Improvement-Research-in-Education
• Additional Information: Reproduced by permission of Rowman & Littlefield : https://rowman.com/