implementation – Alan C. Jones

“The Lost Art of Implementation”

October 6, 2025 by Alan Jones

Over the last decade, schools have been inundated with reform initiatives, each introduced as a solution to the challenges revealed by national and international assessments. These scores consistently show stagnant or declining student achievement, prompting wave after wave of new programs and policies. Schools typically comply with these yearly initiatives through a managerial version of “implementation,” which usually consists of the following moves:

Move #1: Assign the initiative to a subordinate

Move #2: Distribute the required materials

Move #3: Schedule orientation workshops

Move #4: Establish timelines for turning in required accountability documents

Move #5: Compile data from accountability documents

Move #6: Prepare report on initiative outcomes

While this managerial version of “implementation” checks the boxes of compliance, it has little to no impact on classroom practice or the deeper culture of the school. Regardless of the initiative’s merits, lasting change in classroom practice and school culture demands systemic—not compliance-driven—implementation. Systemically driven implementation consists of the following moves:

Move #1: VISION

Administrators bring teachers together in various meeting formats to present a clear image of success. That image may reference key data points, but it also entails what teachers and students should be doing in the classroom. This vision can be reinforced through different forms of media that model the classroom practices promoted by the initiative. Most importantly, these gatherings allow administrators and teachers to surface diverse perspectives and work toward consensus on the initiative.

Move #2: STRATEGY

Too often, school change initiatives lapse into fragmentation, superficiality, and burnout. To prevent “reform fatigue” administrators develop a strategy consisting of four parts: a) a plan that takes into account the uniqueness of the schools and clear understanding of the dimensions of the change; b) the ability on the part of administrators to act adaptively both in overcoming obstacles and in staying the course on reform goals; c) the willingness on the part of administrators to negotiate changes in approach in light of new understandings of conflicting points of view; d) the skill on the part of administrators to take advantage of unexpected recourse and assistance; and e) the experience on the part of administrators to make formative adjustments, based on assessing whether the overall system is progressing, stalling, or degenerating.

Move #3: STRUCTURE

Most reform initiatives falter because schools fail to align their organizational system to fully operationalize the reform’s vision and strategy. Every reform initiative demands adjustments to core instructional systems—curriculum, professional development, technology, and scheduling—to absorb unfamiliar ideas and practices.

Move #4: RESOURCES

What is often overlooked in adopting a reform initiative is the assumption that schools already have the material and personnel resources needed to carry it out. More often than not, midway through the adoption process, a critical resource is missing, leading to modifications that David Cohen terms “lethal mutations” of reform theories, concepts, and practices.

I am certain that administrators reading this blog would nod in recognition at the implementation moves described above. Yet the question remains: remains: Why do most schools fail to fully implement mandated initiatives? Entire libraries could be filled with explanations for reform failure. I would reduce them to a single cause: most school administrators approach systemic reform with a managerial rather than an educational mindset.

I have devoted numerous blogs to the distinction between a managerial and educational mindset. Suffice to say in this blog, that a managerial mindset views the adoption of a reform initiative as a problem of mechanics—the what and how of implementation. An educational mindset views the adoption of a reform initiative as a problem of culture—the why of implementation. The systemic-driven reform moves described above design a process—vision–>strategy–>structure–>resources—that draws a teacher into activity structures that embed the “why” of the initiative into what and how of implementation. Although reform initiatives may initiate some changes in teaching practice, comprehensive adoption of new theories and methods necessitates substantial guidance and support, particularly through an emphasis on the underlying rationale for implementation.

REFERENCES

Cohen, D. K. (1990). A Revolution in One Classroom: The Case of Mrs. Oublier. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 12(3), 327–345.

Confrey, J., Castro-Filho, J., & Wilhelm, J. (2000). Implementation Research as a Means to Link Systemic Reform and Applied Psychology in Mathematics Education. Educational Psychologist, 35(3), 179–191.

The House of Cards of School Reform Failure

November 9, 2024 by Alan Jones

In my four decades working in different positions in schools I have experienced several national and state school reform initiatives designed to improve student achievement. As a participant in these waves of school reform, what I observed firsthand mirrors the findings of several research studies of the two most recent national reform initiatives: the standards movement of the 1980s and the accountability-based reform of the 2000s. The research concluded the following:

The rise in student achievement was meager.
Teachers adopted surface-level features of the reform initiative (materials, student group arrangements), but did not make fundamental changes in how they taught.
Overall the changes in instructional practice were piecemeal and superficial.
School leaders, for the most part, were satisfied with these same superficial changes.

My involvement in both small and large efforts to change teaching practices all ended with the same dismal outcomes documented in the research. At times, those of us in school offices played the standard managerial blame game—poor parenting, recalcitrant teachers, lack of resources—to explain, what became for me, the grammar of school reform failure. From my perspective, I assumed that our administrative team had drawn up the perfect plan to fully implement the goals and practices of the reform initiative. The failure of these reform initiatives to take hold in the classroom must be due to forces outside the control of my colleagues and myself.

Later in my career, when I was consulting with school districts struggling to implement a reform initiative, I was able to assume a third-party person’s objective view of the implementation process. At first, I noted some missing components to the plan: poorly designed staff development; lack of a defined curriculum process; confusion over the goals and practices of the reform initiative. I noted these particular shortcomings, but, these deficiencies were just that—particular shortcomings.

What pulled these particular shortcomings together was a private sector framework developed by James Clear. He titled the framework: The 3 Stages of Failure.” Below is a brief summary of each stage of failure:

Stage 1 is a Failure of Tactics (HOW Mistakes): Failure to fully develop systems supporting the initiative or failure to pay attention to the details of implementation. You had a good plan and a clear vision, but, as the saying goes: “the devil is in the details.”

Stage 2 is a Failure of Strategy (WHAT Mistakes): The agreed-upon strategy fails to deliver the results expected, your team is clear about why you adopted the initiative and how to implement the initiative, but chose the wrong WHAT to make it happen.

Stage 3 is a Failure of Vision (WHY Mistakes): Your organization does not set a clear direction for yourself, a direction that is not meaningful to you or fails to provide an understanding of why you do things you do.

Clear’s framework brought to light the fundamental shortcomings of main office plans for implementing a new organization or instructional change. During the summer, when these plans are developed, school administrators follow the tired and true managerial components of running a school well. In their careers, school administrators become adept at aligning the certainties of management—budgets, personnel, timelines, logistics, workflows, and scheduling—with institutional goals—efficiency, stability, standardization, and accountability. Where all three stages of failure creep into main offices are initiatives that ask school administrators to implement initiatives that require working with the uncertainties of teacher backgrounds and dispositions; the uncertainties of theory-based pedagogies; the uncertainties of goals; and the uncertainties of administrative commitment.

In the summary below, I will place the shortfalls in the implementation of the district I worked with into Clear’s three stages of failure framework:

Stage 1: Failure of Tactics: The instructional systems required to support the reform initiatives required to support the initiative —professional development, curriculum materials, expertise, release time, space, scheduling—were nonexistent, poorly resourced, or unevenly delivered.

Stage 2: Failure of Strategy: The managerial norms for rolling out a new instructional initiative—announcement, distribution of materials, scheduled workshops, documentation of benchmarks, assessment schedules, and instruments—were poorly aligned with the depth and breadth of training and organizational changes required to implement the substance of the reform initiatives.

Stage 3: Failure of Vision: The reform initiatives were poorly aligned with mission-driven goals and values and were often in conflict with the goals and values of recently adopted initiatives.

The other realization I took away from Clear’s framework was the implementation of the goals, values, and practices of new approaches to teaching and learning required a commitment from administrative offices that all THREE stages of implementation—tactics, strategy, and vision—be in perfect alignment. In looking back on my efforts at fully implementing new approaches to teaching and learning, I had to honestly admit to myself, that one or more of these stages was not fully developed or fully aligned with the other stages. The time and resource pressures from outside governing agencies and central offices to implement a mandated change initiative too often result in cutting corners or one more of Clear’s stages, Like a house of cards, pulling one of Clear’s cards (stages) out of the implementation deck, results in the collapse of the goals, values, and practices of a school reform initiative.

“The Reflective Practitioner”

June 3, 2024 by Alan Jones

Part 1:

Reflection in Action: Doing Things Right

A required reading in most administrative certification programs is Donald Schön’s

book, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. In the book, Schon describes how professionals really go about solving problems. Schön contends that most challenges professionals face at work rely less on various heuristics learned in schools and more on the kind of improvisation learned in practice—what Schön terms, “reflection in action.” Along with the listening, observing, and adjusting that professionals perform in the reflective process, at some juncture professionals will step back and “reflect on action.” When in action professionals are focused on “doing things right.” When stepping back from the action professionals are focused on “doing the right things.”

School administrators are most comfortable with the first administrative move in Schon’s reflective model—reflection in action. Their training, along with the managerial tools in their offices, are designed to implement—getting stuff done. The table below outlines the steps and functions for doing things right. The distinction Schön will draw between doing things right and doing the right things is the pure act of reflection. In the implementation stage, reflection is embedded in the feedback function. Every task in the implementation function provides immediate feedback—budget overruns, lack of personnel, lack of time—which require immediate attention. All administrators good at their jobs will acquire the knowledge and skills to make the necessary adjustments to make certain that all tasks in the implementation function are carried out. In the next two blogs, I will describe what Schön means by reflection on action which is rarely practiced in main offices.

TO IMPLEMENT
*Doing things right*
STUDY	Observe Research Theorize Select
PLAN	Goals— Objectives Assessment Organize Train
DO	Train Schedule Allocate Monitor Measure Adjust
INSTITUTE	Budget Personnel Material Location Supervise Assess Document