Principals’ sense-making of resource allocation within a national reform implementation

Introduction

Coping with rapid extensive changes in the complicated educational system, school principals must lead their students to better performance (Coburn et al., 2016; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, [OECD], 2016b; Tran et al., 2018). In this context, schools worldwide move towards a combination of increased autonomy alongside rigorous accountability during a national reform implementation (Cheng et al., 2016; Neeleman, 2019). This contradicting trend aiming towards achieving high levels of pedagogical outcomes through school autonomy and intensified accountability requires principals to question their common practices (Pietarinen et al., 2017).

Challenging existing pedagogical practices (e.g., introducing new teaching methods), school principals make sense of receiving autonomy to decide how to exploit the allocated reform resources on the one hand (Shirley, 2016), as well as meeting accountability pressures and standardization regulations of policymakers, district authorities, local council, and parents on the other hand (Saltrick, 2010; Weick, 2009). Attaching a new meaning to their school practices while understanding and enacting reform mandates, principals go through a sense-making process. Through the process of sense-making, school leaders draw upon their own histories, experiences, prior knowledge, beliefs, and the context in which they are working to construct a meaning out of the new information they face and the autonomy to allocate resources they received (Coburn, 2016; Spillane and Anderson, 2014).

Schools are provided with more autonomy in an effort to make resource allocation decision-making more responsive to the needs of individual school populations. Nevertheless, research makes very clear that policies to enhance school autonomy do not necessarily lead to autonomy in practice (e.g., Agasisti et al., 2013). Viewed from a sense-making lens, school principals as autonomous actors play a central role in allocating resources to implement pedagogical changes. Put differently, implementing national reform initiatives necessarily entails the translation of new ideas into school pedagogical practices, which produces complex sense-making processes regarding the allocation of external resources. In this regard, school principals experience some problems while implementing the national reform. For example, they rely on previously constructed cognitive frames which are largely grounded in their past experiences with large-scale reforms and find it difficult to integrate accountability focus with a new pedagogy approach. This challenge calls for a much needed analysis of principals’ internal processes as they adapt reform demands to local conditions (Brezicha et al., 2015; Koyama, 2014).

Aims and objectives

In order to understand why reform demands are implemented differently in local contexts, this study explores the internal processes by which principals view and enact resource allocation within a national reform that is based on a top-down authoritarian relationship between policymakers and schools. In this paper, resource allocation refers to a form of individual hours (e.g., teaching in small groups of students) during the implementation of a national reform. The research question guiding the study is as follows: from a sense-making framework, what are the considerations that guide high school principals of resource allocation in the form of individual hours during the implementation of a national pedagogical reform? Such research may contribute to both the theory and the practice of school leadership in times of pedagogical reforms (Derrington and Campbell, 2015) and point to conceptual and practical implications as well as future research avenues.

According to the Gini coefficient for measuring a nation’s distributive inequality, Israel is among the countries with the broadest gap between rich and poor, alongside the USA, the UK, and Mexico (OECD, 2016a). Mindful of the great diversity among school populations, recent education policy in Israel has been directed towards achieving high levels of equality in education outcomes across the board, aiming to narrow the achievement gap upward through growing performance pressure. In practice, however, the Israeli student achievement distribution is characterized by a low level of achievement combined with a growing achievement gap, as evidenced in various international comparative examination studies (BenDavid-Hadar, 2016). This evolving educational context—with national Ministry policies focusing on narrowing students’ achievement gap—provides a unique opportunity to explore our research question.

Theoretical framework

Research context

The Israel Ministry of Education controls the writing and distribution of curricular materials, standards, testing, and teachers’ hiring and firing. While all schools follow a basic national curriculum, they do have freedom to specialize (e.g., in arts, environmental studies, or other subjects) in accordance with Ministry guidelines (Nir et al., 2016). In this regard, flexible urban registration has been coupled with attempts to decentralize the school system, such as school-based management and school autonomy. Despite the Ministry’s declared school autonomy policy, principals and faculty members still hesitate to act autonomously because these regulations are not perceived as relinquishing control. That said, school autonomy and incentives can help school principals cope with resources, based on their beliefs and experience regarding their ability to allocate resources efficiently (DeAngelis and Barnard, 2020).

This study focuses on the Courage to Change national reform which was initiated in the 2011–2012 school year and implemented in high schools (A General Collective Agreement No. 7040/11). Although the reform was signed in 2012, its gradual implementation lasted for 5 years. Even today, there is a lack of work-environment resources to support reform implementation (State Comptroller and Ombudsman of Israel, 2018). Courage to Change encompasses many aspects of school life, including pedagogical and managerial aspects as well as teachers’ employment conditions. Specifically, the reform calls for a reorganization of teachers’ educational-pedagogical work, to provide for classroom teaching and individual hours. The individual hours, added as part of the Courage to Change reform and intended mainly for working with groups of up to five students, allow learning to be individually adapted to the needs of small groups. The individual hours serve to broaden and deepen learning, adapt learning to the needs of diverse students, as well as deepen meaningful teacher–student discourse (State Comptroller and Ombudsman of Israel, 2015). This additional allocation of resources is seen by the teachers as helping to improve students’ achievements and advancing their social and emotional state (Glickman et al., 2011). The Courage to Change, based on a top-down authoritarian relationship between policymakers and schools, included detailed instructions regarding how to perform individual hours. However, school principals were allowed to demonstrate autonomy regarding the specific content of these hours based on the allocated resources provided by the Ministry.

The public education system in Israel receives most of the state budget, transmitted in the form of teaching hours. Most of the budget is based on government sources (Tamir and Arar, 2019). The unique nature of this reform involved an alteration in the weekly work structure of the teacher so that the teachers would work until 16:00 instead of until 13:00. The additional time would be devoted to the personal work of the teachers and also to meetings and discussions. As part of the reform discussed in this study, six weekly hours were added to the posts of each full-time teacher for work with small groups of students (A General Collective Agreement No. 7040/11). This was an unprecedented allocation in Israel’s education system. It constituted an addition of approximately 25% in the work hours of a high school teacher, and on average an addition of approximately 500 teaching hours per school.

Accordingly, principals and teachers reported feeling overstressed, constantly juggling irreconcilable priorities and personal values and motives under high workloads (Berkovich, 2017). The workload under the Courage to Change reform has worsened with implementation of the policy, for example, with the extension of the school day, mainly by adding teaching hours for small-group tutoring. Veteran teachers opposed to the reform claimed that their work conditions have been worsened by increasing their work-load, which, in effect, reduced their hourly wage. They also claimed the government’s desire to extend the teachers’ workday was part of a long-term plan to lay off teachers and cutback the total number of teaching personnel. In addition, teachers argued that the reform did not address the major problems of the Israeli educational system, such as overcrowded classrooms and the previous years’ cumulative cuts in total teaching hours (Berkovich, 2011).

Research design

In light of the theoretical framework described above, this study has explored high school principals’ perceptions and enactments of resource allocation in the form of individual hours during the implementation of a national pedagogical reform. To this end, this qualitative phenomenological study aims to describe a “lived experience” of a phenomenon, focusing on the interactions among the meanings that principals attach to their considerations regarding resource allocation involved in the implementation of the reform (Larsson and Holmstrm, 2007).

Findings

The data analysis yielded three considerations: (a) promoting students’ learning achievements towards matriculation exams; (b) deepening student-teacher relations; and (c) developing a new pedagogy. Although school principals’ considerations are distinct, they are closely interrelated in the context of implementing a national reform.

Discussion

The sense-making theory underpinning this study explains principals’ perceptions and enactments of allocation of individual hours within a national reform implementation. Our qualitative analysis of principals’ interviews indicates that participating principals perceived and enacted individual hours relating to three interconnected considerations. The first consideration was promoting students’ learning achievements towards matriculation exams: principals made sense of individual hours for learning reinforcement towards Matriculation exams. The second consideration was deepening student-teacher relations: principals made sense of extra reform hours to build strong teacher-student relationship while focusing on social and emotional aspects. The third consideration was developing a new pedagogy: principals made sense of individual hours while integrating accountability focus with a new pedagogical approach. Our findings showed that out of the 22 interviewed principals, the responses of only 18 were accounted for the derivation of the themes. Accordingly, several principals’ perceptions and enactments overlapped and could be sorted into more than one consideration. In this regard, the first consideration, promoting students’ learning achievements towards matriculation exams, has shared underlying meanings with the second consideration, in the context of utilizing individual hours to build strong teacher-student relationship in order to improve students’ learning. In a similar fashion, specific examples from the second consideration, such as how school principals developed collaborative and student-centered instruction and shaped a positive school climate, have shared underlying meanings with the third consideration in the context of attractive strategies that produce effective exploitation of resources. Although all three considerations are interrelated in the context of implementing a national reform, it is important to understand the unique focus of each one of them separately.

Focusing their attention on standardized Matriculation exams and students’ achievements, principals preserved traditional practices while staying within their comfort zone. Schools often refashion new resources to support existing ways of working or simply reject them (Peurach et al., 2019). Employing passive means of engagement while rhetorically paying lip service to policy demands as passive sense-makers, school principals enacted individual hours while aiming at improving their students’ achievements towards Matriculation exams. Principals made sense of reform guidelines based on personal factors, such as experience with previous large-scale reforms (e.g., lack of time, gradual implementation, and professional resource), prior knowledge, beliefs, and the context within which they operated (Coburn et al., 2016). Encountering difficulties in implementing individual hours, principals’ sense-making was anchored in prior reform initiatives. The current reform included detailed instructions regarding how to perform individual hours, however school principals were allowed to demonstrate autonomy regarding the specific content of these hours (A General Collective Agreement No. 7040/11). Instead of making sense of the national reform through their professional identity as change agents, these principals expressed a feeling that they had not been granted autonomy to decide how to implement the reform and thus relied on their previously constructed cognitive frames, which were largely grounded in past experiences with large-scale reforms. Accordingly, how and why school principals perceive and enact resource allocation depends to a great extent on the experiences, prior knowledge, beliefs, and the context within which they work. Hence, sense-making is concerned with more than simply interpreting an idea or concept, or, in our case, individual hours’ guidelines. This process is concerned with how principals author their perception of a particular policy or mandate as well as enact it in practice (Coburn, 2016).

Principals’ sense-making of resource allocation was anchored in the problematic nature of the reform (e.g., encouraging the attainment of 21st century innovative teaching methods while at the same time stressing high-stakes testing). Making sense of extra reform hours around schools’ success in terms of proportions of students eligible for a high school completion certificate, principals were not engaged with reform messages on their pedagogical level (Berkovich, 2011). Deviated from the technical details, individual hours’ guidelines, principals performed extra hours with more than five students. Yet, principals preserved traditional pedagogical practices while staying loyal to national standards (Beck et al., 2002).

Adhering to reform dictates, principals made sense of individual hours while deepening teacher-students relations. Though focusing on collaborative and student-centered instruction (e.g., performing collaborative lessons through Project-Based Learning) as well as on shaping a positive school climate, principals’ consideration to build supportive teacher-student relationships was based on social and emotional aspects in order to enhance students’ achievement growth (Machin et al., 2010). Bringing teachers towards the reform, principals in this study reduced teachers’ uncertainty while providing expertise and knowledge (e.g., hiring personal tutors from a private body).

As active sense-makers and autonomous local policymakers, school principals made sense of individual hours while initiating a pedagogical change. Encouraging their teachers to question traditional teaching practices, principals decided to collaborate and embrace a pedagogical change within their schools. For example, translating individual hours into a center for emotional and pedagogical support, a center for students with learning disabilities, and the development of a new pedagogical discipline, principals leveraged extra reform hours as an opportunity for school change processes. Establishing a positive school culture based on principals’ faith in teachers’ abilities, was considered as a desirable condition for successful exploitation of resources (Berebitsky and Salloum, 2017).

Limitations and future research

This study provides new data regarding school principals’ perceptions and enactments of resource allocation within a sense-making framework while implementing a national reform. Having said that, this study is subject to several limitations. First, the participants and their considerations relate to a specific educational context. Hence, in order to enable generalization of the findings and substantiate their international validity, we recommend conducting similar studies in various socio-cultural contexts elsewhere as well. In other words, it is important to understand how sense-making takes place in different school contexts, as sense-making is not a one-size-fit-all doctrine that provides a yes or no answer for a rainbow of scenarios. Second, the interviews with the principals took place in the second academic year of reform implementation. Longitudinal research is needed to examine whether and how, while making sense of resource allocation, principals change their considerations in time, from the early reform phase through to the implementation stage, since sense-making is a continuous and ongoing process (Maitlis and Christianson, 2014). Third, we used maximal differentiation sampling (Creswell, 2014) to capture a wide range of perspectives and gain greater insight into principals’ sense-making processes. However, in this study we could not differentiate between each principal’s consideration and the school context from which it emanated. Therefore, it would be advisable to explore the interconnections between principals’ considerations and factors such as gender, seniority, school size, and districts. Moreover, our research has not focused closely on principals’ own histories. Future research could explore how their histories might shape school principals’ consideration while navigating their schools through an external allocation of national resources. Finally, the sense-making process in this study was limited to principals’ perceptions only. This structure does not explain the more expansive usage of sense-making as a group-based and network-focused framework. Thus, a co-developmental, sense-making process requires exploring superintendents’, policymakers’, and school-teachers’ perceptions of resource allocation as well. In this sense, it is important to explore the congruence between the principal’s discretion regarding resource allocation and the sense-making process of the school administration team.

This research holds both theoretical and practical contribution. Theoretically, this study addresses the intersection of three areas that have received little academic attention to date. First, pedagogical reforms are moving towards a combination of increased school autonomy and intensified accountability (Rigby et al., 2016). Yet, little is known about the considerations that guide school leaders while allocating resources within this particular context that relates autonomy and accountability. In this regard, our study can serve as a conceptual and practical anchor for schools that are required to implement similar allocations of resources in different countries. Second, how schools, particularly school principals, use their autonomy for pedagogical innovation deserves empirical scrutiny (Agasisti et al., 2013). Third, sense-making as a conceptual framework may potentially enable an in-depth understanding of school principals’ internal processes in translating new ideas into pedagogical practices while being both autonomous and accountable (Brezicha et al., 2015).

Practically, this qualitative phenomenological study, which explored principals’ perceptions and enactments of resource allocation in diverse school contexts during the implementation of a national reform, may provide important information to policymakers regarding future design of pedagogical reforms that balance the tension between accountability and school autonomy (Shirley, 2016). Promoting a better understanding that encourages an effective balance between accountability requirements and pedagogical autonomy, allows school leaders more degrees of freedom to decide on how to shape longer term teaching and learning initiatives. This will nurture a safe environment for school leaders in which they can better make sense of reform demands as well as use the resources allotted to them efficiently to maximize student performance.

In sum, sense-making processes can assist the educational staff and school leaders in implementing allocations of resources while balancing between autonomy and accountability, thus promoting new pedagogical practices. There have been significant changes since the National Reform Implementation was introduced, nevertheless school leaders are still grappling with accountability-autonomy balance and hesitate to act autonomously (Eisnberg and Selivansky Eden, 2019). Therefore, this article proposes both relevant and practical data to principals facing the fundamental challenge of reform implementation today. A closer examination of leaders’ sense-making processes may lead towards deeper understanding regarding using autonomy to meet diverse students’ needs in general and improving teaching and learning in particular.