Coby Meyers
University of Virginia
Coby Meyers is the Chief of Research of the Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education (PLE) and Associate Professor of Education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Dr. Meyers' research focuses on understanding the role of school system leadership, especially in the context of school turnaround. Meyers has also played integral roles in various school turnaround initiatives, an area in which he has presented and published, including co-authoring the book Turning Around Failing Schools: Leadership Lessons from the Organizational Sciences and multiple journal articles. Prior to joining the PLE in 2015, Dr. Meyers was a senior researcher at American Institutes for Research (AIR), where he led beating-the-odds work for REL Midwest and REL Northeast and Islands that focused on identifying schools achieving at higher levels than expected and analyzing organizational factors that might be related to those achievement levels. He was also co-PI of the $2.5 million randomized controlled trial evaluation of the i3 eMINTS Validation Study and is a certified What Works Clearinghouse reviewer. After working as a middle and high school English language arts teacher, Meyers earned his doctoral degree in education leadership, policy, and organizations from Vanderbilt University.
Only a handful of research studies have explored whether school improvement plan (SIP) quality aids low-performing schools in creating the conditions necessary to turn themselves around (e.g., Huber & Conway, 2015). Several scholars conclude that SIPs in low-performing schools are of low quality, too abstract, excessively long, and seldom viewed as living documents (e.g., Duke, Carr, & Sterrett, 2013). Moreover, others suggest that SIP authors engage in “satisficing” (Simon, 1957)—that is, they create the SIP because the policy requires it, not because they view the SIP process as a meaningful and effective way to improve organizational performance (e.g., Mintrop, MacLellan, & Quintero, 2001). One recent study (Strunk et al., 2016) indicates that overall plan quality is weak, and that quality decreases as phases of school improvement transpire. This suggests that the substance of plans needs attention if they are to embody their potential utility as road maps for transformation. Our research extends this while focusing on shorter cycle planning procedures.
Specifically, we will address the following research questions:
- What do high-quality SIPs include?
- How do high-quality SIPs differ from low-quality SIPs?
- In what ways do SIPs improve over time?
Investigating these questions is a critical step to understand how school principals—typically new to their position—leading turnaround initiatives establish clear ways forward for schools that have consistently lacked quality planning. Moreover, this work underscores what comprises good SIPs by juxtaposing them with weaker ones and demonstrates how principals can improve the quality of their SIPs over time.
The principals in this study participate in a university-based school turnaround program that consists of nearly three years of integrated activity that prepares principals and district leaders to practice turnaround leadership. Principals develop 90-day improvement plans for multiple semesters. Our sample includes 210 school principals in four recently completed cohorts, yielding over 400 plans (ranging between one to three plans per principal).
We systematically reviewed previous SIP research to establish a comprehensive rubric to evaluate plan quality across 12 domains, including priorities, context, root cause analysis, progress indicators, and others. With it, we have scored all SIPs to determine quality. In this study, we leverage our SIP ratings to qualitatively analyze (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2014) a subsample of the highest- and lowest-scored plans to illustrate differences and change over time. Study results contribute to a growing knowledge base about how to plan effectively for school improvement.
