Teacher Empowerment and the Capacity for Organizational Learning

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Educational Administration Quarterly

DOI: 10.1177/0013161X99355003 1999; 35; 707 Educational Administration Quarterly

Helen M. Marks and Karen Seashore Louis Teacher Empowerment and the Capacity for Organizational Learning

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Educational Administration Quarterly

Marks, Louis / TEACHER EMPOWERMENT

Teacher Empowerment andthe Capacity for Organizational Learning

Helen M. MarksKaren Seashore Louis

Teacher empowerment has been the subject of considerable educational research inrecent years, but the capacity of schools for organizational learning has received limitedempirical attention. This study links these two research streams and identifies thosedimensions of the capacity for organizational learning that are also the themes of schoolrestructuring. Data for the study come from 24 site-managed public schools engaged insignificant restructuring activities, 8 at each of three grade levels (elementary, middle,and high). Multilevel analyses demonstrate a strong and consistent relationship betweenorganizational learning and teacher empowerment, measured both as a school organ-izational characteristic and as an experience of individual teachers. The relationship isparticularly strong for empowerment in the domains of teacher work life and studentschool experience.

This study links the empowerment of teachers through participatory deci-sion making with emerging theories about learning in organizations(Leithwood & Louis, 1999). The study builds on previous research in whichwe found teacher empowerment, especially in the domains of teacher work

707

Educational Administration QuarterlyVol. 35, Supplemental (December 1999) 707-750

© 1999 The University Council for Educational Administration

The preparation of this article was funded in part by the Wisconsin Center for EducationResearch and the Center on Organization of Schools, supported by the U.S. Department of Edu-cation, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (Grant No. R117Q000005-95). Thesecond author completed her work on an earlier version of this article while supported as a Ful-bright Fellow at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. The earlier version was presented atthe 1997 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association held in Toronto, Canada.The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflectthose of the supporting agencies. Correspondence regarding this article may be addressed to thefirst author at 301 Ramseyer Hall, 29 W. Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1177; e-mail:[email protected].



life and student school experiences, to be a necessary though insufficientorganizational condition for the high performance of schools (Marks &Louis, 1997). In the high performing schools, democratic processes were thevehicle for school decision making, and teachers focused their empowermenton the core technology of schools: teaching and learning.

Professional community and collective responsibility for student learningwere more likely to flourish in these schools (Louis, Marks, & Kruse, 1996).High-quality pedagogy and strong intellectual performance among studentswere also the rule (Louis & Marks, 1998; Marks & Louis, 1997). In short, therelationship between teacher empowerment (understood both as democraticorganization and an attribute of individual teachers), a corporate focus onteaching and learning, and high-quality performance among teachers andstudents proved exceptionally strong. Building on these findings, we argue inthis article that the strength of these schools can be understood through theircapacity for organizational learning. Moreover, we contend that a unifiedorganizational culture built around ongoing inquiry into the quality andeffectiveness of teaching and learning depends on the collective influence ofteachers who function as empowered professionals.

The concepts of teacher empowerment and organizational learning are notnovel, but are related to an historical effort to create more participatory anddemocratic workplaces—generally in industry—while also improving organi-zational productivity (Marks & Louis, 1997). Teacher empowerment hasbeen the subject of considerable research in recent years, but the capacity ofschools for organizational learning has received limited empirical attention.Although we acknowledge that other researchers have employed these con-cepts in somewhat different ways, we offer our perspective on both teacherempowerment and organizational learning. Our objective is to link these tworesearch streams and at the same time emphasize those dimensions of organ-izational learning that are also the themes of school restructuring. We viewthe intersection of teacher empowerment and the capacity for organizationallearning as a central thrust for future school reform.

To investigate the intersection of teacher empowerment and the capacityfor organizational learning, we use data from a sample of 24 site-managedpublic schools: 8 at each of three grade levels (elementary, middle, andhigh).1 At the time of data collection, the 24 schools were engaged in signifi-cant restructuring activities (Newmann & Associates, 1996). Data for thisstudy include survey reports from 910 teachers, school demographic profiles,and coding reports from 24 teams of field researchers on key dimensions ofthe schools’ restructuring.

708 Educational Administration Quarterly



RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

The relationship between school organizational capacity and teacherempowerment is well documented (Levin, 1991; Malen, Ogawa, & Kranz,1990; Wohlstetter, Smyer, & Mohrman, 1994). Evidence about this relation-ship has continued to emerge in educational research, from the basic schoolconditions needed for empowerment to be functional to the optimal schoolconditions where democratic organization can enable teaching staffs tobecome professional communities (Levin, 1991; Marks & Louis, 1997; Rob-ertson, Wohlstetter, & Mohrman, 1995).

Understandings of school organizational capacity have also developed,from the identification of the structural conditions fundamental to a positiveeducational environment to the recognition that social, intellectual, and cul-tural dimensions of organization are also critical for schools to function effec-tively. The evolving conceptualization derives both from research on schoolrestructuring (e.g., Elmore, Peterson, & McCarthey, 1996; Newmann & Asso-ciates, 1996), and older organizational development traditions (see Schmuck &Runkel, 1985) that are characterized by their focus on group dynamics andprocesses, rather than the skills of individual members.

We seek to extend these research streams by demonstrating the linkbetween teacher empowerment and school capacity for organizational learn-ing. We argue that for school capacity for organizational learning to bestrong, teachers need to participate in and influence school decision making.Nonetheless, teachers can exercise their empowerment effectively only whenthe school capacity for organizational learning is adequate. Our previousresearch has underscored the importance to high performance in schools ofempowerment in midrange domains (i.e., the area between the narrow scopeof classroom control and the broad scope of school policy and operationalissues), namely, the domains of student experiences and teacher work life(Marks & Louis, 1997). Based on these findings, we investigate whether spe-cific domains of teacher empowerment (i.e., school policy, teacher work life,student experiences, and classroom control) are also differentially related toschool capacity for organizational learning.

Empowering Teachers to Enhance School Effectiveness

To make schools more productive workplaces for staff andstudents, reform-ers have advocated decentralizing bureaucratic authority (Malen et al., 1990;Rowan, 1990; Sykes, 1990). Decentralization enables decisions affecting theschool to be made on site by the educators closest to students and their learn-ing, the school, and community conditions (Darling-Hammond, 1988). This

Marks, Louis / TEACHER EMPOWERMENT 709



site-based decision making accompanying decentralization can empowerteachers to varying extents, ranging from merely nominal empowerment tofull partnership or, very rarely, to full teacher control.2

In an earlier study of decision making in the site-based managed schoolsthat constitute our sample in this investigation, we and our colleagues foundfour patterns in the exercise of power in these restructuring schools (King,Louis, Marks, & Peterson, 1996). Power was often consolidated either withthe administrator, a small group of teachers, or even some school district per-sonnel. Because most teachers were unable to exercise influence in theseschools, they did not apply their collective energies to discussing and resolv-ing important schoolwide issues. Sometimes power was balkanized, residingin separate and usually noncommunicating subgroups. Where this occurred,disagreement and intergroup conflict undermined schoolwide decision mak-ing and cohesiveness.

Laissez-faire power relations prevailed in other instances, typicallyincreasing the autonomy of individual teachers who then exercised their free-dom in disparate directions. In these individualistic school cultures, the pro-liferation of teacher-initiated programs defied a unified focus on curriculumand pedagogy. Shared power arrangements—where power was dispersedamong the staff and targeted at issues central to the common good—charac-terized other schools, among them, those that were the most successful inproducing strong student performance. Broad participation and a collectivefocus on the quality of instruction and the achievement of all students unifiedthese schools in effectively carrying out the core technology of teaching andlearning.

As the study of these site-based managed restructuring schools suggests,most schools are not organized to capitalize on the presumed benefits ofincreasing teachers’ influence. They are centralized and permit little time forteachers to interact around new information or knowledge and to reflect on itsimplications for practice. In addition, most schools emphasize individualrather than collective responsibility for results and rarely provide feedbackon the consequences of actions or change in effort (see Louis & Dantler, 1988).

When research documents a positive relationship between teacherempowerment and improvements in instruction and student learning, partici-patory decision-making structures have explicitly concentrated on issues ofcurriculum and instruction (Bryk, Camburn, & Louis, 1996; David, 1994;Marks & Louis, 1997; Smylie, 1994). To the extent that greater numbers ofteachers participate in instruction-related decision making or that schools’professional cultures are strong, instructional improvement is more likely tooccur (Bryk et al., 1996; Smylie, 1994).




These findings are consistent with the contention of Newmann (1993) thatempowerment must focus on instructional vision and professional collabora-tion if it is to be useful as a school reform strategy. The salience of empower-ment in these midrange domains is also consistent with the organizational-learning perspective, which argues that until members of the organizationmove beyond preoccupation with power and toward issues of shared visionand inquiry, collectively held models, and increased (professional) masteryof work, they will consistently arrive at the wrong solutions to the wrongproblems (Morgan & Ramirez, 1983; Wheatley, 1992).

Conceptions of Organizational Learning

The termorganizational learningis more commonly evoked in businessand management studies than in education. To remain responsive, effective,and competitive in an environment of change and uncertainty, businesses andother organizations have adopted structures, processes, and strategies tocoordinate and facilitate their learning (Dodgson, 1993). An organizationthat learns, according to the theory, works efficiently, readily adapts tochange, detects and corrects error, and continually improves its effectiveness(Argyris & Schön, 1974).

Definitions of organizational learning are generally elusive and lack con-sistency among authors. The lack of definitional clarity results both from thenewness of the field and from evolving understandings of how organizationslearn (Argyris & Schön, 1974). Organizational learning resembles individuallearning; that is, it is a process, the outcome of which is new knowledge,skills, or tools for increasing learning. But organizations learn in a way thattranscends the aggregated learning of their individual members; that is,organizational learning takes place among the individuals as a collective.Engaged in a common activity in a way that is uniquely theirs, the membersof an organization learn as an ensemble possessing a distinctive culture(Cook & Yanow, 1993). Following upon this conception, our definition oforganizational learning emphasizes its sociocultural aspects rather than thesimple intersection between the individual and the context (Argyris & Schön,1974).

Focusing on intellectual, social, and cultural components of the organiza-tion, we define organizational learning asthe social processing of knowledge,or the sharing of individually held knowledge or information in ways thatconstruct a clear, commonly held set of ideas (Louis & Dantler, 1988). Thisprocess may be deliberately cognitive, but it more often develops from theaccretion of mutual understanding over time in a stable group. Senge (1990)provides a similar perspective, emphasizing such learning organization




characteristics as systems thinking, shared “mental models,” team-basedlearning, and building shared vision.3

The culture built up around the core technology of the organization is,then, the vehicle for individual and collective learning (Schein, 1985). Whenindividuals (e.g., teachers) are integrated within a collaborative groupfocused on the core technology of the organization (e.g., an instructionalteam focused on teaching and learning), a culture forms reflecting the values,beliefs, and norms of the group. Learning occurs as they (individuals withingroups) mutually confront problems and develop solutions. Because learningprocesses are multiple among individuals and groups, within complexorganizations the integration of these learning processes depends on interac-tive structures within the organization.

Dimensions of School Capacity for Organizational Learning

Because groups and teams often must struggle to create a setting in whichboth individual participants and the group as a whole learn, building anorganization’s capacity to learn has been a key element in discussions ofinnovation in both educational settings and businesses (Argyris & Schön,1996; Daft & Huber, 1987; Hedberg, 1981; Senge, 1990; Simsek & Louis,1994). Some scholars studying teacher empowerment have drawn on the the-ory of high-involvement organizations to develop a model of requisite schoolorganizational capacity (Lawler, 1986; Lawler, Mohrman, & Ledford, 1992).High-involvement organizations, that is, organizations in which participa-tory management works successfully to improve performance, deal effec-tively with four issues: devolving power from higher to lower levels of theorganization, decentralizing knowledge and skills, providing feedback onperformance, and supplying rewards and incentives (Robertson et al., 1995;Wohlstetter et al., 1994). In schools most effectively implementing site-based management, additional features of the high-involvement organiza-tional model include a system of instructional guidance integrated into theschool vision and strong instructional leadership by a supportive, systems-oriented principal (Robertson et al., 1995).

We summarize our perspective on creating school capacity for organiza-tional learning in the form of five constituent dimensions: structure, sharedcommitment and collaborative activity, knowledge and skills, leadership,and feedback and accountability.

Structure. Evidence continues to mount suggesting that building capacityfor organizational learning requires altering traditional structural arrange-ments in schools (Bryk et al., 1996; Kruse, Louis, & Bryk, 1995). Research




on organizational change suggests that removing structural impedimentsmay be more critical to the success of a program to improve performance thanadding new resources (Hall & Hord, 1987; Sarason, 1996). Reorganizing theschool’s schedule to permit teachers time to meet is particularly important(Raywid, 1994). Other impediments include limited and fragmented struc-tures for coordinating activities within the school and between school andcommunity, low interdependence in teaching roles, and formal decision-making processes that are viewed as unfair or arbitrary by many participants.Hierarchical controls may be a hindrance in that the capacity for organiza-tional learning entails coordination through social norms rather than a chainof command (Starbuck, 1992). The size and complex organization of schoolsthat enroll large numbers of students are also obstacles to the capacity for or-ganizational learning because professional community is unlikely to developin such environments (Lee & Smith, 1997).

Shared commitment and collaborative activity. Learning requires a pro-cess in which knowledge sources are shared and adapted in the school com-munity. The goal of “social processing” or team learning is for members toforge consensus about organizational performance and the actions theymight take for its improvement (Louis & Dantler, 1998). Social processing ofinformation, inherently a collective activity, occurs rarely if at all in mostschools. Even when information processing does occur, it tends to happenwithin small, fragmented groups, grade levels, or departments. We argue thatschoolwide knowledge processing may be critical to the capacity for organ-izational learning.

Because a strong professional community is a vehicle for schoolwideknowledge processing, creating a professional community enhances a school’scapacity for organizational learning. Professional communities depart fromthe normal practice in schools in that teachers do not work in isolation butcollaborate within a professional culture. Reflective dialogue, open sharingof classroom practices, developing a common knowledge base for improve-ment, collaborating on the design of new materials and curricula, and estab-lishing norms related to pedagogical practice and student performance arehallmarks of the professional culture and demonstrably related to studentachievement (Louis & Marks, 1998).

Knowledge and skills. Learning cannot take place without a knowledgebase and access to new ideas. In schools, these may come from severalsources: (a) individual knowledge that is brought by both professionals, par-ents, students, and community members; (b) knowledge that is “imported”




from experts and the experiences of other schools; and (c) knowledge that iscreated by members of the school community to address specific questions orproblems (Kruse, 1995).

Organizational learning requires permeable boundaries through whichknowledge can flow both in and out and community-based knowledgeresources that are connected in multiple ways with internal actors (McDon-ald, 1995). Many high schools, like universities, are discipline based.Although disciplines provide a basis for transmitting knowledge and creatingsupportive networks (Little & McLaughlin, 1993; Siskin, 1994), they mayalso result in balkanization within the school, and fragmented communica-tion with constituencies outside the school (Kruse & Louis, 1993). Whenthey function most effectively, “knowledge intensive firms” also organizethemselves to promote sharing of expertise, both internally and externally,and to promote entrepreneurship and open discussion among decentralizedgroups throughout the organization (Starbuck, 1992).

Leadership. Building the capacity for organizational learning demandsforms of leadership differing from conventional models (Leithwood, Jantzi, &Fernandez, 1994; Murphy & Louis, 1994). Leadership in high-performinglearning organizations is decentralized, facilitative, and exercised fully at alllevels in the organization. Effective school leaders act not only as instruc-tional leaders, but as stimulators to serious intellectual interaction around is-sues of reform and improvement (Newmann & Associates, 1996). In publicschools, where much of the final decision-making power continues to restwith the district office, school board, and state agencies, the concept of “lead-ership without authority” is particularly applicable (Heifetz, 1994).

Paradoxically, organizational learning also requires strong and sometimesdirective leadership in the articulation of organizational goals in ways that aremeaningful and evocative for all participants (Louis & Dantler, 1998). Study-ing school implementation over time, Huberman and Miles (1984) note that“pressure and support” from the district office are critical to maintaining thescope of the effort, whereas Bryk et al. (1996) found that effective organiza-tional leadership in developing professional community was supportive aswell as authoritative.

Feedback and accountability. Increasing organizational learning requiresthat schools be made more autonomous and more accountable for their work(McLaughlin, Shepard, & O’Day, 1995; Rothman, 1995). Without a clear setof performance benchmarks and incentives that people within the organiza-tion can agree upon, the capacity for organizational learning is deficient.




However, if schools are to accept their collective responsibility for the out-comes of their work, they need the autonomy to determine locally meaning-ful standards.

In a study of accountability and organizational capacity (an index ofteachers’ participation in school decision making, knowledge and skills,shared commitment and collaborative activity) in the same schools that arethe subject of this study, researchers found no consistent relationship betweenthe two (Newmann, King, & Rigdon, 1997). However, they did uncover arevealing pattern dependent on the type of accountability in question, eitherinternal or external. Schools with strong organizational capacity tended todevelop their own rigorous standards of accountability (to peers and others inthe school). Where strong external accountability existed (e.g., to the publicin the form of state-mandated assessments), the researchers found compara-tively weak organizational capacity.

Summary and Research Focus

Although decentralization sets the stage for participatory decision makingin schools, the extent to which teachers actually exercise influence varies.Yet, strong school performance depends on teachers who are not only genu-inely empowered, but who focus that empowerment collectively on the qual-ity of teaching and student learning. Such effective empowerment, we sug-gest, both depends upon and enhances school capacity for organizationallearning. We characterize organizational learning in schools as a culture builtaround the ongoing social processing of knowledge to produce a shared andguiding vision for high-quality work among teachers, students, and adminis-trators. School capacity for organizational learning, as operational here,includes supportive school structure, facilitative leadership, shared commit-ment and collaborative activity, the inflow of knowledge and skills, and a sys-tem for ensuring feedback and accountability. According to the relationshipwe posit, in schools where the capacity for organizational learning is strong,teachers will exercise high levels of empowerment. In schools where thecapacity is weak, teachers will exercise little collective influence.

METHOD

Sample and Data

To study school restructuring in the United States, the Center on Organiza-tion and Restructuring of Schools searched nationally for public schools that




demonstrated extensive restructuring of students’ school experiences, teach-ers’ work lives, school governance, and the coordination of school and com-munity resources.4 From more than 300 schools identified in the search, thecenter selected as its sample 24 elementary, middle, and high schools, 8 ateach grade level (see Berends & King, 1994, and Newmann & Associates,1996, for additional details on sample selection).5 The sampled schools rep-resent 16 states and 22 school districts. Most of the schools are in urban set-tings, and the majority enroll substantial proportions of economically disad-vantaged and minority students.6 The multimethod design for the studyincorporated a battery of quantitative and qualitative data-gathering instru-ments. We briefly describe those instruments pertinent to this analysis here.

The primary data for this investigation come from a survey of teacherswho responded to queries about their instructional practices and professionalactivities, the school culture, and their personal and professional back-grounds. Survey response rates were high: 910 teachers, which representsmore than 82% of the teachers in the study schools, turned in surveys.Responding teachers completed 95% of the items. In addition, teams of threeresearchers spent 2 weeks at each participating school during its study year (aweek in the fall, a week in the spring).7 While on site, the researchers soughtin-depth information about the informants’ instructional practices and worklives, as well as information about the nature of social and professional inter-action in the schools, issues related to governance and decision making, andinvolvement in the schools’ reform efforts. The researchers interviewed 25 to30 staff members at each school, most of them twice. School and districtadministrators were queried in depth about the relationship between thebroader organizational objectives and the realities of change at the schoolsite. Researchers also observed governance and professional meetings thattook place during the site visits and collected and analyzed any written docu-mentation pertaining to the school’s restructuring efforts.

Each research team collaborated to write a case study portraying theschool the team visited. All 24 case studies, typically 150 single-spacedpages in length and following an identical topic outline, provide a summaryand synthesis of the interview, observation, and documentation data. Othercenter staff members reviewed and critiqued in detail the drafts of the casestudies. In response to this rigorous peer review, the research team revised thedrafts. To facilitate easy retrieval of data from the cases, two members of theteam that had visited the school coded the case study using a standardized listof more than 100 items that were developed by the full team of researchers.The two team members coded the case separately. If they disagreed on a cod-ing, they discussed the matter until they arrived at a consensus. Codes fromall 24 schools were translated into the relevant variables (using an interval




scale metric) and several were included in the component indexes of organ-izational capacity.8

Measures

The capacity for organizational learning. The major dependent variable,an index of the capacity for organizational learning, taps the five constituentdimensions discussed above: school structural conditions, shared commit-ment and collaborative activity, knowledge and skills, supportive leadership,and feedback and accountability. The internal consistency of the componentitems, represented by Cronbach’s alpha (α) for the measure, is .76. AppendixA contains a more detailed description of these constructs and all the othermeasures we employ in the study, but we provide a summary here:

School structureincludes three components constructed, respectively, fromschool profile, coding, and teacher survey data: (a) school size (reversed), (b)extent of decentralized governance, and (c) the amount of time teachers spendmeeting with colleagues.

Shared commitment and collaborative activity, constructed from teacher surveyand coding data, represents the extent to which a common direction of effortunites the faculty. Its five components include (a) an index of professionalcommunity constructed from teachers’ self-reports (Louis et al., 1996); (b) acomposite score on professional community from the coding data; (c) a meas-ure of goal consensus (Kendall’s W) from the teachers’survey data; (d) respon-sibility for student learning, constructed as a factor, from the teachers’ surveydata; and (e) the extent to which the staff is regarded as competent to analyzeproblems and to solve them.

The index ofknowledge and skillscomprises three measures: (a) an index ofschool-oriented staff development taken from the coding, (b) a factor con-structed from teachers’ survey data tapping the openness of the school and itsstaff to innovation, and (c) pedagogical content knowledge and ongoing oppor-tunities for curricular and instructional improvement.

Theleadershipconstruct is broad based, comprising cognitive, affective, and be-havioral elements. Its three components derive from survey and coding data:(a) Intellectual leadership taps the extent to which new information reaches theschool from either outside sources (e.g., a structural arrangement with a col-lege or university, or the significant input of a district office or external profes-sional network) or internal sources (e.g., significant input from the principal,another administrator, a teacher or a group of teachers); (b) supportive leader-ship reflects how much the principal or administrator supports and encouragesteachers, welcomes their ideas, and has positively influenced restructuring;and (c) facilitative leadership measures an administrative style enabling sharedpower relations among faculty and administration.

The feedback and accountabilityconstruct includes (a) information on perform-ance provided to groups outside the school, (b) rewards or sanctions from con-




stituent groups based on students’ performance, (c) the influence of students’parents on school restructuring, and (d) the extent to which teachers feel re-spected by stakeholders both internal and external to the school.

The empowerment domains. The major independent variables are meas-ures of teacher empowerment. Teacher empowerment is operationalized asinfluence or control in four separate domains—school policy, teacher worklife, student experiences, and classroom control—and as an index compris-ing all the domains (Marks & Louis, 1997; Marks & Park, 1995). The em-powerment domain measures are based on 14 items in the school restructur-ing study (SRS) survey of teachers, asking teachers to rate the extent of theirinfluence over school policy and management, their work lives, and theschool experiences of students, as well the extent of their control over class-room instruction. Teachers responded to the influence items using a 6-pointscale, ranging from 1 (no influence) to 6 (a great deal of influence) and to thecontrol items also using a 6-point scale, ranging from 1 (no control) to 6(complete control). Appendix A contains a listing of these items by domain.

Empowerment over school policy comprises six items measuring teacherinfluence over the school budget, hiring, inservice, schedule, and curriculum.(Cronbach’s alpha [α] for the measure is .85.) Empowerment over teacherwork life (two items) measures teachers’ involvement in shared decisionmaking on school matters that affect their work (Cronbach’sα = .85). Empow-erment over student experiences (three items) measures teachers influence indetermining behavior codes, discipline policy, and policy for ability group-ing (Cronbach’sα = .70). Empowerment over classroom instruction (threeitems) measures teachers’ control over the selection of textbooks; the selec-tion of topics, skills, and content to be taught; and the selection of instruc-tional materials (Cronbach’sα = .71). Each of these measures is constructedas a factor (using principal components analysis, varimax rotation).9

Control variables. To take into account the social, professional, and attitu-dinal characteristics of teachers that could affect the outcome independentlyof their empowerment (Louis et al., 1996; Marks & Louis, 1997), we includeseveral control variables: gender (dummy coded, 1 = female, 0 = male), yearsof teaching experience, a quadratic term for years of teaching experience (toadjust for curvilinearity in the relationship between teaching experience andthe dependent variable), academic faculty status (dummy coded, 1 = yes, 0 =no). Because teachers’ general attitudes toward their school may influencetheir perceptions, the analysis also incorporates a control for teacher satisfac-tion with teaching at their present school.




Control in the school-level analysis for organizational characteristics thatmay affect the dependent variable independently of empowerment is also anissue, one that is complicated somewhat in that the relatively small number ofschools in the sample would make the use of more than one or two controlsstatistically problematic. Much of that problem is obviated, however, in thatthe sample schools are quite similar in their urbanism and in the proportionsof poor and minority students they enroll (see Newmann & Associates, 1996,for demographic profiles of each of the 24 schools). As we describe in thenext section, we examine whether grade level differences among schools onthe key study variables warrant incorporating a control for level into theanalyses.

Analytic Technique

We examine the relationship between school capacity for organizationallearning and teacher empowerment measured in four domains and as anindex. Recognizing that teacher empowerment and school capacity fororganizational learning may differ by grade level, we compare the observeddifferences among these and the teacher background variables for elemen-tary, middle, and high schools, using one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA). Substantial differences among the grade levels in empowermentand the capacity for organizational learning would necessitate incorporatinga statistical adjustment for school grade level to control for any potential con-founding effect on the outcome.

We begin the investigation of the relationship between teacher empower-ment and school capacity for organizational learning by examining the zero-order correlations between each domain of empowerment and each compo-nent of the capacity for organizational learning index. Our primary analyses,however, are multivariate. Because these analyses involve nested data, teach-ers within schools, our primary statistical technique is multilevel, hierarchi-cal linear modeling (HLM) (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). HLM partitions thevariance in the dependent variable, in this instance, school capacity fororganizational learning, into its within- and among-school components. Weestimate the relationship of empowerment (in its domains and as index), bothas a characteristic of individual teachers’experience and as an organizationalproperty of schools, to school capacity for organizational learning (seeAppendix B for technical details on the HLM analysis).




RESULTS

Observed Differences According to Grade Level

Organizational learning. Although our analyses incorporate organiza-tional learning as an index of its five component constructs, we comparedmean differences on both the index and each of its separate components bygrade level to examine the distribution of these organizational featuresamong the sample schools. Because all of these measures are standardized(M = 0; SD= 1), the differences among grade levels may be interpreted instandard deviation units (see Table 1). Scoring .2SD above the middleschools and 1SDabove the high schools (p ≤ .001), elementary schools rankhighest on the positive structural features associated with organizationallearning. Most of the other dimensions of the capacity for organizationallearning also prove more favorable in the elementary schools. On sharedcommitment and collaborative activity, the elementary schools rank morethan .6SDhigher than the middle schools, and more than 1SDhigher than thehigh schools (p ≤ .001).


TABLE 1Observed Differences on Major Variables by School Grade Level

Elementary Middle High

Capacity for organizational learningStructurea .50*** .31 –.64Shared commitment and collaborative activitya .67*** .03 –.50Knowledge and skillsa .28*** .16 –.35Feedback and accountabilitya .36*** .19 –.44Leadershipa –.16 .42*** –.23Capacity for organizational learning indexa .46*** .30 –.60

Empowerment domainsSchool policya .05 .13** –.16Teachers’ work lifea .38*** .03 –.32Student experiencesa .55*** .04 –.49Classroom instructiona .01 .16*** –.23Empowerment indexa .37*** .12 –.39

Teacher backgroundPercentage female 88.4*** 68.4 59.9Years of experience 11.8 14.3** 13.8Percentage academic faculty 76.4*** 65.6 62.1Satisfaction with present school .22*** –.09 –.09

a. Standardized variable,M = 0; SD= 1.** p ≤ .01. *** p ≤ .001.



The elementary school edge narrows considerably on knowledge andskills, and feedback and accountability. Compared with the middle schools,elementary schools rank .1 and .2SDhigher on these components (p≤ .001);and compared with high schools, .6 and .8SDhigher. Middle schools possessan advantage in leadership: close to .6SDhigher than elementary schools and.7 SD higher than high schools (p ≤ .001). On the organizational learningindex overall, elementary schools outrank middle schools by .2SD, highschools by more than 1SD(p ≤ .001).

Empowerment domains. Comparing the distribution of teacher empower-ment by grade level, we found elementary school teachers experiencing highlevels of empowerment in the “middle range,” that is, over teacher work lifeand student experiences, whereas middle school teachers were somewhatmore likely to be empowered over school policy and classroom instruction.Elementary teachers exceed their middle school counterparts in their em-powerment over student experiences by about .6SDand their high schoolcounterparts by 1SD (p ≤ .001). Similarly, elementary teachers’ influenceover their work lives is more than .4SDgreater than the middle school teach-ers’ and .7SDgreater than high school teachers’.

Middle school teachers experience slightly greater empowerment in theschool policy domain than elementary teachers do, but close to .3SDmorethan high school teachers (p ≤ .01). The pattern is similar for classroominstruction with middle school teachers outranking their elementary schoolcounterparts by .2SD, their high school counterparts by about .4 (p ≤ .01).Overall, as measured by the empowerment index, elementary school teachersare most empowered, .3SDmore than middle school teachers, .8SDmorethan high school teachers (p ≤ .001).

Teacher background. Elementary teachers in the sample are more likely tobe female; 88% of them are, compared to 68% of middle school and 60% ofhigh school teachers (p ≤ .001). On average, the teachers in the sampledschools have more than 10 years of experience: about 12 years for the ele-mentary teachers and about 14 years for the middle and high school teachers(p≤ .01). More of the elementary school teachers are academic faculty mem-bers (76%) compared to 66% of the middle school teachers and 62% of thehigh school teachers (p ≤ .001). Perhaps not surprisingly, given their advan-tages in exercising influence and in the favorable school organizational con-ditions they experience, elementary teachers are about .3SDmore likely to besatisfied with their present teaching situation than their middle and highschool counterparts (p ≤ .001).




Capacity for Organizational Learning andthe Domains of Teacher Empowerment

Correlational analyses. Table 2 displays the zero-order correlations be-tween the component measures for each dimension of the capacity for organ-izational learning, the dimensions themselves (measured as an index of thecomponents), and the four domains of empowerment. Concentrating on eachdimension’s index, we find that teachers’empowerment over school policyis significantly correlated with all of them, most strongly with the shared


TABLE 2Correlations: Empowerment Domains and Capacityfor Organizational Learning Construct Components

School Teacher Student ClassroomPolicy Work life Experiences Control

StructureSize (rev) .24** .15** .21** .09*Decentralization .01 .14** .20** .03Time for meeting .13** .18** .14** .01Structure index .21** .26** .31** .07

Shared commitment and collaborative activityProfessional community 1 .33** .51** .51** .08*Professional community 2 .22** .29** .43** .08*Goal consensus .28** .30** .39** .08*Collective responsibility .19** .44** .50** .24**Problem-solving responsibility .35** .18** .34** .09*Shared commitment and

collaborative activity index .38** .49** .61** .16**Knowledge and skills

Professional development 1 .08* .05 .16** .10**Professional competence .15** .34** .21** –.00Openness to innovation .21** .47** .40** .13**Knowledge-skills index .21** .34** .37** .11**

LeadershipIntellectual .05 .14** .17** .04Supportive .21** .50** .35** .03Shared power relations .33** .18** .16** .08*Leadership index .28** .38** .32** .07*

Feedback and accountabilityFeedback from peers .07 .17** .13** .04External feedback .06 .16** .14** .03Parental influence on restructuring .18** .29** .41** .09*Feedback-accountability index .13** .27** .27** .07*

*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01.



commitment and collaborative activity index,r = .38 (p ≤ .01), followed bythe leadership index,r = .28 (p ≤ .01), and least strongly with the feedbackand accountability index,r = .13 (p ≤ .01). Empowerment over school policyis modestly related to the structure index and to the knowledge and skills in-dex, in each caser = .21 (p ≤ .01).

Empowerment in the midrange, that is, teachers’ empowerment in deci-sions affecting their work life and student experiences, is moderately tostrongly related to the indexes for all the dimensions of the capacity fororganizational learning. The relationships are strongest with the shared com-mitment and collaborative activity index,r = .49 (p ≤ .01) for the empower-ment domain of teacher work life andr = .61 (p ≤ .01) for the empowermentdomain of student experiences. The relationships of both domains to theknowledge and skills index and the leadership index are substantial. For thedomain of teacher work life,r = .34 (p ≤ .01) andr = .38 (p ≤ .01), respec-tively; for the domain of student experiences,r = .37 (p≤ .01) andr = .32 (p≤.01), respectively.

The relationship between classroom control and the indexes of schoolcapacity for organizational learning is weak, especially for structure,leadership, and feedback and accountability. The correlation betweenclass-room control and the remaining indexes is stronger for knowledge andskills (r = .11;p≤ .01), and for shared commitment andcollaborative activ-ity (r = .16;p ≤ .01).

Variation in the capacity for organizational learning: The HLM analyses.Our first step in the HLM analyses was to estimate the proportion of variancein the capacity for organizational learning existing within and among the SRSschools (cf. Appendix B). Not surprisingly, the amount of variance amongschools is a substantial 75%. The 25% variance within schools is likely to beattributable to within-school differences on such organizational learningcomponents as professional community or responsibility for student learn-ing, or differences in individual teachers’ perceptions (e.g., how they regardthe school leadership).

Because we observed considerable differences in both teacher empower-ment and the capacity for organizational learning according to grade level inour initial analysis (above), we took the potential grade-level effect intoaccount. By adjusting statistically for the elementary grade level, we heldconstant those school differences attributable to the characteristics of ele-mentary schools favorable to the capacity for organizational learning.

We direct our investigation primarily to the relationship of school-levelempowerment to the capacity for organizational learning. However, for both




statistical and substantive reasons, we take into account the relationship ofindividual teachers’ experiences of empowerment within their schools. Sta-tistically, by controlling for teachers’ within-school empowerment, empow-erment at the school level is then measured net of individual teacher empow-erment, as a characteristic of the organization. Substantively, individualteachers are likely to contribute to the capacity for organizational learningmore fully as a result of personally participating in decision making, particu-larly decisions related to the core technologies of teaching and learning.10 Inaddition to empowerment, the within-school models also include adjust-ments for differences in teachers’ gender, years of teaching experience,and—to adjust for positive response bias—their satisfaction with teaching attheir present school.

Table 3 displays the results of our analyses. The table contains five mod-els, each one focusing on a single dimension of empowerment. The top panelof the table reports the school-level effects for each model; the middle panelreports the within-school effects; and the bottom panel reports the proportionof variance in organizational learning capacity among schools explained bythe model. To provide a benchmark to interpret the magnitude of the relation-ships displayed in Table 3, we use the effect size metric (ES), an indicator ofrelative size. An effect size is small if it is less than .1, moderate if it isbetween .2 and .5, and large if it is .5 or higher (Cohen, 1977; Rosenthal &Rosnow, 1984).11

School policy. In the first model, teacher influence over school policy, ac-cording to the benchmark metric, has a moderately strong relationship to thecapacity for organizational learning, although its statistical significance ismarginal (ES = .37;p ≤ .10). Similarly, the adjustment for grade level indi-cates a strong, although marginally significant, positive effect for elementaryschools (ES = .66;p≤ .10). Individual teachers’empowerment in the domainof school policy contributes somewhat to the capacity for organizationallearning (ES = .22;p ≤ .001).

Teachers of academic subjects, compared to their teaching colleagues innonacademic areas, are somewhat more inclined to be involved in theirschools’ capacity for organizational learning, an effect that is relatively con-sistent across all models. The ES varies slightly depending on the domainoperationalized in the model. Teaching experience has a slight relationship tothe capacity for organizational learning (ES = .07;p ≤ .05). Teachers’ satis-faction with their present school has a moderate influence (ES = .35;p ≤.001). The school policy model accounts for 39% of the variance in the capac-ity for organizational learning among the SRS schools.




Teacher work life. In schools where the capacity for organizational learn-ing is well developed, teachers are especially likely to exercise influence overtheir work lives (ES = .44;p≤ .05). Although the positive relationship of aca-demic faculty status and satisfaction with their school diminish somewhat inthis model (ES = .10,p ≤ .01, and ES = .20,p ≤ .001, respectively), teacherswho participate in decisions affecting their work lives tend to be substantiallyinvolved in organizational learning (ES = .38;p ≤ .001). The teacher work-


TABLE 3Capacity for Organizational Learning:

Relationship of the Empowerment Domains Within and Among Schools:A Two-Level Analysis With Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM)

a

Dependent VariableCapacity for Organizational Learning

Empowerment School Teacher Student Classroom EmpowermentDomain Model Policy Work life Experiences Instruction Index

Intercept –.21b –.10 .13 –.17 –.04~Empowerment

School policy .37~Teacher work life .44*Student experiences .69***Classroom instruction .37~Empowerment index .59**Elementary school .66~ .34 –.27 .58 .14

EmpowermentSchool Policy .22***Teacher work life .38***Student experiences .28***Classroom .05*Index .41***

Female .04 .06 .01 .04 .01Academic faculty member .15** .10** .13** .14** .15***Years teaching experience .07* .03 .05* .06* .02Years teaching :

Quadratic term 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01Satisfaction with teaching

at present school .35*** .20*** .29*** .36*** .22***

Percentage between-schoolvariance explained 39.3 41.6 54.9 32.0 54.6

a. Continuous variables are standardized,M = 0,SD= 1, and centered around the grand mean.The effects are fixed; that is, random variation of all independent variables is constrained.b. All values are in effect size (ES) metric (cf. Note 10).~p ≤ .10. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. *** p ≤ .001.



life model explains close to 42% of the variance among SRS schools in or-ganizational learning.

Student experiences. Teacher influence in the domain of student experi-ences bears the strongest relationship to organizational learning (ES =.69;p ≤ .001). Within schools, patterns similar to those found in the previous twoanalyses continue to occur. Additionally, individual teachers’ influences overstudent experiences contributes moderately to their involvement in organiza-tional learning (ES = .28;p ≤ .001). It is useful to note the difference in themagnitude of these effects within and among schools. The exceptionallystrong effect at the school level illustrates the difference between empower-ment for the individual and its impact as an organizational phenomenon. Atthe school level, empowerment over student experiences powerfully groundsthe capacity for organizational learning. More than half the variance in the ca-pacity for organizational learning (55%) in the SRS schools is explainable byempowerment in the domain of student experiences.

Classroom instruction. The model for teachers’autonomy over classroominstruction closely parallels the school policy model in the relative magnitudeof the effects. Where the classroom control model departs sharply from theschool policy model is in the weak, although unsurprising relationship ofclassroom control to the capacity for organizational learning. Although theindividual teacher’s control over the classroom may exist within a context oforganizational learning (ES = .05;p ≤ .05), the teacher’s hold is relativelyprovisional in that it is subject to organizational influences and contingencieslarger than a teacher’s personal preferences. Compared with the other mod-els, the classroom control model explains the least amount of the variance inthe capacity for organizational learning: 32%.

The empowerment index. Teachers’ overall empowerment in the four do-mains constitutes an index of influence in school decision making. In magni-tude second to empowerment over student experiences, overall empower-ment substantially supports organizational learning (ES = .59;p≤ .001). Thepattern of within-school effects is generally quite comparable to that foundfor teachers’ influences over their work lives. Within schools, teachers’over-all empowerment is strongly related to their involvement in organizationallearning (ES = .41,p ≤ .001). Similar to the student experiences model, theempowerment index model is highly explanatory, accounting for 55% of thevariance in organizational learning among the SRS schools.




An examination of a scatterplot displaying the correlation between theteacher empowerment index and the capacity for organizational learningindex (r = .74) in the 24 restructuring schools shows that the relationship dif-fers according to school grade level (see Figure 1). Of the nine schools in theupper right quadrant (i.e., the schools high on empowerment and high oncapacity), five are elementary schools, three are middle schools (K, L, O),and only one is a high school (V). Of the 12 schools in the lower left quadrant


Figure 1: School Capacity for Organizational Learning Index and the EmpowermentIndex



(i.e., low on empowerment and low on capacity), only one is an elementaryschool (E), four are middle schools (J, M, N, P), and the other seven are highschools. The remaining three schools, located in the lower right quadrant area middle school (I) and two elementary schools (B and G) and are, compara-tively, high-empowerment and low-capacity schools. We return to the scat-terplot analysis below in the discussion.

Summary

The HLM analyses demonstrated a consistent relationship between thecapacity for organizational learning and teacher empowerment, measuredboth as an organizational characteristic and as an experience of individualteachers. In fact, teacher empowerment, in its domains and as an index,accounts for much of the variance among schools in the capacity for organ-izational learning, ranging from one third (for classroom control) to morethan one half (for student experiences and the empowerment index). The rela-tionship is especially strong in the middle-range domains of teachers’ worklives and student experiences, the areas that constitute the core technologiesof schools: teaching and learning. For teachers within schools, empowermentin each of the domains (although considerably less so in the domain of class-room control) contributes to the capacity for organizational learning.

DISCUSSION

Our investigation focused on a set of restructuring schools where site-based decision making has been in place for several years. Despite the factthat these schools vary considerably in both the extent of decentralization andinstitutionalized change, the sample is not representative of U.S. schools.However, these schools were selected for study precisely because their prog-ress in restructuring could be instructive in demonstrating which innovationsaimed at school improvement actually work to improve teaching and learn-ing. Thus, the sample has provided a useful basis for examining the dimen-sions of school capacity for organizational learning associated with teacherempowerment in several domains. However, because the sample is select andthe data are cross-sectional, we present our findings as suggestive.

At the outset of this discussion, we emphasize that we are interested inteacher empowerment not because of a desire to change the political relation-ships within schools, but because our previous work on empowerment hassuggested that it is associated with other characteristics of schools that arecritical for high performance (Marks & Louis, 1997). We do not mean to




suggest that this relationship is necessarily direct. Empowerment, for exam-ple, is an important predictor of professional community among teachers(Louis, Marks, & Kruse, 1996), and, in turn, professional community isstrongly associated with high-quality teaching and students’ sense of com-munity and inclusion in the school setting (Louis & Marks, 1998). Empower-ment is, therefore, not important in isolation but as part of a cluster of school-development characteristics that, when focused on the quality of studentlearning, have demonstrable payoff at the classroom level.

The extent of teacher empowerment varies considerably among thesesite-based managed, restructuring schools, a reminder that although site-based decision-making structures are necessary, they are not sufficient toempower teachers. If such structures are to function effectively, schools needto assess and build the requisite capacity for organizational learning. Recip-rocally, the capacity for organizational learning clearly depends on teacherswho participate in school decision making and exercise professional influ-ence over the educational process. In the analyses presented here, empower-ment is estimated as such a school effect: an aspect of school organizationand governance representing the collective influence of teachers after takinginto account their individual professional autonomy. Measured as an index,teacher empowerment accounted for more than half of the variance amongschools in the capacity for organizational learning.

The problem of high schools, in terms of their comparatively limitedcapacity for organizational learning, has surfaced but with relatively littlecomment in our own and others’ work on school reform. Bryk, Easton, Ker-bow, Rollow, and Sebring (1993) found that Chicago high schools were, ingeneral, making far less progress on internal reforms than were elementaryschools. High schools, in our prior research, scored considerably lower thanmiddle or elementary schools on professional community (Louis et al.,1996). Lee and Smith’s (1996) finding that lower-income high school stu-dents in schools where teachers have a low sense of collective responsibilityfor student achievement show no gains in student achievement during theirlast years of high school represents another rather startling indication of theproblem.

As our scatterplot analysis indicated, even among restructured schools,high schools typically lack a strong capacity for organizational learning andthe empowerment of teachers that is fundamental both to their professional-ism and, indirectly, to school improvement. Only one high school, Cibola(School V), ranks high on both of these dimensions. However, among thelow-scoring high schools, it is important to note that considerable variationexists in both the extent of teacher influence and the capacity for organiza-tional learning. For example, although Island High School (School W) is the




lowest-scoring school overall on the dimensions we have studied, HuronHigh School (School T) ranks about in the middle of the sample.12

Because these schools represent an instructive progression on the teacherempowerment and capacity for organizational learning relationship contin-uum, we have compared them on both the midrange dimensions of empower-ment that proved particularly influential in our quantitative analyses and onthe components of the capacity for organizational learning index (see Appen-dix C). We draw selectively on this comparison here to offer a context forsome of the salient dimensions and relationships in our findings. In so doing,we provide some insight into the high school problem.

The more successful of these high schools, Cibola and Huron, havedecision-making structures to facilitate teachers’abilities to influence schoolmatters. Cibola’s governance structure includes the cabinet (officially the mostpowerful decision-making body) and all-school meetings (usually called tomake major formal decisions). Huron has an elaborate committee system thatdoes the work an administrative council and department chairs would do in alarger high school. Island, in contrast, lacks a system of committees ordecision-making bodies to involve teachers in decisions of importance or concern.These structures function well at Cibola and Huron because their administra-tors, both strong leaders, share their power with their faculties. Island, in con-trast, has a three-person administrative team in place of a principal, in whichpower is consolidated and members operate in controlling ways.

The faculty at Cibola have the freedom and responsibility beyond that ofteachers in most U.S. high schools to define what they believe studentsshould know and when they know enough to graduate. Cibola teachers,working in interdisciplinary teams, can collaborate on this objective becausethey have more time to meet during school than any other school in thesample (a 2- to 3-hour block weekly). Thus, classroom autonomy is viewedatypically at Cibola as secondary to collaboratively wrought decisions.Cibola teachers, as the school director pointed out to the research team, “havea lot of freedom, but it’s always collective; it’s always in the context of thegroup to whom they are responsible and accountable.”

Although a strong statement of purpose and principles unites Huronteachers, they lack a clear vision of instruction and a detailed focus on a com-mon view of achievement. Because committee work consumes a great deal oftheir time, Huron teachers have less time to work with each other on themeaning of the vision for classroom settings, precisely the most valued formof professional development at Cibola. Island lacks a common vision for thefaculty and, to make matters worse, it espouses a version of empowermentthat promotes individual entrepreneurship among teachers rather than col-laborative program development. Teachers are empowered to allocate small




amounts of discretionary funds, but they have had little opportunity todevelop a shared school focus. Thus, an impressive array of teacher-initiatedprograms abounds, many targeted at the same population (at-risk students),but little coordination exists among the programs.

Systems of accountability vary at the three high schools. At Cibola,accountability is largely internal in that the school is not bound by most dis-trict mandates. Accountability for students’ success is very much on theminds of Cibola teachers because they all serve on individual student gradua-tion committees and must consider and judge student work according toschool standards, which may include challenging the judgment of theschool’s sponsoring faculty member on a regular basis. The faculty also bringin external review committees to examine student work critically and toinspect classroom processes, student portfolios, and the curriculum to ensurethat the school is meeting students’ needs.

Huron teachers hold themselves accountable to colleagues and the com-munity. The school must submit an annual improvement plan (addressingattendance, achievement, and graduation rate) to a district team of parent rep-resentatives for approval. Accountability at Island is largely external, in thatthe school operates under a comprehensive system of state-imposed stan-dards, mandates, and performance expectations. Teachers experience pres-sure for their students to produce acceptable portfolios and students mustreport to the state on their instructional experiences. Despite (but perhapsbecause of) the strong state accountability system, Island teachers areallowed little voice in matters of teaching and learning. Our findings, how-ever, make a strong case for teachers’participatory role in schools, especiallyin these midrange domains.

In both of the more successful high schools, most of the teachers preferredto focus their participation on teaching and learning, but clear school goals,the commitment of their colleagues, and the presence of strong supportiveleaders did encourage some teachers to become more involved in policy mak-ing. Paradoxically, the lack of focus on shared goals and the limited leader-ship at Island High School led to teachers’ interests in becoming involved inpolicy decisions and in resurrecting a failed site council. But their motivationwas less a desire to work further on school improvement in the areas of teach-ing and learning, than to protect their rights to influence work assignments.

The comparison of these schools suggests that once decentralization pro-vides the school with autonomy, both the capacity for organizational learningand empowerment are largely a matter of internal relationships among peo-ple. School staff provide each other with support, exchange ideas and reachconsensus, and treat each other in professional and egalitarian ways. Theseare not aspects of reform that cost a great deal of money; they are reforms of




culture and not of external resources, buildings, assessment programs, or stu-dent schedules. This does not mean that the latter are not important (they aresignificant parts of various schools’ restructuring programs within our sam-ple), but that they alone will not increase teachers’willingness to take on therather significant role changes required to actively design their own work set-tings outside the classroom.

If building capacity for organizational learning is to become a real strategyfor school improvement, several developments need to take place. First, thespecific characteristics of schools that indicate capacity for organizationallearning need to be refined so that teachers and administrators will be able toassess whether their schools have them. Although there have been significantsteps in this direction (Leithwood & Aiken, 1995), more work needs to bedone to create images of organizational learning and the capacity needed toachieve it that have direct appeal and salience to practicing educators inschools. In addition, organizational learning needs to be rescued from the dis-tinct possibility that it will be the latest theoretical fad. To do this, the criticalideas underlying organizational learning need to be grounded in the evolutionof thinking about how schools change, and how their structure, culture, andleadership need to be organized to facilitate the best synthesis and applicationof professional knowledge.

The concept of organizational learning, as noted at the outset of this study,has achieved considerable currency in the business and management litera-tures. To adapt to change, perform efficiently and competitively, and becomeincreasingly effective, organizations perfect their capacity to learn. Becauseschools operate under similar imperatives, organizational-learning theorycan provide useful guidance. Schools’abilities to perform at high levels, thatis, teachers practicing quality pedagogy and students performing well onauthentic and standardized measures, are likely to depend on their capacityfor organizational learning (Marks, Louis & Guerrera, in press).

Our findings contribute to current discussions about school reform byextending the long-term interest of school reformers in creating more demo-cratic and more communitarian workplaces in schools. A great deal of therecent research on school improvement has focused exclusively on the effectsof formal efforts to create new, representative decision-making and authoritystructures in schools. Although these structures have been largely shown tobe ineffective, we argue that this is no reason to turn away from efforts toempower teachers. Rather, our analysis suggests that it is the teachers’involvement in midlevel decisions that affect the core technologies of teach-ing and learning that is most associated with increased capacities for learningon the part of the school. In this regard, our results are quite consistent with




several decades of investigations of efforts to democratize workplaces inother sectors.

APPENDIX AConstruction of Variables

DEPENDENT VARIABLE

School Organizational Capacity

Structure

School Size

• Number of students enrolled (standardized and reversed);M = 0; SD= 1.0.

Decentralized Authority

The extent of school control . . .

• over budget.• over staffing.• over curriculum.

Consensus scores on variables selected for coding using case study data. The sumof three items (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = .71.

Time for Meeting With Colleagues

• Do you participate in a regularly scheduled planning period with teachers?• How often do you meet with other teachers for a planning period?• Hours outside of class spent on committee work related to school or department

governance.

Composite measure; constructed as a factor from teacher survey items (standard-ized);aggregated to theschool level (standardized);M=0;SD=1.0.Cronbach’sα= .68.

Shared Commitment and Collaborative Activity

Professional Community Index

Shared Sense of Purpose

• Most of my colleagues share my beliefs and values about what the central mission of theschool should be.

• Goals and priorities for the school are clear.• In this school, the teachers and the administration are in close agreement on school disci-

pline policy items.




Composite measure; constructed as a factor from teacher survey (standardized);aggregated to the school level (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = .74.

Collaborative Activity

• How often since the beginning of the current school year did you receive useful sugges-tions for curriculum materials from colleagues in your department?

• How often . . . did youreceive useful suggestions for teaching techniques or studentactivities from colleagues in your department?

• There is a great deal of cooperative effort among staff members.• I make a conscious effort to coordinate the content of my courses with other teachers.• In a typical planning period when you meet with other teachers, about how much time is

spent [on coordinating content]?• Teachers decide common themes, suggest related materials and activities to guide

instruction.• From the beginning of the current school year, about how much time per month have you

spent meeting with other teachers on lesson planning, curriculum development, guid-ance and counseling, evaluation of programs, or other collaborative work related toinstruction?


Collective Focus on Student Learning

• How important are higher-level skills including reasoning, problem solving, criticalthinking, and creative thinking to your teaching as a goal for your students?

• Teachers focus on what and how well students are learning rather than how they areteaching (from coding).

• Teachers exhibit a reasonably focused commitment to authentic curriculum andinstruction.

• A focused school vision for student learning is shared by most staff in the school (fromcoding).

Composite measure; constructed as a factor from teacher survey and coding data(standardized); aggregated to the school level (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0. Cron-bach’sα = .61.

Deprivatized Practice

• How often do two or more teaching colleagues regularly observe your students’ aca-demic performance, or review their grades or test scores?

• Except for monitoring student teachers or substitute teachers, how often have you visitedanother teacher’s classroom to observe and discuss his or her teaching since the begin-ning of the current school year?

• Since the beginning of the current school year, how often has another teacher come toyour classroom to observe your teaching (exclude visits by student teachers or thoserequired for formal evaluations)?

• How often since the beginning of the current school year did you receive meaningfulfeedback on your performance from supervisors or peers?





Reflective Dialogue

• In a typical planning period when you meet with other teachers, about how much time isspent [on diagnosing individual students]? Teachers discuss problems of specific stu-dents and arrange appropriate help.

• In a typical planning period when you meet with other teachers, about how much time isspent [on analyzing teaching]? Teachers discuss specific teaching practices and behav-iors of team members.

• How often since the beginning of the current school year did you meet with colleagues todiscuss specific teaching behaviors?

Composite measure; constructed as a factor from teacher survey (standardized);aggregated to the school level (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = .68.The professional community index is constructed as the sum of the items (standard-ized);M = 0; SD= 1.0; Cronbach’sα = .77.

Teacher Professional Community (from coding)

• Shared Purpose: Teachers exhibit a reasonably focused commitment to authentic cur-riculum and instruction.

• Collaboration: Teachers work together on restructuring or on high-quality decisions thataffect their daily practice.

• Deprivatization of Practice: Teachers expose their own teaching to scrutiny by peers andadministration in order to improve.

• Reflective Dialogue: Conversations between teachers that focus on issues in education.

The professional community index from the coding reports is constructed as thesum of the items (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0; Cronbach’sα = .82.

Goal Consensus

Teachers were asked to rank the following items according to their importance asteaching goals from 1 (most important goal) to 7 (least important goal).

• Basic literacy skills (reading, math, writing, speaking).• Academic excellence or mastery of the subject matter of the course.• Higher-level skills (reasoning, problem solving, critical, and creative thinking).• Citizenship (understanding institution and public values).• Good work habits and self-discipline.• Personal growth and fulfillment (self-esteem, personal efficacy, self-knowledge).• Human relations skills (cultural understanding, getting along with others).

Level of school consensus on goals measured by Kendall’s W: Coefficient of Con-cordance (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0.

Teacher Responsibility for Student Learning




• My success or failure in teaching students is due primarily to factors beyond my controlrather than to my own efforts and ability (reversed).

• I sometimes feel it is a waste of time to try to do my best as a teacher (reversed).• I am certain I am making a difference in the lives of my students.• To what extent do you feel that you have been successful in providing the kind of educa-

tion you would like to provide for students in the target class?• The attitudes and habits my students bring to my class greatly reduce their chances for

academic success (reversed).• Many of the students I teach are not capable of learning the material I am supposed to

teach them (reversed).• I feel responsible for the students I teach but not for other students in the school (reversed).• In this school, are you likely to experience the following consequence as a direct result of

your students’ academic success or failure: public recognition in meetings of the facultyor the larger community, in school publications, or in the mass media and press?

• Teachers are expected to help maintain discipline in the entire school, not just theirclassroom.

• The level of student misbehavior (e.g., noise, horseplay, or fighting in the halls, cafete-ria, or student lounge) and/or drug or alcohol use in this school interferes with my teach-ing (reversed).


Emphasis on Staff ’s Problem-Solving Capability

• The school emphasizes staff responsibility for analyzing and solving school problems.

Consensus score on variable selected for coding using case study data; (1 = yes;0 = no).

Leadership

Intellectual Leadership

• The school has formal arrangements with institutions of higher education to assist withstaff development and curriculum.

• Is there evidence of significant intellectual leadership in the school?

Does the leadership come from:

• principal or other school-based administrator?• a teacher or group of teachers?• outside the school (district office, network, etc.)?

Composite measure; constructed from consensus scores on variables selected forcoding using case study data. The sum of five items (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0.Cronbach’sα = .66.

Supportive Leadership




• The school administration’s behavior toward the staff is supportive and encouraging.• The principal is interested in innovation and new ideas.• The principal influenced restructuring.

Constructed as a factor from items on the teacher survey; aggregated to the schoollevel (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = .71.

Leadership Style

• Nonauthoritarian leadership• Principal shares power with teachers

Consensus scores on variables selected for coding using case study data. The sumof two items (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = .62. Leadership index isthe sum of the component measures (standardized); Cronbach’sα = .60.

Knowledge and Skills

Professional Development

• Amount of staff development that focuses on authentic instruction and assessment(coding)

• Amount of staff development that focuses on student learning and teaching techniques(coding)

• Professional development is sustained and focused on the school’s goals as contrasted toshort-term or unrelated to school goals (coding).

Consensus scores on variables selected for coding using case study data. The sumof three items (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = 80.

Openness to Innovation

• Teachers in this school are continually learning and seeking new ideas.• In this school, I am encouraged to experiment with my teaching.

Composite measure constructed from the sum (standardized) of two teacher sur-vey items (standardized) and aggregated to the school level (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = .69.

Professional Competence

• Staff development programs in this school permit me to acquire important new knowl-edge and skills.

• How adequately does the respondent feel prepared to teach the subject matter covered inhis or her “target” class?

Composite measure constructed survey data. Each item (standardized) andsummed (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = .71. The index is a compos-ite measure, constructed as the sum of its components (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0.Cronbach’sα = .81.




Feedback and Accountability

Standards and Sanctions

• Are individual teachers judged by standards related to any of the following: students’academic performance (scores, grades), other student outcomes (discipline, collegeadmission, attendance), or the teacher’s instructional behavior?

• If yes, are the standards implicit?• If yes, are the standards explicit?• Are individual teachers subject to any significant consequences for meeting or failing to

meet standards in any of the areas listed in the (above) question? (Significant conse-quences include financial [salary or bonus incentives], formal discipline or admonition,change in individual teaching assignments, etc.)

Composite measure constructed from consensus scores on variables selected forcoding using case study data. The sum of four items (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0.Cronbach’sα = .68.

Parental Influence on Policy

• Extent of parental influence on school restructuring• Parents are involved with staff in decisions about child’s educational program and

reviewing child’s progress.• Parents raise money for important school activities including educational activities.• Parents serve as advisers on school committees that make recommendations and policy.• Parents help make important school decisions and policy by serving on a governance

council.

Teacher survey item (standardized) and coding items (dichotomous, coded 1 =yes, 0 = no) summed; aggregated to the school level (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0.Cronbach’sα = .83.

Respect

• I feel accepted and respected as a colleague by most staff members.

To what extent do you feel respected as a teacher by . . .

• other teachers?• your department chair?• your principal (or equivalent)?• your district office?• student’s parents?• your students?• this community?

Composite measure constructed from teacher surveys as the sum (standardized) ofeight items (standardized); aggregated to the school level (standardized);M = 0;SD=




1.0. Cronbach’sα = .79. The index is a composite measure, constructed as the sum ofits components (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0. Cronbach’sα = .81.

School Organizational Capacity Index

• Structure• Shared commitment and collaborative activity• Knowledge and skills• Supportive leadership• Feedback and accountability

The school organizational capacity index is constructed as the sum of its five com-ponent constructs (standardized); Cronbach’sα = .75.

MEASURES OF TEACHER EMPOWERMENT

School Policy Domain

• Teacher influence over school policy: determining the content of inservice programs• Teacher influence over school policy: planning school building budgets• Teacher influence over school policy: determining specific professional and teaching

assignments• Teacher influence over school policy: determining the school’s schedule (including

teacher prep periods)• Teacher influence over school policy: establishing the school curriculum• Teacher influence over school policy: hiring new professional personnel

Constructed as a factor from teacher survey data (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0.Cronbach’sα = .85.

Student Experiences Domain

• Teacher influence over school policy: determining student behavior codes.• Teacher influence over school policy: setting policy on grouping students in class by

ability.• How much control do you . . .have in yourtarget classover disciplining students?

Constructed as a factor from teacher survey data (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0.Cronbach’sα = .70.

Teacher Work Life Domain

• Staff are involved in making decisions that affect them.• I have influence on the decisions within the school that directly affect me.




Constructed as the sum of items from teacher survey data (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0; Cronbach’sα = .85.

Classroom Control Domain

• How much control do you feel you have in yourtarget classover selecting textbooks andother instructional materials?

• How much control do you feel you have in yourtarget classover selecting content, top-ics, skills to be taught?

• How much control do you feel you have in yourtarget classover selecting teachingtechniques?

Constructed as the sum of items from teacher survey data (standardized);M = 0;SD= 1.0; Cronbach’sα = .71.

Empowerment Index

• Empowerment over School Policy• Empowerment over Student Experiences• Empowerment over Teacher Experiences• Control over Classroom Instruction

Index sums the empowerment constructs (standardized);M = 0; SD= 1.0; Cron-bach’sα = .60.

APPENDIX B

We begin by estimating the amount of variation in school capacity for organiza-tional learning that exists within and among schools: how much variation, potentially,may be accounted for by differences in teacher empowerment. To do this, we use theHLM unconditional model (one with no predictors at either level) as a one-way analy-sis of variance with random effects.

The combined HLM model for this analysis may be represented as follows:

Y ij = γ00+ U0j + rij

with Y ij, the level of empowerment for individuali in schoolj; γ00, the grand mean; U0j,the school effect; and rij, the individual effect. According to this model, the variance ofthe outcome is

Var(Yij) = Var(U0j + rij) = τ00 + σ2

with τ representing the between-school variability andσ2 representing the within-school variability.




To estimate the relationship of empowerment to school capacity for organizationallearning, we employ HLM in a means-as-outcome model. Our strategy is to test em-powerment in each of its domains and as an index for its effect on school-average ca-pacity for organizational learning. For this series of analyses, we adjust for differ-ences among teachers within schools that may affect the school capacity for organiza-tional learning. Thus, we specify a within-school HLM model (incorporating the con-trols described below).

The within-school or Level 1 model investigates the school capacity for organiza-tional learning for teacheri in schoolj, Yij, as a function of background control vari-ables Xijs (e.g., gender, years of teaching experience, academic faculty status, and theindividual’s level of satisfaction in teaching at his or her present school), the individ-ual teacher’s personal sense of empowerment in each of the domains, and as an indexof the domains.

Y ij = β0 j + BjkX ijk + rij

β0j indicates the average level of organizational learning capacity for the teachers inschoolj. Theβjk regression coefficients represent the relationship of school organiza-tional learning capacity to the measured characteristics of teachers within schoolj. Inthis model, because the relationship of the measured characteristics of teachers to theoutcomes did not vary significantly between schools, the parameters are fixed (i.e., setto zero, rather than allowed to vary randomly between schools).

The school-level model contains a single measure of empowerment as a predictorof school organizational capacity:

β0 j = γ00 + γ01W1j + U0j

with W1j representing a between-school empowerment predictor (e.g., empowermentover school policy).




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APPENDIX CMiddle-Range Teacher Empowerment and the Capacity for Organizational Learning in Three High Schools

Cibola Huron Island

Empowerment Teachers are responsible for all policies Decisions made in representative Historically greater than at present.over student governing student behaviors, including committees that include students, parents, Teachers voted out a participatoryexperiences both discipline and academic performance. and staff. Curriculum, faculty advisory, management system in 1991; since

Teachers set graduation standards, which and student governance committees most then, administrators make mostare performance based, and decide when responsible for student decisions. Routine decisions. Teachers make somea student has met them. These are decisions made by vote; nonstructured decisions about student awards anddecided in meetings of the whole faculty. consensus process used to decide more the development of student support

controversial issues. programs (especially for at-risk youth).Empowerment A representative teacher cabinet hires new Decisions made in representative Historically greater than at present.over teacher teachers. Teachers are responsible for committees (see above). Curriculum, staff Teachers voted out a participatorywork life developing the school’s curriculum; development, and improvement com- management system in 1991; since

decisions about curriculum are made in mittees most responsible for school- then, administrators make mostgrade-level and interdisciplinary teams. wide decisions affecting teachers’ work. decisions. Administrators assignMost inservice education is provided Routine decisions made by vote; an teachers to teams. Teams arewithin the school, but makes heavy use informal consensus process is used for represented at weekly meetings, butof outside resources; teachers determine controversial issues. Curriculum com- make few decisions. Efforts tothe issues that they want to address. mittee is highly influential and must reintroduce site-based management

approve all curriculum proposals. (SBM) in 1994 motivated by teachers’desires to influence their own schedules,not by interest in school reform.

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Structure Approximately 450 students (Grades 7 to Approximately 1,500 students (Grades 10 Approximately 1,250 students (Grades 912); students are organized in 2-year to 12); 60 teachers, 1 principal, 4 assistant to 12); 56 teachers; a three-personblocks; 34 teachers are organized into principals. Department role less than in administrative team (no principal). Thegrade teams and two departments: math/ most high schools; no department chairs. school is located in three differentscience and English/social studies. Two Major committees (governance, curricu- buildings and divided into fouradministrators (no principal). Teachers lum, budget and professional growth) divisions (9-10, 11-12, At Risk,work in teams, pairing a math/science carry out most work; ad hoc committees Technology Magnet Program). Gradesand English/ social studies teacher and a formed as necessary. About half of the 9 through 10 teachers are teamed forgroup of approximately 40 students. The staff is involved in a significant com- core subjects; 11 through 12 teachersmost important unit for teacher and mittee work. Teachers serve as advisers/ are not. Students are not teamed. Fewstudent work is the grade-level team. monitors for students. Problems with formal committees function regularly.

alternate day block schedule. Physicalplant facilitates teacher meetings.

Shared com- The school is clearly focused on two Common statement of beliefs, complex but Very limited focus. A “Christmas tree”mitment and goals: (a) teaching students to use their frequently discussed, emphasizes student school, where many entrepreneurialcollaborative minds well and (b) preparing all students diversity within a core (untracked) teachers have initiated their ownactivity for college. All subjects other than math/ curriculum and diversified, student- innovations. The state’s reform effort

science and English/social studies are focused instruction. Reviewing it regularly focusing on raising student achieve-treated as extracurricular. The principles is viewed as an important form of ment on state standards was onlyof the Coalition of Essential Schools professional development, but for the slowly being discussed. A member ofguide curriculum and assessment 10th grade, staff rarely share ideas at a the Coalition for Essential Schools,activities. more detailed level. but few teachers are involved. Some

staff actively resist reform.Knowledge A relatively new school; opened in 1985. A relatively new school, opened in 1987 Few new teachers in the school; mostand skills Teachers are recruited to the school; the with the intent of being restructured. new teachers come from other schools

school is self-identified as innovative Principal and 12 teachers were involved in the district. Teacher teamsand alternative; teachers meet in teams in planning, including architecture. (pre-1991) were seen as divisive. An

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and as a whole during every day and 10th-grade teams have common planning initial restructuring effort begun inweek; teachers have high respect for the time and interdisciplinary curriculum. 1988 was voted out in 1991; a newexpertise of others and use them as “Western individualism” supports restructuring project was started. Newresources. Teachers see their communal variation in instruction and assessment teachers teams have little time to meet.focus as rooted in “1960s” social within the common curriculum. Money Low levels of cooperation with aactivism values. New teachers may feel saved from not hiring department chairs history of disagreement among thelike outsiders for a while. High resources is used for staff development. Much staff over restructuring (most effortsfor staff development, mostly focused on professional development is individually are in the 9-10 division), and of morethe school as a whole. targeted. Strong sense of trust and respect experienced teachers being unwilling

for each other’s expertise among staff. to change schedules to meet studentand team needs. Resources for staffdevelopment in the district are high;little evidence that the school makesconsistent use of them.

Leadership The school leaders (one of whom started Original principal viewed as a “visionary” High turnover in the past few years, inthe school) are viewed as knowledgeable but not a good manager and rather the school and district. One popularabout alternative educational practices, controlling. Staff selected her successor, advocate for reform in the school wasand as able to “protect” the school from who has more consistently reinforced fired by a new superintendent forthe bureaucratic district environment the decision-making functions of questionable financial management,and to obtain waivers. Leaders connect the committees. which lowered teacher morale. Currentteachers to a network of innovative administrative team, which wasschools in the area. Leadership recommended to the superintendent bytransitions have been less democratic a committee of parents, teachers, and athan some teachers would prefer. faculty member from a local university,

APPENDIX C Continued

Cibola Huron Island

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Leaders have been active in raising makes most decisions, but is viewed asmoney for the school, which does not arbitrary by staff. Superintendent isoperate on a “standard” district budget; viewed as cautious with regard tomost of the additional money goes for reform.teacher professional development.

Feedback and Mutual accountability for instruction and No district pressure on teachers, but Strong state reform agenda imposesaccountability student success. Peer review support teachers do feel accountable to colleagues standards, mandates, and performance

groups assist teachers who need help to and the community. School must submit expectations. Students report to stateteach according to Cibola’s vision and improvement plan annually (addressing on their instructional experiences.standards. System of external review achievement, attendance, graduation Teachers experience pressure for theiropens staff, curriculum, instruction, and rate) to district team of parent represent- students to perform and producestudent work to regular and ongoing atives for approval. School reports subject acceptable portfolios.evaluation. to district audit.

Extent of The school is designated as “alternative” District has a strong site-based management The school has responsibility for hiringdecentralization and does not report to the superintendent program. Huron has had freedom from teachers in conformity with the union

who is responsible for the regular high district regulations for longer than the contract, scheduling, and spendingschools. There are many exemptions formal program. Union opposition has instructional support money for fieldfrom state and district regulations on made a full block schedule difficult. Main trips, supplies, and so on. District iscurriculum and testing. Level of autonomy external pressure is from right-wing not viewed as very supportive, and theis high. groups who object to the curriculum. district union has a track record of

intervening in opposition to site-baseddecisions.

School location/ Inner city of a large metropolitan area; Large blue-collar suburb with open Medium-sized city; student populationStudent demo- students predominantly minority enrollment in four high schools; predominantly poor with low rate ofgraphics (80% African American and Hispanic) approximately 20% minority, mostly postsecondary participation.

and poor. Hispanic. Prior academic performance of Approximately 45% minority, mostlystudents who enroll is relatively low. African American.

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NOTES

1. Although decentralization is common to all the schools in this sample (a characteristicthat differentiates these schools from the majority of U.S. schools), considerable variation existsamong them. The amount of autonomy their districts have given them differs substantially, asdoes the extent to which participatory decision making is actually in effect (Marks & Louis,1997).

2. For reviews of the literature on teacher empowerment, see Malen, Ogawa, and Kranz(1990); Conley (1991); Smylie (1994); and Marks and Louis (1997).

3. Senge also identifies an additional characteristic, personal mastery, that is, in our view,more of an individual outcome than part of the process of organizational learning. It does recog-nize, however, that effective organizational learning cannot occur without individual learning aswell. See, also, Morgan and Ramirez (1983).

4. The center, located at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and funded by a grant fromthe Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Department of Educa-tion, was codirected by Fred M. Newmann and Gary G. Wehlage.

5. The Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools issued a broad national callfor the names of elementary, middle, and high schools that had made significant progress re-structuring in the areas of governance, professional life of teachers, students’ experiences ofschool, and the coordination of community services. Nominated schools were asked to completea questionnaire containing 38 questions to elicit the ways in which it restructured, each questionrequiring a simple “yes” or “no” answer.

The distribution of questions was as follows: governance (7), professional life of teachers(11), students’ school experiences (13), and the coordination of community services (7). Ques-tions included such items as: “Does the school exercise control over budget, staffing, and the cur-riculum?” “Has the school been divided into schools within schools, divisions, houses?” “Dostaff function in extended roles with students that involve advising and mentoring?” “Do teach-ers teach in teams?” “Do students spend most of their time in heterogeneous groups?” “Is timefor school learning organized flexibly rather than in periods of standard length?” “Does theschool have a systematic program for parent involvement in the academic life of students thatgoes beyond the normal activities of parent-teacher organizations, parents’night, and attendanceat extracurricular events?” “Does the school have formal mechanisms for coordinating withcommunity agencies offering services dealing with child care, drug and alcohol abuse, familydisruption, homelessness, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, crime and delinquency, economic wel-fare assistance, and parental employment and training?” For a complete listing of all 38 ques-tions, see Newmann and Associates (1996), pp. 303-305.

Center staff conducted follow-up phone interviews with all 301 nominated schools.Teams of researchers made preliminary visits to 57 schools that seemed particularly useful tostudy based on their questionnaire responses and the telephone interview. Of these, 24 were se-lected to participate in the study.

6. Compared with public schools nationally, schools in this sample are larger, enrolling, onaverage, 777 students compared with a national average of 522 students, and enroll more minor-ity students. In the sample elementary and middle schools, the National Assessment of Educa-tional Progress (NAEP) achievement levels in reading and mathematics are at or above the na-tional average. In the high schools, NAEP achievement is below the national average (a resultthat may be attributable to a high school sample of mostly 9th- and 10th-grade students taking a




NAEP test normed for 12th-grade students. For additional comparative information about char-acteristics of the sampled schools, see Marks and Louis, 1997.

7. The three-person research teams were constituted from a pool of 22 researchers. A teamcomprised at least one principal investigator or senior researcher from the center and at least oneresearch associate or advanced doctoral student. Each team visited its assigned school twice dur-ing the study year. Some of the researchers visited just one school, whereas other researchers vis-ited several schools over the 3-year period of the study. Team formation was school specific, andno two schools were visited by identical teams.

8. The coding items we summed to make particular composites (e.g., “DecentralizedAuthority,” Appendix A) were from the same item sets, therefore they were in identical metric.In forming an index by summing components (e.g., “School Structure,” Appendix A), the itemsor composites were first standardized (M = 0,SD= 1). In this way, we achieved consistency in theinterval scale metric among the variables used to form composite measures.

9. Employing confirmatory factor analysis in a second-order measurement model, weevaluated teacher empowerment as a theoretical construct that is separable into the four distinctdomains we have identified (the goodness-of- fit index [GFI] is .997). See Marks and Park(1995) for technical details on these models.

10 See Marks and Louis (1997) for an inquiry into within-school variation in teacher em-powerment.

11. The effect size (ES) metric is in standard deviation units, computed by dividing theHLM gamma coefficient that is standardized for continuous variables (M = 0,SD= 1), otherwisedummy coded (0, 1) by the HLM-estimated standard deviation for the appropriate outcome vari-able.

12. Cibola, a small alternative urban high school with 34 teachers, enrolls 450 students inGrades 7 through 12. Both Huron and Island are comprehensive urban high schools. Huron, a 10through 12 high school with 60 teachers, enrolls about 1,500 students. Island, a 9 through 12 highschool with 56 teachers, enrolls about 1,250 students.

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Teacher Empowerment and the Capacity for Organizational Learning

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