Undoing Reform: How and Why One School Leader Cleared a Shifting Path to Goal Attainment

Abstract

Research on school reform highlights challenges school leaders face in implementing and sustaining reforms. While some efforts fade away, others are intentionally dismantled, or “undone” as schools revert back to their traditional model of schooling. Considering how often reforms fail to sustain, there is value in understanding why school leaders decide undo reforms, and how leaders support staff through the undoing process. Utilizing path-goal theory as a framework, this paper I examined the case of one elementary school principal who planned in this undoing of a competency-based reform she had previously championed. Analysis reveals that the shift back to a traditional approach to instruction was in response to changes in state policies and district resource allocations, and that the type of support the school leader provided to teachers during the undoing was strongly influenced by the characteristics of the each stage of the process.