State Policy and the Non-Monolithic Nature of the Local School District: Organizational and Professional Considerations

This article examines how the local school district’s non-monolithic character undermines state level efforts to create more coherent guidance for instruction of teachers. Exploring two school districts’ responses to a state reading policy, the author suggests that what the school district does by way of enacting state policy is not always internally homogenous: The image of the school district that emerges is one of a non-monolithic agency of instructional guidance. Attempting to unravel and explain the internal variation in the school district’s response to state policy, the author considers the school district’s organizational arrangements as well as the professional specializations and associations of district staff.