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10.3102/00028312231161037  \nArticle reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)  \n􀀂 2023 The Author(s) . [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/aer](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/aer)  \n‘‘The Good Struggle’’ of Flexible Specificity: Districts Balancing Specific Guidance With Autonomy to Support Standards-Based Instruction  \nAmy Stornaiuolo  \nUniversity of Pennsylvania  \nLaura Desimone  \nUniversity of Delaware  \nMorgan Polikoff University of Southern California  \nThis study examines implementation of college-and-career-ready (CCR) education standards across five school districts in Ohio, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. Drawing on the policy attributes theory, we found that the specificity of districts’ approaches to two long-recognized policy levers, curriculum and professional learning, was critical in shaping how stakeholders implemented and experienced CCR policies. We identified an approach we called ‘‘flexible specificity’’—flexibility informed by ongoing data collection and evaluation that allowed districts to develop specific, useful guidance about curriculum and professional learning based on stakeholder needs. We present four shared practices characterizing this approach in two  \nAMY STORNAIUOLO is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, 3700 Walnut St. Philadelphia, PA 19104; email: amystorn@upenn.edu. Her research examines how digital technologies shape teaching and learning, particularly the implications of digital literacies for equitable public education and the role multiple actors play in implementing change at various scales.  \nLAURA DESIMONE is director of research and a professor at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware; email: [lauramd@udel.edu](lauramd@udel.edu. Dr)[. Dr](lauramd@udel.edu. Dr). Desimone’s studies the implementation and effects of policies on teachers and students, with an emphasis on understanding how we can best support teacher learning in the context of district, school, and classroom improvement efforts.  \nMORGAN POLIKOFF is an associate professor at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education; [email:](email: polikoff@usc.edu. His)[ polikoff@usc.edu](email: polikoff@usc.edu. His)[. His](email: polikoff@usc.edu. His) research investigates the design, implementation, and effects of standards-based reforms; his book Beyond Standards was published by Harvard Education Press in 2021 . He also leads state and nationally representative surveys on Americans’ educational experiences and education policy views.  \nStornaiuolo et al.  \ndistricts, analyzing why those districts seemed to find the right balance of specificity and flexibility while others struggled.  \nKEYWORDS: curriculum, professional development, professional learning, specificity, policy attributes, standards  \nThirty years into the standards movement, the fundamental challenge  \nremains the same—how to bring about meaningful implementation at scale. These challenges are heightened under the most recent version of standards-based reform, college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards. CCR standards, of which the Common Core standards (CCS) are an example, represent an effort to address the shortcomings of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)–era state standards. They are intended to raise the bar for rigor and prepare students for success in college and in their careers. Indications are that in the CCR era, as before, implementation of standards in the classroom is not what policy designers would have hoped (e.g., Kaufman et al., 2018) . Evidence from case studies, surveys, and quasi-experiments suggests considerable unevenness in standards implementation, whether from inadequate orunaligned curricula (Blazar et al., 2020; Polikoff, 2015); unstable, and often competing, federal, state, and district ","cbCaioEm1vYvNFfB","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaioEm1vYvNFfB","pdf",654968,41,"English","# Introduction\n## Policy context and implementation challenges\n# Policy attributes theory framework\n## How education actors interpret policy\n# Flexible specificity approach\n## Practices supporting standards-based instruction","[{\"question\":\"What standards and school contexts does the study focus on?\",\"answer\":\"The study examines implementation of college-and-career-ready (CCR) education standards across five districts in Ohio, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the study propose as “flexible specificity”?\",\"answer\":\"“Flexible specificity” is an approach where flexibility is informed by ongoing data collection and evaluation, enabling districts to develop specific, useful guidance for curriculum and professional learning based on stakeholder needs.\"},{\"question\":\"Which policy attributes does the study use to explain implementation quality?\",\"answer\":\"Implementation quality is framed as a function of specificity, consistency, authority, power, and stability of the policy and the actors involved.\"}]","“The Good Struggle” of Flexible Specificity - Districts Balancing Specific Guidance With Autonomy to Support Standards-Based Instruction | PDF",1792071331,103]