AJE May 2021 Issue | Muddy Waters: The Micropolitics of Instructional Coaches’ Work in Evaluation by Sarah Galey-Horn and Sarah l. Woulfin

The full-length American Journal of Education article “Muddy Waters: The Micropolitics of Instructional Coaches’ Work in Evaluation” by Sarah Galey-Horn and Sarah l. Woulfin can be accessed here.

Traditionally, coaches travel in a different lane than formal evaluators while working towards instructional improvement goals. As state and local educational systems take up new generation evaluation systems, however, professional development has become increasingly intertwined with evaluation (Woulfin et al. 2016). Thus, practitioners and researchers wonder: Can coaches participate in evaluation to alleviate administrative overload and foster coherent, equitable improvements to teaching? Under what conditions do coaches tread upon evaluation? How and why do they dance with the ideas of evaluation reform, as well as the explicit guidelines (e.g., professional standards for teaching) and tools (e.g., observational rubrics) of evaluation? And what are the benefits and cautions as coaches tread more and more into the domain of teacher evaluation? We applied micropolitics as a conceptual lens to respond to these questions about coaching in the evaluation policy context. Micropolitics enabled us to concentrate on the politics inherent in the workaday interactions of coaches, teachers, and administrators (Flessa 2009; Malen 1994). 

New academic standards (e.g., Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards) and new educator evaluation systems aim to change what is taught, how teachers teach, and, ultimately, student achievement and outcomes. These reforms place substantial  pressure on educators. To promote deeper levels of enactment of these types of reforms, many districts instituted coaching—with coaches providing contextualized, ongoing professional learning opportunities to teachers, monitoring data and classroom practice, and collaborating with district and school administrators (Galey 2016; Mangin & Dunsmore 2005; Woulfin 2020). 

During the same time period, states and districts instituted stricter educator evaluation systems, which mandated that principals evaluate teachers in specific ways (Donaldson & Woulfin 2018). These systems also mandated that teachers engage in multiple activities to set goals (i.e., student learning objectives), collect evidence on their work (e.g., samples of student work, lesson plans), and report progress to administrators. 

The Puzzle of Muddling Coaching and Evaluation

Coaches are well-positioned to build the capacity of teachers in ways aligned with evaluation systems and broker ideas about evaluation with leaders and teachers. Yet practitioners and researchers point to tensions between the developmental and accountability-oriented aspects of coaching (Aguilar 2013). For instance, if coaches participate in evaluation, teachers may view coaching as formal supervision rather than organic, personalized support. 

With practitioners situated at multiple levels of the education system concerned about negative consequences of coaches engaging in evaluation, questions remain about coaches’ roles and responsibilities associated with evaluation. For example, how should coaches assist with teachers’ goal setting or prepare teachers for a formal observation? How should coaches collaborate with principals on issues of evaluation? And how should coaching align with the evaluation rubric? Our article explores these hidden contours of coaches’ work and then identifies ways of refining coaching and evaluation to promote coherence. 

Drawing on micropolitics, this study combined case study data on the educative and political work of coaches. We analyzed qualitative data from five systems (three public school districts and two charter management organizations) across three states to illuminate coaches’ roles and activities in the evaluation policy context. 

Coaches’ Micropolitical Strategies

Our AJE article depicts five micropolitical strategies coaches used while enacting evaluation. It describes the convergence strategies of mirroring, co-producing, and brokering in which coaches braided together coaching with evaluation. It also lays out the divergence strategies of downplaying and avoiding in which coaches separated coaching from evaluation.

We present coaches’ activities associated with three components of evaluation: goal setting, observation-feedback, and ratings. We highlight how coaches strategically decided to meld evaluation with–or divorce it from– instructional coaching tasks. Goal-setting, for example, was frequently an opportunity to marry instructional support with local evaluation systems. A coach shared:

I will do a mock SLO [student learning objective], and I will provide the data for that grade level for those teachers….I try to help them understand what the percentiles are when it comes to reading scores….try to help them figure out which non-district assessment they’re going to use for their SLO…

This reflection demonstrates how coaches appropriated and redeployed components of evaluation to support teacher development in the area of student data use. This quote also shows that convergence activities sometimes entailed demystifying technical aspects of evaluation, which, in turn, helped coaches build trust with teachers. 

Our results show that, yes, coaches’ work extends to the domain of evaluation. Across systems, coaches wove together coaching and evaluation; this supported teachers’ and administrators’ sensemaking of evaluation, brought together the teachers’ and administrators’ expectations on instruction and evaluation, and reduced the administrative burden for teachers. While maintaining cooperative relationships, coaches took up the principles and practices of evaluation systems. 

Yet coaches separated coaching from some components of evaluation to prevent conflict with teachers and maintain a focus on their educative role. Coaches did not want to veer too far into the political domain or be seen as spies. While instituting divergence strategies, coaches downplayed the significance of evaluation activities and prioritized other instructional reforms. For instance, many coaches from public school districts downplayed evaluation by minimizing the physical cues associated with formal observations. As one coach reported:

I walk in. I don’t have anything. You don’t have a pen or a pencil, because I don’t want them to think that I’m there observing. I’m there to learn. That’s why I’m here. I’m a teacher in a classroom.

In this manner, coaches strove to allay teachers’ anxiety related to the observation process and to draw distinctions between observations for teacher learning versus evaluation. Further, when formal ratings entered the picture, divergence activities tended to intensify, with coaches painting themselves as non-evaluators. 

Contributions to Scholarship and Implications for Practice

Our analyses of coaches’ involvement in evaluation quash the notion that coaching is immune from evaluation. Rather than exhorting that coaches should not be involved in evaluation, researchers and leaders should consider how coaches are enmeshed in the structures and practices of evaluation. These findings advance the field’s understanding of coaches as mediators of evaluation policy with a vital role in instructional improvement. We encourage future research on the micropolitics of coaching, including how coaches navigate contentious policies and cooperate with various actors.

If leaders acknowledge and legitimize coaches’ enactment of facets of evaluation, they can improve the design and enactment of both evaluation and coaching systems. First, we encourage district leaders to analyze when, where, and how principals, coaches, and teachers conduct the work of evaluation, ranging from facilitating professional development on rubrics and drafting student learning objectives to observing instruction and providing feedback to teachers. To meet needs, district leaders should provide professional learning opportunities for each type of educator implementing evaluation and provide other supports (e.g., time, streamlined paperwork) to reduce the burden on educators. We highlight these supports would assist in shifting away from the compliance model of evaluation. This is especially relevant as states and districts continue to implement ESSA’s multiple measures framework, which, at least in theory, separates the instructional core from the rigid definition of teacher quality based on student test scores promulgated by the NCLB accountability regime.

Second, we recommend that district leaders build the capacity of coaches so they can better conduct micropolitical work coupled with reforms. This would include professional development for coaches on current reforms and leadership strategies as well as ongoing support tied to coaches’ work with teachers and leaders. For instance, during coach professional development, coaches could role-play a contentious conversation with a teacher about instructional gaps and then receive feedback to better navigate thorny issues. Additionally, district leaders could institute routines ensuring coaches and principals communicate about how coaching will be melded with evaluation and other key reforms to reach strategic goals. These professional supports for coaches would foster coherence between evaluation and coaching with the potential to improve principals’ workload in addition to teachers’ instruction.

Finally, by revising evaluation and coaching systems, district leaders would enable coaches to more strongly influence instructional improvement, distribute leadership tasks, cultivate coherence, and work towards equitable learning opportunities for students.

References

Aguilar, Elena. 2013. The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Donaldson, Morgaen and Sarah Woulfin. 2018. “From tinkering to going “Rogue”: How principals use agency when enacting new teacher evaluation systems.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

Flessa, Joseph. 2009. “Educational Micropolitics and Distributed Leadership.” Peabody Journal of Education 84 (3): 331-349.

Galey, Sarah. 2016. “The evolving role of instructional coaches in US policy contexts.” The William & Mary Educational Review 4, no. 2 (2016): 11.

Malen, Betty. 1994. “The Micropolitics of Education: Mapping the Multiple Dimensions of Power Relations in School Polities.” Journal of Education Policy 9 (5): 147-167.

Mangin, Melinda M. and KaiLonnie Dunsmore. 2015. “How the Framing of Instructional Coaching as a Lever for Systemic or Individual Reform Influences the Enactment of Coaching.” Educational Administration Quarterly 51 (2): 179-213.

Woulfin, Sarah L. 2020. “Crystallizing coaching: An examination of the institutionalization of instructional coaching in three educational systems.” Teachers College Record.

Woulfin, Sarah L., Morgaen L. Donaldson, and Richard Gonzales. 2016. District leaders’ framing of educator evaluation policy. Educational Administration Quarterly, 52(1), 110-143.