Institutionalization and the Reform Process: A System Dynamics Perspective

Abstract

This article examines educational reform as a function of a systemic process. School districts are viewed as dynamic systems that use reforms to reinforce their equilibrium as institutionalized organizations. It is argued that institutionalization effectively blocks formal feedback to decision makers and that educational reforms exhibit an alternating pattern resulting from the operation of a default feedback process based on reaction to undesirable side effects generated by those reforms. Reform is seen not as a vehicle of improvement but as a means of perpetuating the condition of institutionalization. System dynamics is suggested as a perspective and methodology for effecting systemic change.

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