James P. Spillane
· Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change...Northwestern University · Social Policy Analysis and Evaluation
Active 1970–2025
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About
James P. Spillane is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. He also holds positions as a professor of Human Development and Social Policy, a professor of Learning Sciences, and a faculty associate at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research. Spillane has published extensively on issues related to education policy, organizational change, school leadership, and the relations between policy and teachers’ and administrators’ practice. His research focuses on policy implementation and the ways in which educational policies influence organizational practices within schools. He is known for his contributions to understanding how policy and practice intersect in educational settings, emphasizing organizational change and leadership in education.
Research topics
- Political Science
- Sociology
- Psychology
- Pedagogy
- Computer Science
- Mathematics education
- Public relations
Selected publications
Educational Policy · 2019-08-20 · 70 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingThe institutional environment of U.S. school systems has changed considerably over a quarter century as standards and test-based accountability became central ideas in policy texts and discourses about improving education. We explore how U.S. school systems are managing in this changed environment by focusing on system leaders’ sense-making about their environments as they attempt to build educational systems to improve instruction, the core technology of schooling. We identify the policy texts…
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis · 2022 · 50 citations
1st authorCorrespondingThis article examines how leaders in public, private, and hybrid educational systems manage competing pressures in their institutional environments. Across all systems, leaders responded to system-specific puzzles by (re)building systemwide educational infrastructures to support instructional coherence and framed these efforts as rooted in concerns about pragmatic organizational legitimacy. These efforts surfaced several challenges related to educational equity; leaders framed their responses to…
Journal of Research in Science Teaching · 2022 · 33 citations
Abstract The Next Generation Science Standards ( NGSS ), a reform effort “for states, by states,” advances ambitious ideals for elementary science teaching, but the fate of these ideals will depend in part on the engagement of state science coordinators ( SSCs ). This article explores the responses of SSCs to NGSS in a purposeful sample of 18 US states. Based on analysis of 19 interviews with 22 SSCs , we develop two arguments. First, SSCs ' ideas about improving elementary science education con…
Navigating the Principalship: Key Insights for New and Aspiring School Leaders
2019-08-19 · 27 citations
book1st authorCorrespondingEducational Policy · 2019-08-20 · 18 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingInstitutional theory, an important research tradition in analysis of schooling, has examined the development of mass schooling in the United States and worldwide. But research in this tradition has given little attention to the internal working of mass school systems, to problems of inequality and the quality of instruction, or to relating those problems to the organization and management of mass school systems. Building on the first three articles, which document how education system building h…
Recent grants
NSF · $1.1M · 1998–2005
NSF · $2.3M · 2004–2010
NSF · $1.6M · 2018–2025
Frequent coauthors
- 18 shared
John B. Diamond
Brown University
- 17 shared
Megan Hopkins
University of California, San Diego
- 11 shared
Matthew Shirrell
George Washington University
- 10 shared
David K. Cohen
- 9 shared
Donald J. Peurach
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- 8 shared
Eric M. Camburn
University of Missouri–Kansas City
- 8 shared
Patricia Burch
- 7 shared
Penelope L. Peterson
Labs
Education
- 1986
Ph.D., Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- 1982
M.A., Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- 1979
B.A., Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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