Managing in the Middle: School Leaders and the Enactment of Accountability Policy

Abstract

This article investigates how mid-level managers make sense of and mediate district accountability policy. Arguing that teachers’evolving perceptions and understanding of accountability policies are likely to be mediated by school leaders, the authors explore how school managers enact their policy environments, focusing chiefly on the ways in which they construct district accountability policies. Adopting a cognitive or interpretive frame on implementation, the authors illuminate how school leaders’ sense-making is situated in their professional biographies, building histories, and roles as intermediaries between the district office and classroom teachers.