SUSTAINING SECONDARY SCHOOL VISIONS OVER TIME: RESISTANCE, RESILIENCE AND EDUCATIONAL REFORM

This article focuses upon the sustainability of secondary school visions during a period of increasingly complex economic, social, demographic, and accountability driven change (1970-1990). Much of the classic change literature of this period highlights the failure of teachers to implement reform, and implicitly leans towards overcoming their resistance with short-term solutions so that external mandates can be institutionalized more effectively. Longitudinal studies are rarely attempted that consider the cumulative impact of both internal and external "change forces'' upon teachers, or that identify the conditions necessary to ensure the sustainability of a schools vision "over time''. Viewed through the lens of resiliency, this article explores data from two high schools that participated in the Change Over Time Study (Spencer Foundation Grant number 199800214). Data suggest that not only can teacher resistance to innovation make good sense, but also, under certain conditions rarely supported by standardized reform, it can evoke a resilient, even activist, self-renewing response to change otherwise perceived to be disruptive or harmful to their school's founding vision.