240 Journal of School Leadership Volume 16—May 2006 JEFFREY S. BROOKS Tinkering Toward Utopia or Stuck in a Rut? School Reform Implementation at Wintervalley High ABSTRACT: This article presents findings from a 2-year qualitative study that ex- amined teacher and administrator involvement with implementation of school re- form initiatives in a public secondary school. Findings suggest that implementa- tion had both positive and negative consequences. Although reforms advanced the school’s ongoing discussion about continuous improvement and promoted some useful procedural change, the reform negatively changed some work con- ditions for teachers. This study prompts educators to consider the importance of context and perspective, both historically and in situ, during educational reform implementation. In many schools across the country, educators are leading the charge for educational change and reform with exuberance, innovation, and acumen (Barth, 1990; David, 1989). Broadly speaking, nearly all reforms at the school level share the central aim of improving the educational situations of students. However, each reform initiative typically advocates change in different aspects of the school and measures the relative success or failure of the work using dissimilar indicators. Research-based recommendations regarding changes in instruction and curriculum (Gardner, 2000; McCombs & Quiat, 2002; Swanson & Stevenson, 2002), leadership, (Fullan, 1997; Mur- phy, Beck, Crawford, Hodges, & McGauphy, 2001; Sergiovanni, 1996), and the use of data to guide teachers and administrators in educational deci- sion making (Johnson, 2002; Scheurich & Skrla, 2003) abound. Further- Address correspondence to: Jeffrey S. Brooks, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, 113 M Stone Building, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306. E-mail: jbrooks@coe.fsu.edu. 06-357 (03) Brooks.qxd 6/13/06 3:41 PM Page 240