ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the issues of sustainability and expiration that is the ability of educational reforms to endure over time. It demonstrates that reform sustainability or expiration is a joint accomplishment of multiple actors in the classroom, school, district, design team, and state government offices. In the agency-based set of explanations, reforms are not sustained because of the misdeeds of social actors. The chapter presents a case study of special education implementation that emphasizes the power of local conditions to modify reform. District support for reform, or at least a commitment that the district will enable rather than hinder long-term implementation, is critical to sustaining reform at the school level. Like districts, states play an active role in and sustaining reforms. The chapter shows that structures and cultures do not exist “out there” but rather are the contingent outcomes of practical activities of individuals.
