Slowing Entropy: Instructional Policy Design in New York City, 2011-12

District policy makers never have more potential influence than when they are crafting a policy. They hold an abundance of choices about the ways they might frame the policy; the language they could use to communicate the policy; the resources they could expend to support the policy; and how they choose to situate the policy within other existing and planned policies and initiatives. Yet, once they introduce the policy into the world, its entropy begins, as the objects of the policy interpret, reframe, and situate it within their own priorities, contexts, and interests. In this paper, Dr. Jonathan Supovitz argues that the success of an instructional policy depends to some extent on the choices made in its crafting before it is let loose upon the world. The way a policy is framed and designed has important implications for the way people receive and understand it, and the extent to which they respond to it. The choices embedded within its design are essentially a set of signals that interact with a variety of influences, both real and perceptual, as it is received, interpreted, and enacted upon by its intended audience.