In the NIC of Time: Sustaining Networked Improvement Communities Following the Withdrawal of External Support

• In Event: Networked Improvement Communities (NICs): Understanding the NIC Model for Improvement and Scaling

Abstract

Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) are increasingly being formed as a strategic way to address the challenges of scale and sustainability in educational reforms (Bryk et al., 2013). The research described here comes from a six-year partnership between our research team and a large district to establish a districtwide NIC to improve high schools. This paper uses social network theory to understand how these NICs survived the removal of external support while still attempting to scale and sustain the improvement efforts in their respective schools. Following the gradual release of external support, key stakeholders in the network remained empowered to carry forward the improvement work, although there were fewer overall connections.

Authors

• Ela Joshi, Vanderbilt University

• Christopher Redding, University of Florida

• Marisa Cannata