Redesigning the School Improvement Planning Process Into an Instrument of Educational Equity: The Case of a Research-Practice Partnership

• In Event: What Makes School Districts Effective?

Abstract

For decades, districts have had school leaders complete school improvement plans (SIPs) to fulfill federal funding requirements and to hold schools accountable for results. Perhaps not surprisingly, research on SIPs underscores that teachers and leaders experience them as compliance instruments—not actual plans that they thoughtfully develop and continuously use for improvement (Mintrop & MacLellen, 2002). Research increasingly shows that continuous improvement involves the ongoing use of progressively better data to (1) understand the current state of student learning and teacher and leader practice at each school and (2) support the growth of teachers’ instruction (e.g. Bernhardt, 2017; Bryk, et al., 2015; Mintrop, 2017; Spillane & Louis, 2002). How can district leaders fundamentally transform their SIP process from a compliance exercise into a driver of true school improvement?

We have been investigating this question through a Research-Practice Partnership with a mid-sized urban school district. Before the SIP redesign effort, school principals reported that they viewed the SIP as a report they had to complete for the district, that they generally wrote the report alone, and rarely used it as a guide for their improvement efforts. Three years into a redesign process, principals now experience the SIP as an inquiry-based improvement process. Principals lead school-level teams in developing a three-year vision to guide their annual planning; using data to pinpoint the current state of student learning; supporting teachers in conducting rigorous self-assessments of their current ability to realize those goals and strategies; and developing, implementing and continuously monitoring their plans to support teacher and leader learning in support of their school improvement goals.

What explains how this district was able to fundamentally shift their SIP processes from compliance to continuous improvement?

We anchored our examination of this question in a conceptual framework that draws on Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), which identifies processes by which people in complex organizations to fundamentally redesign their core work. Our data come from observations of over 100 hours of meetings with district and school leaders and they designed and implemented their new SIP. We supplemented these observations with district and school leader interviews and focus groups involving approximately 50 individuals.

We found that these leaders consistently employed several strategies consistent with what CHAT suggests is necessary for fundamental work redesign. First, the district convened a “design team” of stakeholders to participate in the redesign process. Early phases of these meetings focused on understanding research on continuous improvement and creating what CHAT refers to as contradictions— persistent opportunities for participants to confront the mismatch between what the research suggested was possible with the SIP and their current state. Contradictions also helped participants bring imagination to the SIP and break the myth that the SIP could not be changed.

This paper begins to explicate what fundamental redesign of core district improvement processes likely entails, and provides ample descriptive evidence for how district leaders might engage in redesign processes.

Authors

• Lydia Rainey, University of Washington

• Meredith I. Honig, University of Washington