Can Continuous Improvement Transform Attendance Practices? Evidence From a Research-Practice Partnership in Detroit

• In Event: Adapting Continuous Improvement Methods to Advance Equity-Related Goals

Abstract

With a set of principles and related routines and practices, continuous improvement is meant to support policymakers, practitioners, and researchers as they adapt promising policies and practices to local contexts and improve them in implementation (Cohen-Vogel et al., 2015). Continuous improvement in schools has mostly been applied to classroom teaching and learning (Cobb & Wilhelm, 2022). Yet, schools are increasingly attentive to and even made accountable for a range of student outcomes beyond academics (e.g., attendance, social/emotional development). How well do the principles and tools of continuous improvement translate to domains outside of the “technical core” of schooling, and what are the implications for the role of continuous improvement in advancing educational equity?

Our study reports on an effort to embed continuous improvement practices in the work of attendance agents—school-based personnel focused on increasing attendance and decreasing chronic absenteeism—in the Detroit public school district. As part of our research-practice partnership, we worked with district personnel to train attendance agents on continuous improvement, and oversaw their application of improvement methods in their schools. Drawing on two years of qualitative data from interviews, observations, and artifacts, we address the following questions:

In what ways did attendance agents adopt the routines, tools, and processes of continuous improvement?
What institutional and organizational factors mediated attendance agents’ adoption and implementation of continuous improvement?
To what extent did attendance agents’ adoption or implementation of continuous improvement transform attendance practice in schools and the district?

Continuous improvement helped attendance agents identify root causes of attendance, but did not significantly shift attendance agent practices. In some cases, attendance agents shifted their view of the issue, yet others maintained prior perspectives (often rooted in deficit views of parents and students). Further, unclear role definition, large workloads, and limited collaboration and authority in their schools led attendance agents to remain committed to a defined set of practices and limited their engagement with improvement methods.

Our study contributes to the literature on continuous improvement generally and in relation to equity goals specifically. Yurkofsky et al. (2020) note that continuous improvement is best suited to problems for which there is sufficient local knowledge, clear boundaries of knowledge and practice, and a defined role for existing system authorities. Though pupil accounting is an old practice (Hutt, 2018), attendance-promoting practices are not well-defined, and attendance issues are “ecological” in nature (Authors, 2021). Our study thus offers useful evidence on the potential to translate continuous improvement to domains beyond instruction. In terms of the role of continuous improvement for improving equity, improving attendance requires attention to a combination of in-school and (especially) out-of-school factors. While continuous improvement may help embed equity logics in school and district processes (Bush-Meneces, 2022), it may not deal adequately with the relational and political dimensions of practice necessary to sufficiently address out-of-school barriers to attendance (Yurkofsky et al., 2020). Our findings offer insight on opportunities and limits of continuous improvement to support equity goals in attendance improvement and suggest the need to combine CI with other perspectives and approaches.

Authors

• Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Wayne State University
  Presenting Author

• Danica Brown, Wayne State University
  Presenting Author

• Jeremy L. Singer, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author