Improvement Science Through an Endarkened Lens

• In Event: As Instructive as It Is Informative: Using Black Educational History to Prepare School Leaders for Equity

Abstract

The objectives of the second presentation are twofold. The first is to discuss Improvement Science (Langley et. al, 2009; Bryk et. al, 2015) as a methodological framework for guiding scholar-practitioners in a systematic approach to continuous improvement, namely illustrating its capacity for achieving equity. Second, the presentation will show how Improvement Science is part of Black educators’ historical legacies for seeking school improvement, and when leveraged as such, can be used as an inquiry-based model for addressing complex problems of practice related to equity and justice.

As a research model, Improvement Science fills an important skills gap in educational leadership preparation for equity and social justice. Specifically, it provides actionable steps that educational leaders can follow to define their schooling community’s equity problems, understand how the system produces the problems, identify changes to rectify problems, test the efficacy of those changes, and spread changes related to improvement (Author, 2020). Such an approach, while aligned with more commonly-used inquiry models like equity audits (Theoharis et. al, 2020), pushes practitioner-scholars beyond identification of problems into a cyclical, iterative process for achieving continuous improvement. The model also shows aspiring school leaders what socially-just research can look like, which is an effective way to prepare educational leaders for equity-focused leadership (Furman, 2012).

The proposed model uses Dillard’s (2000) Endarkened Epistemologies framework to articulate how improvement, when based on historical contexts, can shift not only how research is conducted, but for what purposes. In this case, for equity and justice. For example, I use Improvement Science and encourage aspiring school leaders to take up the model because, like other equity-minded educational leadership researchers and the Black educators who came before me (Foster, 1997; Siddle Walker, 1996): I care about students; I continue to be unnerved by disparities in access to educational opportunities; and, I am a proponent of systematic ways to tackle education’s big problems like equity and justice. I also use it because the desire for improvement is central to my positionality as Black Christian woman, mother, daughter, and scholar; and, in doing so, provides an important opportunity to contribute to a long tradition of Black practitioner-scholarship for school improvement (Author, 2020).

Indeed, given Improvement Science’s foundations (Perla et. al, 2013), some may consider Improvement Science linear, positivist, and a White man’s way of thinking. But, I understand I come from a people who have always managed to operate and demand better from contexts not built for them (Baldwin, 1955). And, it is this historical understanding, coupled with my intersecting race and gendered identities, that drives how and why I embrace Improvement Science as a disciplined inquiry model for guiding school leaders toward equity-related improvements. Essentially, by presenting Improvement Science as a research model during leadership preparation and using my endarkened lens to frame its capacity for equity-based improvements, aspiring leaders are exposed to and can develop research skills that lead to improvement for equity.

Author

• Brandi N. Hinnant-Crawford, Clemson University