Working Towards Transformation: Educational Leaders’ Sensemaking and Enactment of Equity-focused Continuous Improvement

• In Event: Can Continuous Improvement Work in the Turbulent World of Urban Districts?

Abstract

Working Towards Transformation: Educational Leaders’ Sensemaking and Enactment of Equity-focused Continuous Improvement
This comparative case study examines three networked improvement communities (NICs) situated in the same community school district in the New York City Public Schools (NYCPS). The study seeks to understand how educational leaders applied improvement science (IS) structures, practices, and tools to address equity-focused problems of practice. The community school district that is the focus of this study represents a critical case for understanding educational leaders’ use of continuous improvement as a lever for equity-focused school reform. The case is particularly salient in that the larger school system and state in which it was situated had made ongoing investments in advancing equity in schools and in using continuous improvement (CI) methods.

Data collection and analysis focused on interviews with four district leaders and eight school leaders, observations of approximately 24 hours of NIC meetings and planning meetings, and document collection. The analysis draws on sensemaking theory to understand how practitioners’ use of CI as a strategy to advance equity is shaped by individual knowledge and beliefs, the social and organization context, and the incentives motivating practitioners. Further, the study draws on Gutiérrez’s (2012) framework for equity to understand the varied ways in which educational leaders conceptualize equity as they identify problems and design solutions as part of CI, including more traditional and transformative dimensions of equity.

As educational leaders made sense of CI as an approach for advancing equity-focused improvement, their experiences were shaped by their personal commitments to advancing equity, professional learning experiences related to equity and CI, the community school district’s sustained focus on equity-focused reform, the broader policy environment, and their use of CI practices and tools. The use of IS supported leaders in taking action to advance equity. While the use of data varied in the degree to which it encouraged attention to more dominant or transformative dimensions of equity, the focus on the “user” encouraged greater attention to students and more critical problem definitions and solution designs. The twin focus on equity and CI was supported by teams of facilitators for each NIC who brought expertise in CI, equity leadership, or both areas. However, district turbulence, and in particular shifts in the roles of the NIC facilitators, created challenges for maintaining attention to CI (Yurkofsky et al., 2020). When NYCPS shifted the role of district leaders serving in the role of CI “experts” in the second year of the NICs, attention to the fuller CI process diminished.

This study makes a unique contribution to improvement research because it examines a district-led CI initiative that relies on support and resources from the community school district rather than relying on external support providers as is typical in much CI research (e.g., Anderson & Davis, 2023; Yurkofsky, 2022). Studying more “home grown” CI work is essential for moving from a focus on discrete “initiatives” to integrating CI approaches into the daily work of educators and educational systems.

Author

• Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Fordham University