Reflections on Using Improvement Science for Culturally Responsive Instructional Leadership

• In Event: Building Equitable Leadership Capacity: An Improvement Science Toolkit

Abstract

The post-lockdown reality is that our schools are not making good on their espoused values of equity, and disproportionality data shows that progress around equity gained during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has regressed. In a predominantly Black and brown school district, principals were not translating theoretical learning around equity to their observation of teacher practice. Improvement science was used in a networked improvement community (NIC) (Bryk et al., 2015) to build the capacity of principals to recognize harmful and oppressive teacher practices when conducting classroom observations and to respond appropriately with a coaching stance to disrupt cycles of harm for students of color.
The intervention was implemented with key considerations that came directly from my personal (re)membering journey to Ghana in July of 2022. As part of a Fulbright Hays research grant, I traveled across Ghana with a group of other Black female educators to engage in the (re)membering process Dr. Cynthia Dillard (2021) describes in her book, The Spirit of Our Work: Black Women Teachers (Re)member. Our group experience led to a spiritual, personal, and professional breakthrough that guided my dispositions, mindsets, historical knowledge, and research paradigms.
The NIC incorporated improvement science PDSAs (Bryk et al., 2015) and Singelton’s (2013b) Collaborative Action Research for Equity (CARE) program, which, as Singleton describes, “ challenges the very detours that have enabled teachers across the country to avoid having courageous conversations about race and essential interracial interactions” (p. 244).
Similar to findings by Hinnant et al. (2), who stated that the IRB “privileges traditional forms of research while potentially hindering others” (p. 52), the researcher experienced systemic restrictions on data usage, and the improvement science-focused Ed.D. program shifted its cohort of predominantly Black and brown doctoral students from the traditional dissertation in practice into a case study model. The research shifted into a self-analysis of leadership practice while using improvement science to design and facilitate Critical Andragogy to develop the Critical consciousness, racial literacy, and culturally responsive instructional leadership practices of principals.
Although this study reflected on the leadership choices I made during two PDSA cycles, I found that in designing professional learning communities for principals, quick progress can be made in strategically small, high-leverage areas of focus. The principals in this study were able to accurately document evidence in alignment with their focus and appropriately associate the evidence with the multiple Critical resources.
Through my reflection on the intervention, I was able to pinpoint how Critical Andragogy and Donna Mertens’ (2007) Transformative Paradigm have developed in my own personal and professional leadership practices. The resulting Framework for Critical Andragogy holds promise as a capacity-building tool for self-evaluation in implementing equity-focused adult learning. My reflection on my own leadership practices using the framework shows promise in the field as a recursive reflection tool to use while designing and facilitating learning opportunities.

Author

• Celeste A. Housey, NYCPS