A local educational agency’s structures and processes are key components in effectively uplifting and scaling instructional changes in schools, according to Policy Analysis for California Education’s (PACE) practice brief “How Districts Scale Instructional Improvement That Lasts.”
“District leaders play a pivotal role in engaging system components to support teachers and schools in districtwide improvement because only these leaders have the authority to repurpose existing system resources, create new structures as needed to fill gaps, and monitor systemwide progress to identify and adapt to challenges,” the brief explains.
Based on data from dozens of LEAs involved in a research partnership with California Education Partners, the brief details the environment needed to find success and showcases how such initiatives can improve student achievement.
There are some challenges associated with expanding instructional improvement strategies across an LEA that can be avoided, PACE found. “One critical misstep we have seen is a superintendent signing up their district for a collaboration but then largely disengaging after delegating leadership of that work to a member of central office staff,” according to the brief. “In cases where the superintendent is disengaged, their delegate is often unable to galvanize sufficient support for basic team requirements, such as attending meetings regularly or testing new approaches and reflecting on the results between meetings to move the work forward.”
In LEAs where senior leadership is less involved, minimal progress typically occurs.
Some common beliefs that hinder a strong rollout include viewing schools as the unit of instructional change, using teachers as a main mechanism to scale improvement to other teachers and a district acting on multiple high-priority projects at a time.
“For meaningful and sustained improvement to occur, teachers and school leaders need to be supported by systems that align with the changes they are being asked to make,” the brief states.
To find success, system leaders must identify how to set an instructional vision and align system components to support educators in meeting goals in a consistent way, PACE states. This can be done by repurposing existing components of an LEA’s system as well as building new ones as needed.
“The pattern we see as we look across data from many districts is that scaling instructional improvement requires engaging the system; district leaders, whose roles allow them to allocate system resources and set goals, are key to engaging a system in support of scaling improvement,” according to the brief. “Leaders at every level — classroom, school, and district — all have important roles to play.
“We find that districts’ most senior leaders are often not sufficiently involved. Because senior leaders have the authority to reallocate system resources — such as teacher time and funding — as well as the ability to set a district’s vision and preserve attention on a steady, small set of the most important priorities, their direct involvement in supporting scaling of instructional improvement is essential,” the brief concludes.
In addition to examples and discussion prompts included in the brief, a companion resource, “Reflections on Scaling Instructional Improvement That Lasts,” is also available.
