Principal Natalie Daniels and her team partnered with educators and community to develop a powerful two-day seminar and advisory program focused on connection, relationships, and whole-child support.
Alec Patton talks to Michael McDonald, Stephen Rinaldo, and Tarima Levine about how Yonkers Public Schools and Bank Street Education Center improved eighth grade math proficiency particularly for students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty.
Alec Patton talks to Dr. Kim Carter, superintendent of Battle Creek Public Schools in Michigan, about how her district broke a pattern of outmigration through building relationships with families and local businesses and nonprofits based on transparency and LOTS of conversations.
Allyson Fritz shares what she has learned about conducting empathy interviews from her work on reducing chronic absenteeism in Washington State. The first rule: an empathy interview is about LEARNING, not changing other people’s behavior.
Bell Middle School reduced its D/F rate from 51% in 2022 to 28% in 2024. That’s a 23 percentage point reduction.
Even more impressive, for low income students, the D/F rate was 67% in 2022, and Bell cut it by more than half, down to 29% in 2024.
In this episode, Alec Patton talks to science teacher Teddy Meckstroth about how they did it.
Alec Patton talks to Hamilton Elementary Principal Dr. Brittany Daley and San Diego County Office of Education Executive Leadership Coach Julia Bridi about how Hamilton cut its chronic absenteeism rate from 24% to 10% in a single year, using creative parent communication, home visits, data checks, and public sliming
Now that I support 19 schools, I’ve come to understand that the “conduit role” is necessary but not sufficient. The real power of the “data lead” role lies not just in presenting the data, but in bringing together the people who need to talk about it, facilitating their conversations, and supporting them as they turn insights into action.
Sofía Tannenhaus talks to Jarrod Bolte, CEO of both Improving Education and Bedtime in a Box, a nonprofit that provides families with boxes containing everything you need for a positive bedtime routine. Each Box contains four age-appropriate books; bath wash, a towel, and bath toys; a toothbrush and toothpaste; pajamas; a stuffed animal; an alarm clock; a Teach My Learning Kit; and a kid-friendly routine log.
Bedtime in a Box has delivered more than 50,000 Boxes so far, with 80% going to families experiencing poverty.
Alec Patton talks to Juliette Price, the senior Improvement Science coach at the National Association of Higher Education Systems, about how their Network Improvement Community has achieved its remarkable results on transfer enrollments from two-year to four-year colleges.
Too often when teachers get data, they don’t know what to do with it. At the University of Chicago Middle Grades Network, we use two protocols in succession (the first with staff members, the second with students) to transform data into effective action. The staff meeting protocol is called “What? So what? Now what?” and based on what we learn from that, we organize a “data circle” with students. Here’s what that looks like in detail.
While some educators prioritize immediate-impact strategies and others focus on improvement tools, both approaches need to be connected by data routines to ensure sustained and effective results.
Tracking absences quarterly allows schools to spot trends and changes faster, whether they be something to celebrate or a student who needs more support. When we track the number of absences by quarter, just a few missed days in a row can trigger early intervention or celebration.
Alec talks to RISE’s Linzi Golding, Erin Asselin, and Melanie Gonzalez about keeping things simple, celebrating small changes, smart ways to share data with schools, and how to recognize and celebrate effort, even when it doesn’t lead to the outcomes we were hoping for.
Alec talks to Cary Sabados (national director of teacher leadership development at Teach Plus) and Morgan Hython (fourth grade math and science teacher at Piccolo School of Excellence, a public preK-to-8 school in Chicago) about their work in the Teach Plus Network for School Improvement.
Try Stuff was a hit! Crew advisors were thrilled to hand over some of the facilitation, and students came up with all sorts of creative lessons to share with their Crews.
In this episode, Dr. Michelle Sadrena Pledger, CORE Districts’ Chief of Improvement David Montes de Oca, and Dr. Stacey Caillier explore how educators are transforming systems using ideas from Liberate: Pocket-Sized Paradigms for Liberatory Learning. Listen in for stories, strategies, and a vision for what’s possible when we dare to liberate learning — one district at a time.
In this episode, Alec talks to Nichelle Woodson, the Chief of Network Success at RISE Eileen Mezzo, an Assistant Principal at Naugatuck High School in Connecticut. They talk about how the RISE Network has achieved remarkable gains in ninth-grade on track rates (for example, on-track for Black students has risen by 27 percentage points since 2015).
Alec talks to Sara DeMartino, an English Language Arts Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Learning (IFL), about how schools in the IFL’s network for school improvement increased 8th grade on track for Black and Latine students by more than 25 percentage points, and improved on-track rates for Emerging Bilingual Students from 35% to 80%, since 2018.
One of the key principles of continuous improvement is that you should spend a lot of time understanding a problem but this is not necessarily feasible in a large school district
Sofía Tannenhaus talks to Julie Smith, co-founder of Community Design Partners, and Casey Chiofolo, an Assistant Principal at Respect Academy, an Alternative High School in Denver, about how Respect Academy dramatically improved first period attendance by talking to kids about what they wanted from school, and what was keeping them from getting there on time.
Alec talks to Amiee Winchester, director of continuous improvement at Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), and Zack Jaffe, a manager of continuous improvement at BCPS, about their improvement work on middle school and high school literacy, and particularly about the particular challenges and rewards of doing continuous improvement within a large urban school district.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Ferdinand T. Day (FTD), a Title 1 elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia, noticed an alarming increase in chronic absenteeism rates that disproportionately impacted Hispanic students
Alec talks to Dr. Simon Breakspear about the book he co-wrote with Michael Rosenbrock, “The Pruning Principle: Mastering the Art of Strategic Subtraction Within Education”
Every two weeks, my Network for College Success (NCS) colleagues and I connect with each other to learn and grow our practice as Transformation Coaches.
Stacey Caillier and Curtis Taylor talk to Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford about what Septima Clark, Ella Baker, and Bayard Rustin can teach us about continuous improvement.
Alec talks to High Tech High Graduate School of Education president Ben Daley about one of the most powerful (and simplest) data-collection tools in the world: the “by-name list.”
School operation teams, the backbone of making the school day happen across the country, are often invisible. With little acknowledgement of success, it’s easy to notice when things fall apart: when buses don’t arrive on time, admission numbers are lower, computers stop working, or thousands of dollars are wasted on food ordered, but never eaten.
M’s fourth graders were buzzing as they worked in pairs to solve the math problem M. had just presented to them. The other educators in the room circulated and listened in as students used academic language to discuss their answers with each other, jotting down notes about what their partner had said and the language they had used.
My fourth-grade classroom was covered in cardboard boxes. The entire back wall was piled high with donated boxes. The tables were covered in glue and paint cups sat in the sink. As I began to clean up some paint splatters, I smiled to myself as I thought about how I ended up in this situation.
We wrote this chapter several years ago, in response to a request from the Sitra Foundation in Finland that we envision the school of the future. The chapter is dated in some respects, but apart from minimal updates and revisions for clarity, it appears here as written.
During a time when people feel overwhelmed by endless professional development opportunities, new technology, and new approaches to doing their work, we wanted to emphasize that the continuous improvement model is not a totally new framework for most organizations.
A concentrated approach to boosting student trust and growth. Try this strategy to deepen class connections and encourage students to reinvest in learning goals.
Effective teaching involves setting high expectations for students and providing them with the necessary support to meet those expectations, fostering an environment where students can thrive through understanding, guidance, and belief in their capabilities by the instructor.
Derek Mitchell talks to Stacey Caillier about what he’s learned about how to help schools get better at giving every kid what they need to thrive, and about why this work matters so much to him.
IEP goals are the heart of the educational program and it is possible to improve the system design so that 100% of IEP goals can be achieved, setting students up for a lifetime of access and success.
NYC Outward Bound Schools have developed a new version of the Lippitt-Knoster model to aid school leaders and teams in managing complex change for equity improvement.
Stacey Caillier interviews Connecticut RISE’s Nichelle Woodson and Peter Lorinser about how to keep it simple while improving 9th grade on-track for students furthest from opportunity
Garett Brownlee Plantz talks to Alison Murray and Antonia Guzmán to find out how International Studies Learning Center (ISLC) achieved its extraordinary 100% FAFSA completion rate.
Sofia Tannenhaus talks to High Tech High International’s College Advisor, Erik Castillo, about how his team makes sure no student slips through the cracks
Stacey Caillier interviews math teacher Janet Hanshaw and instructional coach Joanna Burt-Kinderman, both of West Virginia, about the Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teachers (M3T).
Stacey Caillier sat down with Sofi Frankowski, Dana Diesel, and Taqwanda Hailey to talk about their organization, Schools that Lead, which runs networked improvement communities of schools across North Carolina.
Last year, 14 high school seniors took part in C3 Mobility DAO, a summer program created by the High Tech High Graduate School of Education’s CARPE Collaborative with a very specific goal: to help students from underrepresented populations navigate the transition from high school to community college, and then from community college to a four year university. To achieve this, the DAO used a secret weapon: college students
Adelric McCain (Network for College Success) and Xiomara Padamsee (Promise 54) explore the intersections of equity and improvement while sharing stories, wisdom and wobbles from their own journeys to integrate the two.
During our seven years as High Tech High students—and eventually, student leaders in the Student Ambassador program—we worked alongside our teachers and school leaders to plan and make decisions both in and out of the classroom.
Stacey Caillier talked to Network for College Success’s Adelric “Del” McCain and Sarah Howard about how Chicago Public schools increased their “on track to graduate” rates from 61% to 89% in ten years. The secret? “Fix the system, not the kids”
Doctoral candidates in Western Carolina University Education Leadership Program need to design and run actual school improvement projects in order to get their degrees. Here’s what happened when four of them asked “how can we make sure principals are better prepared when they start their jobs?”
Improvement and equity come together by prioritizing human connections, acknowledging lived experiences, and highlighting the need for continuous learning
Stacey Caillier talks to Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford about what Improvement Science looks like when equity and liberation are embedded in the PROCESS, not just the hoped-for result.
Stacey Caillier interviews Eva Mejia, Chief Program & Strategy Officer at Big Picture Learning, about why for her, “improvement” and “equity” are inseparable
In this Guest Episode from the Educated Guess podcast, Rodrigo Arancibia and Cesar Fernandez interview Escondido Principal Adriana Lepe-Ramirez about how she came to education, and how she and her staff are transforming the whole school culture.
In this episode, Alec talks to Nikki Giunta, Chief of Staff at New Visions for Public Schools in New York City, about how they used a 270-column spreadsheet (and later, a “data portal”) to combat the sometimes-bizarre administrative problems that were preventing kids from graduating.
This episode is about how High Tech High transformed its teacher induction program to make it all about Continuous Improvement, and put teachers in control of their own learning.
In this episode, Alec talks to Ben Daley, President of High Tech High’s Graduate School of Education. One of the Graduate School’s big projects is the CARPE College Access Network, which focused last year on raising FAFSA completion rates. FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid – it’s the form you need to complete in order to get financial aid from the government.
