BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Everything about me is rooted in justice. I wouldn't touch improvement science if I didn't think it could lead to justice. Because I don't have time for nothing else. [MUSIC PLAYING] ALEC PATTON: This is High Tech High Unboxed. I'm Alec Patton, and that was the voice of Brandi Hinnant-Crawford. Brandi's an associate professor of educational research at Western Carolina University and the author of Improvement Science and Education- A Primer. That book is a big deal at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. In fact, Stacey Caillier, Head of the Center for Research on Equity and Innovation calls it, the book we've been waiting for. So Stacey interviewed Brandi. This interview covers a whole lot, but it's grounded in two things, how improvement science can be a tool for our collective liberation, and what we do in the meantime before that liberation comes about. One more thing before the interview, a few things come up early on that you might not be familiar with. So I'm going to briefly explain them now. First, Brandi mentions Pareto's Principle. This is also called the 80-20 rule. It's the idea that roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. In other words, a small number of causes have a big effect on lots of things. And Brandi mentions the name Deming. She's referring to W Edwards Deming. He was a 20th century management theorist whose ideas about improvement transformed Toyota, the Japanese car company, after they adopted them. And today, he's probably the single most famous writer on what we now call improvement science. Now, here's the interview. STACEY CAILLIER: All right. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, I am so excited to talk with you. So just to give folks a quick introduction, you're an assistant professor of educational research at Western Carolina University. You have written a fantastic book called Improvement Science and Education- A Primer, which Gloria Ladson-Billings has given her stamp of approval, which is high praise indeed. You are also a former English teacher and self-described data geek, who went on to become part of the Strategic Data Project at Harvard while you were writing your dissertation. You've been teaching master's and doctoral students how to use improvement science to tackle equity issues in education. And you've even applied it to your own personal life. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Thank you so much for having me. I'll say one thing. I'm an associate professor now. I did receive tenure and promotion. [CHEER] STACEY CAILLIER: That's a big deal. Congratulations. That's awesome. [LAUGHTER] All right. Well, fabulous. So just to get grounded in who you are, can you share with us your identity markers, how they inform how you show up in the world and your work? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Absolutely. We all have so many identities, and I'm going to probably name more than what you're used to hearing, but they are all core to who I am. So I guess, first off, I'm a Black cisgender woman. I am a southerner, which matters, and you probably can hear the twang in my voice. I'm a Christian, but I always like to clarify I believe in the liberatory Jesus and not the Jesus that's trying to bind people. I'm also a millennial, one of the elder millennials. So I'm-- I'll be 40 in the next few years. I like '90s R&B and 2000s hip hop. I'm like stuck in between 2002 and 2010 maybe. I'm a mom. I'm a twin mom. I'm an autism mom. And so those mom identities really frame how I see the world. And I move through the world as a plus-size woman, which has some things that come along with that. So all of these things impact my knowledge and understanding of the world and particularly of the field of education. I was in schools when white flight happened. I'm the daughter of an educator who was also an education activist. I grew up in an activist church. All of these things play a part of who I am and how I approach everything in my life. STACEY CAILLIER: Thank you so much for sharing all of that with us. That's really helpful. So how did you come to improvement science? And what was the appeal for you, or what felt new or different? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: I first encountered some ideas that would push me towards improvement science when I was in the Strategic Data Project. I remember, as a part of our readings, this article by Hess and Fullerton called "The Numbers We Need." And they were talking about balanced scorecards, but it was an aha moment in terms of, yeah, looking at achievement data it's really too late. What are the antecedents to those outcomes that we're looking at? And so I guess, I started mulling with these ideas there. And then when I was hired at Western, they were a part of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate. And it was a newly redesigned program, and they knew that they wanted improvement science to be a signature methodology. And I was hired as a methodologist. So I had to learn it. [LAUGHTER] And so I was like, OK, let me see. And my colleague Robert Crow loves to joke that Stacey was the hard sell, because she was the traditionalist. And she was like, well, how are we sure it's valid? Is this instrument reliable? And I was. And so I think, because I was a hard sell, I really had to make sure I understood it deeply. And so I started immersing myself in spaces that were teaching me about improvement science. And we got in the Higher Education Network which was called the HENs, run by Louis Gomez and Paul LeMahieu, where they were really trying to teach folks how to teach improvement science. But I was also learning it through that process. And so that's how I got into it. And then my first aha that it worked was when I did a personal improvement project as part of the HEN Network. And I was like, oh, this really did change. I did it on academic productivity, because I was a brand new professor, and I need to write. And then figuring out what the things were that were hindering my writing and tracking those hiccups. And I got to see I'm not lazy. No, that's not the problem. The problem is all these meetings that I'm having. That's what's detracting from my writing time, but it was illuminating. And then, as my students began to employ it more and more, and I got to see the different things happening within their schools and organizations. I said, you know what? This really does work. STACEY CAILLIER: I feel like I want to replicate your improvement project. I want that. And I love that it was this moment of like, I'm not lazy. Like, no, that's not the problem. Because I feel like so much of improvement is figuring out, what is the actual problem that we're trying to address? And not just throwing a bunch of stuff at it that might actually be counterproductive. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Exactly. It was that whole Pareto's Principle. 80% of my interruptions were coming from meetings. And so whereas it was-- I was thinking, oh, I'm tired. And it made me look at myself better as well. STACEY CAILLIER: That's awesome. When you were first getting kind of immersed in this, were there questions that you were grappling with? Like things that you were just like, I don't know about this, or this isn't quite sitting right that you had to kind of navigate your way through. What were those for you? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Yeah. So as I was, like I said, putting myself in these spaces to learn more, I noticed in a lot of these spaces, there weren't a lot of folk of color. And my chair always said that, in the academy, the literature was very much like a conversation. And so as a scholar, you got to figure out who you want to be in conversation with. And the people who I saw myself in conversation with were not the same folks doing the improvement work. And so I was kind of like, is this the space I belong in? Or can I bring what I know from those other spaces to this space? And I guess that's kind of what I've been trying to do since that time. The other thing that I guess really gripped me as people were defining problems and talking about root cause analysis and all of these things, looking at the system, they were missing the elephant in the room. I was like, wait a minute. Racism, classism, heterosexism? These are some root causes to some of these outcomes we're dealing with. And so as we're naming problems, but we're not naming these oppressive structures within our society. That was like, well, come on y'all. We got to call a spade a spade. And so those were things that kind of I wrestled with. And before I became like a proponent of improvement science, I was like, this has to be a part of improvement work. That makes sense. STACEY CAILLIER: Definitely, yeah. I mean, I loved in your book how you so clearly, you walk people through the tools of improvement. But you're very clear on like, hey, we use the five whys, because we got to get to the roots. Like, pretty much any time you do the five whys deep enough, you're going to get to oppression of some kind. So you've got to keep digging and asking those whys until you get to the actual roots. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: You really do. And I guess, one of the things that-- I don't know this is an aha or a-- it's not an aha. But improvement, the way it's framed in the current discourse in education is that improvement comes from Deming. And so even in the epilogue of my book, I talk about how I overheard some colleagues saying, this is a white man's way of thinking. And I just want to say, Shewhart and Deming and Langley and Bright, I thank all of those men for the work they've done in making improvement science kind of this discipline. But these men don't own improvement. Improvement has been around forever. And that's why in my primer, I really started with that idea of science and looking at those Islamic foundations, as well as if you even think about-- like I said, I'm Black. So I'm-- and I'm the descendant of enslaved people in this country. And most of those folks came from West Africa. So I feel a connection to West Africa. But in Ghana, the Akan people use Adinkra symbols. And [NON-ENGLISH] is an Adinkra symbol that translates to measuring stick. And it's about quality. Yes, quality and improvement in life as like-- but also in production. So these things-- and that of course, that predates Shewhart and Deming. These things belongs to everybody. And I think, just because certain scholars have been elevated-- and their work is good. I'm not tearing them down. Other people think, oh, that's not for me. But they don't own it, even though they're writing about it. It's not just theirs. STACEY CAILLIER: Oh my gosh. Brandi, I'm-- thank you for saying that. And I feel like your book is like all the way through an argument for that. It's like, improvement science is for everyone. It's democratizing the whole process. So I have to pivot a little bit and talk about your book, because I have to tell you that I discovered your book, because it was on a colleague's desk. And he had it actually opened to your epilogue, which is titled "Why Does a Black Girl Endorse Improvement Science?" And I read that epilogue, flipped to the first chapter, and immediately starting texting faculty in our master's program that this is the book we've been waiting for. I think I wrote to you, and I was like, I'm doing cartwheels reading your book. It's so accessible, so full of concrete examples. And it makes such a compelling case for how folks can use improvement science for equity and educational justice. And I just want to know. How did you come to write this, and who were you writing it for? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: So I guess, I had three audiences in mind. The first is my students, people who are brand new to improvement science. We were-- the book is a part of a series with Myers Education Press on improvement science. And I told my colleagues, yo, I really want to do a primer. Because we got to start somewhere. And we need something that the students can pick up, that has definitions in it, so that someone who's never heard of it before can pick it up, read it, and be like, OK, I understand what's going on. Because some of the way we were piecemealing from other texts, students were still walking around, like, so I don't understand what exactly I need to do. So that was my first audience. The other audience really came to me from a conference at UCA, where several folks were presenting on improvement science. I was not a part of the presentation. I was just in the room. And someone asked the question, well, how does this work with equity work? And to me, it was so very clear, but the nods and the like, yeah, how do we pair this with equity? Made it clear that it was not seamless to everyone else in the room. So I wanted-- that's the second audience, to show, OK, this is how these two things togeth-- go together. And then the third was for kind of improvement experts. And I'm not saying that my primer taught them anything about the improvement process. But I think my primer challenges them to use a critical lens and to really think about the process of improvement. And so we think about the outcomes of improvement and making sure we have an equity or justice centered outcome. But also, how do we make sure we have equity and justice centered process? And so those are the three groups I was trying to hit with what I was writing. STACEY CAILLIER: That was definitely one of the things that really struck me about the book and how clear you are about, it's not just the outcome. The process itself has to be equitable. Can you say a bit more about the distinction between the two for you? What does an equitable improvement process look like for you? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Absolutely. First of all, it's those two questions I ask in the book. And the first one is, who's involved? So when you think about who is involved, you're thinking about process, and involvement requires so much. And it's not always easy, because those of us who are learned and know about improvement go in thinking, well, hey, I have the tools to fix X, Y, and Z. And a lot of times, the way it's presented is, well, we go, and we get this information from the users. And then we go about and fix it. Uh-uh. No. The users have more to give you than to help you define the problem. And there requires a significant amount of humility in the sharing of power for the improvement process to be equitable. You have to recognize that the people who may not have your training or your degrees may have the definition of the problem, as well as the ingenuity to develop the right solution. And so giving that up is hard for folks. The other piece-- and not just humility-- is this real critical reflection, and it's hard. Because it is a lot easier to look at data than it is to look in the mirror and see how you might be perpetuating injustices or oppressions within the process by dismissing certain voices. And so when you want to focus more on a data point than the voice of the person whose data point that is, that makes the whole process jaded. And in many ways, it invalidates it. So to really improve with equity, you've got to be focused on who's at the table and not just in problem definition but throughout. How is this data being communicated, so that everybody around understands it? Don't just throw up a bunch of regression outputs or propensity score matching or whatever it is you're using, and then don't break it down so that other stakeholders around the table understand. So that's what I'm really pushing at. And so I guess, to answer your question-- I feel like I'm rambling. I'm sorry. STACEY CAILLIER: You're good. This is a very insightful ramble, if this is a ramble for you. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: It is all about honoring all voices from the beginning to the end, from problem definition, from seeing the system. Because people from different perspectives see different parts of the system, from understanding the variation. You've got to have a multiplicity of voices throughout. And you've got to be intentional about giving minoritized and marginalized voices space and power, especially when there is a perceived power differential. And if you don't do that, you can't have an equitable improvement process. STACEY CAILLIER: Yeah. Thank you so much for that. Is there a particular project you've been involved in or helped support that to you just really stands out as like, OK, they did a really great job of attending to equitable improvement process? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: I would like to talk about one I'm involved with now. But we've not used the term improvement science as a part of this project. But from inception, the voices of parents, students, faculty-- and when I say, faculty, I mean, faculty at the pre K-12 schools-- have been on an equal playing field with the PI and the faculty from the universities. There is-- and I don't want to name the project either. I'm not the PI. I'm just-- I'm part of it. So I don't know if they were quite ready to talk about it. But the synergy and the magic that happens in that space is unlike anything I've ever seen. And the way the folks in the K-12 schools are leading the rest of us and the way we let them-- not let. That didn't come out right. But the way we listen and attend to what it is they're saying, and it's not, well, I have a PhD and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's really beautiful. And it's so eye opening. I mean, I guess it shouldn't be eye opening and groundbreaking. It should be common sense, but the way they know their schools and their communities and their knowledge about context so supersedes my knowledge about methods and someone else's knowledge about curriculum. And so while we're there as supports, that support comes secondary. And I think it's all about what you believe about the people that you're serving. If you really think they have the gifts and the talents and the assets within them to address these things, then you can release some control. But it's, do we always believe that? I'm not sure. STACEY CAILLIER: Yeah. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: I know that's like very nebulous and not a lot of specifics. But I will say, this project is about implementing a new curriculum in a really large place. And the curriculum, in some aspects, it's still being designed. And it's all about children in the margins. But having those children, those parents, those teachers and principals at the table, they are the ones leading this work. And the faculty, the experts, so to speak, we're just support. It's beautiful. STACEY CAILLIER: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Something that you write beautifully about in your book also is just like the need for anybody who's engaged in improvement to be very user centered and asset based. And you talk beautifully about how we can fall into this trap of deficit ideologies. Can you say a bit about this trap and how you support folks, or even your students, in avoiding it as they're engaging in this work? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Yeah. So first of all, it's hard. Because we have grown up being taught certain things about certain groups. Whether we want to believe it or not, the way we've been socialized has conditioned us to think certain things about certain groups of people. And so even if-- let's say you are trying to facilitate this improvement project. Even if you are cognizant of deficit perspectives, that doesn't mean that everyone on your team is. And so elsewhere in this book about teaching improvement science, I wrote a chapter with two of my doc students called "Teaching Improvement Science for Educational Justice." And we lay out this four part framework for teaching folks improvement science in a way that helps them deal with this. And the first one is-- first part, it's called explicit instruction. And explicit, because explicit instruction is used to teach things people wouldn't learn on their own. And you have to recognize that people are not going to learn about deficit ideology unless they are oriented to or being pushed towards things that talk about it. So there has to be some grounding in critical scholarship before you even begin the improvement process. And then the next step is anticipation. So what we have people do is come up with their [INAUDIBLE] diagrams and anticipate, as they would do this with the group, what other things people might put up there. And then highlight and point out everything that is deficit oriented. And then comes the homework. OK. If you know you are about to do something on first generation college students, and you know someone's going to say, they were underprepared in high school. All right. The homework is go find the literature that combats that. But when that comes up, you have the information already to speak back to those deficit notions. And so that's kind of the preparation piece. And then the last piece is to go on out and do it. You still got to do it. And as you do it, don't expect yourself to be perfect. So reflect on the process. What happened? What came up that I didn't anticipate? How could I do it differently next time? But it gets you in that process of thinking, OK, whatever it is, and I'm wanting to help Black boys. Or I want to help deal with discipline or whatever it is, you need to know what those ideas are to begin with. And then you need to be prepared to speak back to them if you want to prevent it from going down a rabbit hole of, well, it's their fault, because they don't do. And they're not motivated, and their mamas don't care. If you don't want all that to come up, you've got to be prepared to speak back to it and not just from your gut and your feelings. You need to have some hard facts and data. STACEY CAILLIER: I love that. I want to read that article now. I mean, it reminds me so much of just like what we know about good teaching too. It's like, you introduce a concept. You spotlight and anticipate common misconceptions. You then have a plan for addressing those misconceptions. As they arrive, you're on the lookout for them. So you can catch them. So I mean, that's just good teaching. I love it. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: It is. And if you think about improvement science is all about learning together. And so you have to consider that problem definition point, where deficit ideology can be so rampant, as a teaching moment, and to be prepared. STACEY CAILLIER: Yeah. This is-- also I have to read just a little bit, a little snippet from your book. Because this is also why I think the questions that you brought up earlier are so important. You write in the first chapter of your book, "Throughout this text, I will ask you to keep in mind two parties who are necessary for improving for equity. Who is involved with the improvement process, and who will be impacted?" And you say, "Can you use improvement science to make a process more efficient while maintaining the status quo? Absolutely, but that's not how I hope you will use it." And so I just love-- it's really hard to be sticking to your deficit ideologies, when you have the folks that you're serving in the room doing the work alongside you. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: It is. And that's-- I use this fake example of a couple doing the five whys about what was wrong with their relationship. And if one goes and does it all by themselves, everything is the other person's fault. But if both of them are there, the outcomes and the answers becomes very different. Now, there are examples when that's not always the case, because people-- like we talked about socialization. People have internalized different oppressions. And you can go to a marginalized group and find individuals in that group who blame the group for their own marginalization. It happens. But if you've got multiple perspectives from that group, you will have kind of some internal checks and balances. So it's all about who is involved. That is so, so very critical. Who is involved is the process. And then who's impacted is the aim. STACEY CAILLIER: Yeah. I love it. OK. I'm just going to keep reading your own words to yourself. Is that OK? I mean, your book for me is like dog eared and highlighted and like all the things. It's a mess. I've written all over it. But you also write that you have often seen in schools two extremes of unfruitful activities. The adding on of interventions that lead to initiative fatigue or the premature abandonment of interventions that could produce improvement. And you talk about a particular administrator who says, we tend to do this adopt, attack, abandon approach, which when I read that, I was like, oh my gosh. That's so true. I've seen that so many places. Can you say just a little bit about why do these extremes happen? And how do you think improvement science can help us avoid those? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: First of all, there's a lot of reasons these things happen. One, practitioners are human, and when every week it's something new, folks begin to roll their eyes. My dissertation was about how teachers saw their place in policymaking. And I remember one of the teachers say, you know, I figure out whatever the buzz word is this week. I throw it in there, and then I close my door and do my thing, because I don't have time to keep up with X, Y, and Z. And it is a humanness, and I get it. The thing is we are always looking for the next silver bullet, especially when it comes to teaching kids. And this might not be popular, but we know how to teach kids. We do. We do. STACEY CAILLIER: Say it, Brandi! BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Gloria Ladson-Billings told us how to teach kids. Then it's been remixed and reformatted. Goldie has told us how to teach kids in simple, clear, accessible terms. So we know what we need to do. And so there's that piece. We also know what needs to happen in schools to make them good places for kids. It's known. It's not a secret. But as we churn out something new, oh, here's the new shiny package. Go do this. And the other shiny package we've only been working with for a little bit. It doesn't mean that old one didn't work. And the shiny package might work different at Hennet Elementary than it doesn't Crawford Elementary. And so we need to take the shiny package, if that's what we're using, or we could be using something old school. Whatever it is, we need to take it, we say, OK, this didn't work well. OK, let's figure out what was the problem with it. OK, now let's massage it and try it again. OK. So now I know this. And you know what? Little Johnny who's in my class is telling me what worked for him and what didn't. So the reason we have this adopt, attack, abandon situation, one is impatience, and urgency is necessary. I get that. We can't wait for folks to figure out how to teach kids to read 10 years from now. Because what does that mean for the kids right now? So urgency, I get why you want to abandon and try to make something. But maybe instead of attacking it, we should be adapting it and making whatever the it is responsive to the context that we're working in. And so it happens because people are human. It also happens because there is money to be made in making a new shiny thing. Let's be real. And also because of external pressure, people feel like they don't have time to be innovative, or to tweak anything, or to change it and see if it works. Because trying something is risky in a society that is really driven by accountability and outcomes. That's also why you get stuff like cheating, because we won't let people-- I don't know. Let me not go on a tangent, but yeah. STACEY CAILLIER: No. I'm with you. I mean, I feel like the-- so much of our collective journey like at High Tech High has been, how do we create context where adults can actually take risks in service of better education for students? It's really hard to create that kind of risk taking culture, where people feel like they have permission to try things, fail sometimes, learn from that, adapt it to make it better, and really listen to kids along the way, and not get distracted by all the other stuff. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Right. Also in my dissertation, I had a teacher who told me, yeah, I learned all of this good stuff, things to try in my classroom. Then when I got employed at this particular school, this was the culture. My scores weren't looking like other people's scores. I abandoned it and moved to test prep, because people are human. And job security and things matter. And so we've made it such that we don't really trust teachers as professionals to be able to take this thing and make it work for them. STACEY CAILLIER: OK. I'm not sure that this question directly follows, but I really want to ask it. And then I'm going to come back to something that you just said. But in an earlier conversation, you mentioned that there had been some valid critiques of improvement science and that you'd like to see the field respond to those critiques, not just argue about them, but actually do things differently. Can you share a little bit about what are some of the critiques that you've come across? And what would that actually look like to you, to do differently, not just debate? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Yeah. As I said earlier about who you want to be in conversation with, I'm still reading those people that I want to be in conversation with. And a lot of times, those are the folks who really see improvement science as more of a problem than a tool for equity. And every time I read it, part of me feels like, oh no. But then I also have to read it with like, yeah, well, you're right. And so how does improvement science maybe need-- I don't want to say a makeover-- but maybe to really think more about that equitable piece in the process? And so I'll just tell you a couple of the critiques or maybe more than a couple that I've heard. And these are all paraphrased, but these are all scholars that I really admire. So first, Colleen Capper and her book on organizational theory for equity and justice, she talks about improvement science being part of the structural, functional epistemology, where it's all concerned about effectiveness and regulation and maintaining the status quo. And depending on how you read it and which text you're reading, there is this idea about paying attention to variation, understanding what your baseline is, and looking at different types of improvement, and trying to figure out. Are you trying to get back to your baseline, or are you trying to shift the entire thing up? Which it sounds like a status quo argument. So I get it. I can't argue back against that. Similarly, Sonya Horsford, Janelle Scott, and Anderson-- I'm blanking on the first name-- talked about improvement science leading to a culture of quantification and contrived collegiality. And so she says, at best, it might be leading to some learning culture, but that's at best. Because often, it doesn't, and that's when people put more emphasis on the data than on the voices. That can easily happen. And then Megan Bang, she talks more about design based research and research practice partnerships. But she talks a lot about the power dynamics in the process. And she says, despite wanting to be user centered and whatnot, what tends to happen is the experts do the designing. And the other people are just in the room, so that they feel OK about it. And so that's not good either. And then recently, I believe her name is pronounced Safir, in the new book Street Data. She begins chapter 4 talking about how to improvement science is trash. [LAUGHTER] And I'm actually going to quote her. She says, "the tendency to oversimplify improvement and seek incremental change instead of deep transformation makes it a mismatch for equity work." And one of the first things she talks about is the PDSA cycle and how planning comes two steps before studying. And nobody has asked the people who it impacts anything. And so when I read it, I said, see, a lot of folks, that's the impression of improvement science. That it's this thing. We're coming in. We're going to quantify everything. We going to run some tests. And then based on what the tests tell us, we going to do the next thing. And they miss the process of bringing in those voices, honoring those voices. And not those-- let me not say voices and minimize people to their voice-- but letting others come in and be an integral part of the work. And the way I said, other, I don't like that either. Let me see. The folks closest to the problem who have the most intimate knowledge are the ones who should be leading the improvement work. You might be the improvement science expert. But you are serving as a facilitator and letting other folks who know about the problem and who you trust have the ingenuity to come up with the solution, you're allowing them to lead. And I think the way improvement science is often packaged, it seems like that's not what it's about at all. And so what I would like the field to do, one, is to be a lot more clear about what we mean when we say, plan, and be a lot more clear about what it means to be user centered. And user centered doesn't mean just interviewing these folks but also means these folks are a part, and not just the part where they sit at the table. They have agency and power and voice in everything we do from what types of data we look at to what decisions we make after we look at that data. And sometimes, I wonder, well, darn, maybe, am I describing something different than improvement science? Because other people clearly don't see improvement science the way I do. And then I get this idea-- you know Audre Lorde said that you can't tear down the master's house with the master's tools. And so I get the idea that a lot of people look at improvement science as the master's tools. Right? But my question is, is it the master's tools if they're in my hands? Or are they now my tools? And so I struggle with the way improvement science is often read so narrowly. And that is, in a lot of the literature, the way it's elevated. You do this. You do this. You do this. You do this. But in those-- this steps, I think especially if we are trying to be equitable in our process, it's a lot more complicated and more complex than that. And if we're, like I said, humble enough to let the folks who know the most lead us, improvement science can be transformative. STACEY CAILLIER: Yeah. Brandi, you are singing to my heart right now, because I get so frustrate-- I also, for the record, was a hard sell on improvement. And I think sometimes the hard sells are like the most passionate folks, in part because when I was introduced to improvement, I was introduced to it in a way that I see a lot of people enacting now or characterizing it is like, you just go straight to the PDSA cycle. Like, improvement is doing a bunch of PDSAs. And what I loved about your book was that it made it so clear that that is one piece of the process that is very far along the road actually. You need to do all of the figuring out what is even the problem that you're trying to impact. What is at the root of that problem? What is the system that's creating that problem? Learning from everybody and collaborating with everybody from multiple perspectives in that system. So that when you get to the place of identifying ideas you want to try and learn about, they're grounded in that understanding of the system and the problem. And it can be transformative if you do all of that stuff, because you're literally rethinking the system and destructing it purposefully. But if you go straight to the PDSA, yeah, then you're just like tinkering and trying stuff. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: That's it. And if you are really-- and I give credit to Bryk, LeMahieu, Gomez, and Grunow. If you really look at all those principles that they lay out in learning to improve, if you go-- and they're not stealth. Because you got to revisit those things. When you learn something else about the system, you got to change what that system map looks like. Your theory of improvement should reflect the knowledge at that moment. But when it's packaged as, hey, run through these cycles. And I'm not sure, because the book is not in front of me, but I believe the PDSA is like way chapter 8. STACEY CAILLIER: Yep. It is. I got your book. [LAUGHTER] BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: There's so much you got to do before you get there. And I think the way it has been introduced to people, they're missing that. And as they go out there, and they're like, OK, we going to do this cycle. And we going to then see what they said. Heck yeah. I'm not going to cuss on your podcast, but that is what happens. [LAUGHTER] Cultural quantification and trial collegiality, especially when you have people at the table, but you don't really want to hear what they say. They're just in the room, so you can check it off. That's what happens all the time on school improvement teams. You have a parent there, but you're not really interested in what the parent has to say. We're trying to do something-- well, we-- well, let me-- I'm trying to do something different here. [LAUGHTER] And I hope I get other people on board to do something different with me. That is the goal. I would not do this. Everything about me, everything-- let me give you an example. My children's middle names, they are Elizabeth Freedom and Elijah Justice. Everything about me is rooted in justice. I wouldn't touch improvement science if I didn't think it could lead to justice. Because I don't have time for nothing else. I'm clear about what my purpose on this Earth is. And I don't have time to just be playing around with stuff, but people don't see it that way. And I'm trying to change what it means or to reconceptualize improvement to center justice. STACEY CAILLIER: Yeah. OK. Brandi, that's the perfect segue to my last question for you which was, in your epilogue, you write about the need to push for systemic changes while identifying immediate changes we can make right now. And that's not an either-or. You also call on the words of Ella Baker, who said, "we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes." And you write, "the fight for justice is iterative and continuous, but iterative does not mean slow or stalling. It means constantly renewing the strategy to get to the goal faster." And I know that in our previous conversation you said, you've been thinking a lot about critical pragmatism. Can you share what that means to you and why you're thinking about it right now? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Absolutely. First of all, I would like to say, when I think about my North Stars in improvement, they are folks like Septima Clark, Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker. They're strategists. And strategists aren't always the people whose name is in lights. This week, we're celebrating King. Wouldn't be no King without Ella, Septima, and Bayard. It just wouldn't happen. But the strategists are constantly re-evaluating the strategy to move closer to that aim or objective. Now, when I say systemic change and what we can do right now-- and I don't know if I use this in the epilogue or not. But the thing that comes to mind is state sanctioned violence against Black people. Yes, I want some criminal justice reform. I want accountability for policing. I want these things, and I'm going to vote based off those interests. I'm going to organize based off those interests. I'm going to march based off those interests, because I want that systemic change. At the same time, I'm going to tell my son and my daughter, when you encounter the police, this is how you behave. When you encounter the police, you can't get an attitude, 'cause Black people, our skin makes us dangerous. I've told my baby, you're cute right now. But when you hit puberty, you're going to be scary to people, and it's not fair. It's effed up, but it is what it is. And my job as your mother and someone who's trying to protect you is to give you some tools to deal with that situation when it comes, while I'm also over here marching and voting and organizing and doing whatever with the police. Or in some cases, those folks who are doing research on how Black children and children of color are seen as less innocent. So it's a both and. I don't have-- I want all of this systemic change. But if my kid is pulled over before that happens, I want them to have something they can do and hold onto to try to stay safe in that moment. And it's like what teachers say in classrooms. Yeah, I want the curriculum to be different. Yeah, I want X, Y, and Z to happen, and I'm going to do things. I'm not going to just say I want them. I'm going to conscientiously work towards those things. But at the same time, when I close my door in my classroom, I'm going to do what I think all the children deserve. But I'm going to do it for the 30 that I have control over. And that's what improvement science is to me. I am all for-- people like, burn down the establishment. Let's start over. OK. But while we starting over, these kids right here who can't read, are we going to do with them? I'm sorry. It's really that practicality piece. And maybe I'm shortsighted. Maybe I am not courageous enough to just focus on the system. And then maybe that's not my assignment. I believe, like I said, I'm a Christian. I believe we all got an assignment. Maybe my assignment is to focus on what we can do right now while it's other folks' assignment to focus on the big stuff and for me to back them up when I can. But critical pragmatism is this idea I've been wrestling with. I've used it. I use it in the book. I used it in the chapter about teaching improvement science for educational justice. And I'm trying to write a piece just delineating what it means to be a critical pragmatist. Because that's how I'm describing myself. I don't want anybody to be like, oh, she's an improvement scientist, and so she's with the structural functional epistemology. That's not who I am. Don't put me in the box with that. And so I'm trying to define in some ways a new space for myself and how I see myself. So I'm going to read you my working definition of critical pragmatist. Is that OK? Or critical pragmatism. STACEY CAILLIER: Yeah. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: So a critical pragmatist, i.e. me, is someone who seeks practical or context specific and applicable knowledge to disrupt unjust systems. So it's all about disruption. They extend the pragmatic question of what works by also asking what is just. They evaluate the merit of practical knowledge by its ability to ameliorate the plight of the marginalized. Their critical lens constantly reminds them that they possess knowledge only in community. I don't have the answers. Only in community do I possess any knowledge. And that they only create improvement through authentic and reciprocal collaboration. And then I've got some ideas about what it takes to be a critical pragmatist. One of them is seeing the world through a critical lens. And that takes being grounded in critical scholarship. And I was telling a group of doctoral students that, just like Michael Apple said, as a scholar, you can't throw out elite knowledge. If you're going to be a scholar activist, you got to use what you have been exposed to to bring about change. And you should make-- figure out how to make that kind of elite knowledge accessible to the communities and the constituencies that you serve. So it's about seeing. It's also about critical reflection and recognizing no matter how you're oriented, or no matter where you think your heart is, we all got work to do. And you've got to look in the mirror and say, you know what? That meeting or that team I was facilitating today, so-and-so was trying to speak and I spoke over them. Or I moved to the next agenda item before their point was made. How can I be different? How can I stand in solidarity with and in service to different groups who might have oppressions that are different than my own? So I think there's a lot that goes into what it means to be a critical pragmatist. And like I said, I'm fleshing these thoughts out in my own brain, but it's what I'm aspiring to be. I tell people all the time. They're like, I'm a liberation slash womanist theologian. I'm a scholar activist. I'm a critical pragmatist. All these things are aspirational. All of these things I'm trying to constantly be good enough to live up to those titles. And I feel the same way about being a critical pragmatist, but I'm trying. STACEY CAILLIER: Brandi, this was such a gift. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and passion with us. Are there any final thoughts that you want to share? BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Yes. As I said, I was-- I'm a Christian. And so sometimes I feel like you need to end with a benediction or a call to action or something. And so I just talked about this whole critical pragmatism piece and how it's aspirational. And I would challenge everyone to aspire to it as well. There is so much work to be done, and we've all been given gifts. And we need to put what we've been given to good use. So if that is being a critical pragmatist and you think that's part of how you can employ your gifts, I would urge you to join me in this fight and help me to reconceptualize improvement as really being about the work of justice. And then the other thing I would say was all my 1,000 identities I shared with earlier. Bring who you are to the work of improvement. Who you are matters. Where you situate in the world, where you sit, your perspective have a unique view of the system. Don't crush down this identity or that one. We need everybody at the table to undo and disrupt and dismantle some of these structures that keep so many of us down. And so I would ask anybody listening to link arms with me and join the fight. STACEY CAILLIER: Thank you. I'm linking arms. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: Yeah. I like that. STACEY CAILLIER: You can't see it, but really appreciate you. BRANDI HINNANT-CRAWFORD: No problem. Thank you so much. This was not scary. You smile all the time. [LAUGHTER] STACEY CAILLIER: I get that a lot. [LAUGHTER] [MUSIC PLAYING] ALEC PATTON: High Tech High Unboxed is hosted and edited by me, Alec Patton. Our theme music is by Brother Hershel. Huge thanks to Stacey Caillier and Brandi Hinnant-Crawford for this episode. We've got a whole reading list in the show notes, just from the books Brandi mentioned. So check that out. Thanks for listening. [MUSIC PLAYING]