System Design and Strategic Leadership

What is leadership capacity?

Leadership capacity is a feature of high-performing organizations that collectively have and apply the skills, knowledge, and ways of working that lead to accelerated improvement. 

Why is leadership capacity important?

Leadership capacity drives and sustains improvement. State education agencies and districts are striving to develop strategies and policies that will help schools to engage in meaningful and effective improvement efforts. Effective districts use a system of engagement and support - a leadership capacity building framework - that articulates how leaders, teachers, and schools are supported. The result is a coherent system that balance expectations to monitor and support improvement efforts while building leader and teacher expertise.

Districts - district and school leaders and teachers - are crucial. As the number of schools identified for improvement increases, many districts are taking a  renewed interest in figuring out how to best support improvement efforts in under-performing schools. 

"If the district central office is to be the lever of change, then it is essential that state education agencies and districts develop the leadership capacity needed to provide support to, and provide incentives for, districts to engage in innovative change efforts."

How do we build leadership capacity? 

We collaborate with districts and state departments of education to design coherent and aligned systems of support for under-performing districts and schools. Through the co-construction of a system for engagement and support, we focus on building leadership capacity, aligning policies,  accountability provisions, and strategies, and creating a policy environment conducive to sustainable district and school improvement.

What are the outcomes of this work? 

The development of a system of engagement and support that  articulates: (1) how support is provided to districts and schools, (2) how policies (including accountability incentives and sanctions) and resources are coordinated to support such efforts, and (3) the organizational conditions necessary to ensure the successful implementation of improvement efforts.

The development of an implementation road map that can be used by district leaders (or state leaders) to ensure that all stakeholders are involved in the implementation of  the capacity building framework. 

What is systems-based Strategic Planning?

Effective strategic planning requires a stakeholder and data-based process to design  district and school policies, teaming practices, and actions as needed to achieve specific goals. Participants analyze the current system, articulate shared goals, and participate in a formal design process. Then, district and school leaders develop actions that are focused and strategic and that attend to school-based issues rather than  developed solely in response to accountability and reporting requirements. 

Why is systems-based design important?  

Most districts and schools are faced with multiple requirements with respect to planning and improvement. While planning requirements are intended to support districts and schools in developing strategic and actionable  plans, the reality is that most planning efforts do not lead to dramatic improvement. Improvement plans often involve the piecemeal implementation of short-term solutions with little understanding of how various challenges (and potential solutions) may relate to each other.  As a result, the hard work and thinking of dedicated educators often fails to result in dramatic improvements.

"What  is needed is a useful, strategic, and systems-based means of  identifying the core challenges that a district or school is facing and a  process for developing the high-leverage strategies (both technical and  adaptive) that will build the capacity of district and school leaders  to engage in sustainable improvement efforts."

How do we engage stakeholders in systems-based design and strategic planning? 

We engage educational leaders in a systems analysis to identify high-priority needs and challenges, craft a set of targeted and strategic actions and develop an implementation road map to support successful implementation of improvement strategies. Program activities are designed to lead to sustainable improvement efforts by building the capacity of an organization (and its leaders) to actively design, implement, and monitor innovative improvement strategies.

What are the outcomes of this work? 

The result is a written plan that includes:

- A design of the plan's goals, components, and key strategies.

- An implementation roadmap with actions that drive the work of district and school leaders.

- Progress monitoring benchmarks, timelines, and measures to be used to assess progress.

- A communication plan for sharing progress with stakeholders.   

What is Networking for Improvement?

Networking among educational leaders and teachers is a time-tested approach to developing and expanding the reach of effective policies and strategies. In contrast to stand-alone professional development, a network brings together educators with a shared goal or problem of practice, and who commit to engage in deliberate conversations and to use improvement science processes to test, study, share, and modify their strategies and approaches. The goal is to identify, refine, and accelerate the spread of effective practices.

Why is Networking Important?

Districts often struggle to build, expand and spread high-quality instructional practices across all schools, classrooms, and for all students.  Effective districts have a durable improvement infrastructure that enables schools (leaders and teachers) to work together—with other schools—around common aims, focusing on developing and sharing instructional best practices, and then use evidence to guide decisions, test and refine improvement strategies .

"Deliberately planned systems to identify internal instructional expertise and spread this expertise, through a combination of professional learning and sharing (e.g., modeling, testing, viewing, practicing) effective instructional practices is crucial. Teachers have the expertise – not all, but many – and the key is to expand and spread this expertise."

What sets us apart from others?

Networking creates a district-level infrastructure that treats teacher expertise as a system asset: identifying it, making it visible, testing it across contexts, and spreading it through disciplined network improvement routines. 

How do we build Leadership Networks?

We partner with districts to develop, convene, and actively support networks of schools focused on improving classroom instruction and increasing students’ academic achievement.  

Using a scaled approach, we convene and support networks of schools focused on improving classroom instruction and increasing students’ academic achievement. The Leadership Network brings together grade-alike school-level teams that include the principal, assistant principal, content-based instructional coaches, and teacher leaders. Each Leadership Network meets approximately 4 to 5 times during the school year for a half-day Leadership Network Session to engage in collaborative professional learning. Targeted schools receive additional monthly support. 

What are the outcomes of this work? 

By year three of the initiative, the Leadership Network becomes a district-level infrastructure that treats teacher expertise as a system asset: identifying it, making it visible, testing it across contexts, and spreading it through disciplined network improvement routines.