Overview of EDI Services

Transcription

1 Overview of EDI Services The Education Delivery Institute (EDI) is a nonprofit organization that partners with education systems in K12 and Higher Education. When education leaders commit to graduating more students with meaningful high school diplomas and college degrees, EDI helps them implement their priority reforms to get results and close gaps for good. EDI does this by building the capacity of education leaders to manage and monitor implementation using a proven methodology called delivery. The delivery approach incorporates proven practices from management disciplines across the public and private sectors. Rather than focusing on external accountability and hard incentives, the delivery approach emphasizes capacity-building, internal accountability, and continuous improvement in education systems. At the core of the methodology is a relentless focus on four questions: 1. What are we trying to do? 2. How are we planning to do it? 3. At any given moment, how will we know if we re on track? 4. If we are not on track, what are we going to do about it? EDI provides three types of services to systems of K-12 and higher education. DELIVERY First, we help these systems to manage and monitor implementation of their key education reform initiatives using the tools of the delivery methodology. These tools include exercises for goal-setting and stakeholder engagement, processes and rubrics for planning, methods for estimating the scale and impact of system strategies on student achievement, and protocols for regularly reviewing progress, identifying issues, and making mid-course corrections in implementation. EDI works with K-12 and higher education systems to help them put these tools in place, so that they manage their scarce resources to maximize impact on student results. CAPACITY-BUILDING AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT Second, we work with education systems to build the skills and capabilities of their leaders to carry out these reforms. EDI staff are all expert facilitators, adult educators, and coaches who are equipped to do formal training and job-embedded coaching in a wide variety of leadership skills, including: Change management; 1250 H Street, NW Suite 880 Washington, DC ph fax

2 Building and leading teams; Managing and facilitating meetings; Feedback and coaching; Written and verbal communication; Relationship management; and Design and delivery of high-impact professional learning. We have found that these skills are critical to leading reform efforts, but that most education systems lack the time or resources to invest in these skills for their personnel. EDI provides these services to build organizational capacity and ensure that reform is sustainable. PROFESSIONAL LEARNING Finally, we develop and manage professional learning communities of education leaders. We know that educators improve their practice through reflective and evidence-based dialogue with their peers; EDI strives to apply the same principles to those who manage the implementation of education reform at scale. To that end, EDI has established and run several professional learning communities, including: A network of implementation leaders in K-12 state agencies, including Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai i, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. A network of implementation leaders in state systems of higher education, including California (CSU), Colorado, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, Hawai i, and New Jersey. The Common Core Postsecondary Collaborative (CCPC), a network of Higher Education and K-12 leaders who lead the implementation of CCSS with a specific focus on P-20 issues. These networks are built around face-to-face convenings, webinars, and conference calls that feature a mix of content, facilitated exercises, and reflective dialogue between leaders about the practice of leading implementation. Between these events, EDI staff provide support and job-embedded coaching to member systems as they apply lessons learned from the network. THE OPPORTUNITY WITH CCEE Several tools and processes from the delivery approach may be helpful for building the approach of the new California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) to supporting districts in continuous improvement. CAPACITY REVIEW The capacity review is an intensive 2-day process to establish a shared understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of implementation in a school system. This generally includes interviews with stakeholders inside and outside the system and a facilitated self-assessment with leadership. The capacity review results in strong evidence about the quality of implementation of key reforms and recommendations for short and long term next steps to build capacity.

3 UNDERSTANDING PAST AND PRESENT PERFORMANCE EDI works with education leaders to analyze data, establish feedback loops to understand the quality of implementation, and analyze and visualize this information to make it actionable. We employ a wide range of data visualization models and tools to do this, but we go beyond mere analysis; our primary focus is on building the capacity of system leaders and staff to regularly use their data to make decisions that improve student success. PLANNING EDI uses several exercises and approaches to planning. These include tools for strategy prioritization, strategy profiles, mapping the path of implementation to classrooms, and setting targets and trajectories. These exercises result in a plan that is focused on the systems goals and specific enough to drive day-to-day work. In order to avoid the trap of making planning into a compliance exercise, we tend to avoid the use of templates and we never assume that a system is starting from scractch. We use tools such as plan criteria (see exhibit below) to honor leaders current context and help them to diagnose those areas where planning could be improved.

4 One key exercise related to delivery planning is mapping out the delivery chain, or the path of implementation from the system to the field. The delivery chain helps systems identify and answer questions about scale, feedback loops, potential weaknesses and required resources.

5 ROUTINES FOR MANAGING PERFORMANCE Routines are the regularly scheduled dialogues about performance that education leaders use to stay aware of current progress, identify key problems to solve, and choose corrective actions to keep implementation on track. They can take the form of face-to-face meetings or memos, but they are meant to reinforce internal accountability around one driving question: what is the likelihood that we will deliver on our goals for students? EDI guides school system leaders to develop and implement protocols that structure the right conversations around the right data with the right people. EDI support in this area can take a wide variety of forms. For some systems, we have offered advice to improve existing routines. For others, we have helped them to establish and run their own routines and/or built the capacity of others to do so. In one state, we developed a comprehensive guidebook for local schools and districts to create and manage their own performance management routines. We delivered training to accompany the guide to a critical mass of the state s districts and schools using a professional learning community approach. CONTENT-SPECIFIC TOOLS EDI also engages in content-specific projects to help improve implementation of key reforms in school systems. For example, EDI has worked with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) to develop Common Core Implementation Rubrics that have been used at the state and district level to self-assess implementation and determine next steps. In South Dakota, for example, we developed a survey of teachers and school leaders aligned to the rubric criteria to gather evidence of whether the implementation of new standards was leading to changes in instructional practice. The district rubric can be accessed here: BUILDING CAPACITY TO IMPLEMENT In addition to providing districts with the support they need to improve their own practice, the CCEE will need to build capacity of staff and partners to drive work across several districts. EDI can help build and engage with the CCEE team to build their capacity and provide the structure to differentiate support to participating districts. If the CCEE builds a small, flexible, and highly capable team that can focus on results, that team will help the Collaborative to exercise meaningful influence over the activities of participating school districts to drive toward those results. EDI can support this team as they engage in these roles: Plans and planning: Ensuring that each participating district has priority goals and that each goal has a plan for how it will be achieved. Monitoring and reporting: When plans are in place, helping districts to set up the right routines to consistently monitor their own progress against each goal. Evaluation and follow-up: Between these routines, working with leaders and their teams to arrive at a shared view of progress, to tease out the implications for the work, and to align system resources to keep things on track.

6 Capacity-building: Creating the necessary environment for changes to be sustainable after the engagement, including formal training, everyday interactions, and job-embedded coaching. Communication and relationship management: This team must be experts at managing relationships throughout the system. EDI s takes a holistic approach to capacity-building one that focuses on the desired change in skill and will and reinforces it through a combination of formal learning, job-embedded practice, and reflection. Capacity-building elements Desired change Structure and environment Last Modified 4/15/2014 9:40:26 AM Formal Learning Scale Reflecting Practicing 2014 U.S. Education Delivery Institute As with any good educator, our approach emphasizes a progression of I do, we do, you do. We begin by role modeling the work to others, progress to doing it alongside them, and then step into the role of observers and coaches as our partners take over the work. EDI would use this approach to build the capacity of CCEE staff, but also encourage them to use the same approach in working with districts. CCEE PLANNING Finally, in the next several months, the most immediate task will be to stand up the CCEE and solidify its plans for piloting, adjusting and eventually scaling up its new model of support to districts over the next several years. EDI can bring the same set of tools and disciplines to this task, engaging with and facilitating the CCEE board itself to: Define the CCEE s aspiration and definition of success; Develop an approach to the first-year pilot and to learning for broader rollout in the years beyond;

7 Establish routines to monitor progress and solve problems; and Establish a guiding coalition of key stakeholders to support the work across the state. CONCLUSION This is an important moment in the history of California schools; resources and stakeholders are aligning across the state to support some of the most critical reforms in a generation. At the same time, the approach established by the CCEE has the potential to prove the power of continuous improvement and internal accountability to dramatically improve student results. We are excited at the possibility of partnership and look forward to discussing these ideas further.