Chapter 9: Sustaining Continuous School Improvement: A Framework for Transformative Organizations

The improvement science methodology is increasingly being utilized as an approach for enacting continuous improvement to address long-standing inequities in our educational system (Bryk, 2020; Bryk et al., 2015). Hinnant-Crawford (2020) defines improvement science as

The methodology helps improvers focus on a problem, see the system holding that problem in place, and attend to variation in experiences of those closest to the problem (Kania et al., 2018). Specifically, some school districts are organizing schools into networked improvement communities (NICs) or groups of schools that address a shared problem using improvement science. NICs create a shared theory of improvement that encompasses a list of change ideas to be tested by one or more schools to spread improvement (Hannan et al., 2015). This chapter will present a framework developed for a district to support sustaining equity-oriented improvement science in a NIC structure as part of an applied research study.