Improvement science is an applied discipline that emphasizes innovation, rapid cycle testing in the field, and spread in order to generate learning about what changes work for whom and under what conditions. This strand seeks to illustrate improvement work in action that has resulted in better outcomes for students and communities. Presentations in this strand feature the methods that led to success along with concrete takeaways to inform others’ improvement work.

New this year: Voices of School Improvers

The 2021 Summit hybrid format affords the opportunity to increase the presence of voices that are historically underrepresented at the Summit due to the time required to travel to the conference. For the 2021 program, we will prioritize within the Improvement Science in Practice strand sessions that engage the perspectives of school-based improvers, including teachers, students, administrators, counselors, or social workers.

For the Improvement Science in Practice strand, we seek proposals that address one or more of the following:

• Tell a story about a significant improvement (such as increased graduation rates) that positively impacted the lives of students through the use of improvement science. These proposals must include data and measurable results.
• Demonstrate the use of data and measurement to track progress against a well-specified aim or Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound (SMART) goal.
• Detail the application of a particular improvement method or tool, along with the results generated from its use.
• Surface the complexities of initiating or sustaining improvement efforts, including any learning from failures or when things did not go as planned.
• Describe how one or more of the six core improvement principles has been essential to the improvement.
• Describe how to successfully incorporate improvement science into day-to-day practice in schools.

Networks are a powerful strategy for accelerating our ability to learn and improve educational outcomes for all students.  Carnegie’s networked improvement community approach is defined by a focus on a specific problem, a common theory of improvement, and a practice of sharing measures and applying disciplined methods of improvement. This strand illustrates what is necessary to bring a network to life and support it in reaching its improvement goals.

For the Improvement Networks in Practice strand, we seek proposals that address one or more of the following:

• Share the story of how the networked approach accelerated the ability to learn and reach improvement goals.
• Surface the complexities of initiating or sustaining networked improvement communities, including any learning from “failures” or when things did not go as planned.
• Offer measures, tools, indicators, or practices that have been used to assess the network health and describe efforts to continually improve performance.
• Describe the development of analytic capabilities within hub teams and/or networks, such as data infrastructures and the use of data or evidence to inform networked learning strategies.
• Describe network structures, processes, or tools that foster effective collaboration and culture across networked members.
• Introduce strategies, tools, and technologies that allow for the spread of promising practices.
• Describe practices developed or used by hub teams to support members’ learning by doing.
• Describe a network’s perspective of its use of external supports or evaluation efforts that successfully bolstered the network’s efforts.

Leadership plays a critical role in driving and supporting improvement. Leading improvement requires the ability to shift norms and habits that are deeply ingrained in the culture of educational enterprises. Transformational leaders are driven to break through the status quo and achieve new levels of performance.

For the Leadership for Improvement strand, we seek proposals that address one or more of the following:

• Tell the story of leadership’s efforts to bring about or sustain systematic improvement across a school, district, region, or other enterprise; specific transformational aim(s); how the improvement principles shaped the pursuit of this transformation; and the results that were achieved.
• Describe how to consciously attend to the cultural conditions that enable the dispositions toward and active pursuit of continuous quality improvement in educational systems.
• Describe in detail the strategies to build improvement capability within systems, including how to introduce these ideas and deepen engagement over time and how to determine who needs what improvement skills.
• Describe how the use of measurement and data drive improvement and shift the culture from measurement for accountability to measurement for improvement.
• Explore the lessons learned from failures.
• Demonstrate federal, state, and/or local level policy that advances improvement science in education.
• Advocate for a policy environment that is hospitable to the ideas of improvement science and networks.