Educators have increasingly adopted networked continuous improvement (CI) approaches, coming together in partnerships to systematically test changes in their practices. From 2018 to 2021, the Gates Foundation awarded more than $300 million in five-year grants to intermediary organizations that formed 34 Networks for School Improvement (NSI) across the United States. The rapid scale up of NSI provided a unique opportunity to understand how intermediaries develop and implement school networks, how networks of schools implement CI to achieve a common goal related to improving student outcomes, and the impact of these efforts. Although there have been studies of specific networks, this evaluation of NSI is among the first to examine a large group of varied school improvement networks.
In this report, the authors examine how intermediaries—school districts or nonprofit organizations—developed and supported 25 networks of schools using CI to improve educational outcomes for Black students, Latino students, or students experiencing poverty. The authors examine how the structures and supports varied by network characteristics and changed over the five-year grant period. A technical report, Evaluation of the Networks for School Improvement Initiative—How Network Hubs Develop and Support Continuous Improvement Networks: Data Sources and Methodology, outlines the data and methodology that undergird this report’s findings.
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