Introducing the RISE Network

The RISE Network’s journey began in 2015 with an important focus: support high school educators and teams in their work to increase the number of students graduating on time and ready for postsecondary success.

We knew then – and continue to experience now – that far too many students who grow up in historically marginalized communities are impacted by the systemic challenges that persist in today’s education system. These challenges result in inequitable outcomes for students who may not have access to the same opportunities as their peers in neighboring communities.

When coupled with a patchwork of disconnected data systems that fail to provide comprehensive, actionable, or accessible data for educators, as well as structural impediments like school schedules, district policies, and cross-district barriers to collaboration, these challenges have a compounding effect on a student’s ability to advance towards on-time graduation and postsecondary success.

RISE works to disrupt these challenges by building a community of educators across many districts who work together to address issues affecting student outcomes. From the start, we knew that one solution or one approach could not solve every problem. Our communities and schools are unique and require different strategies in different formats, at different times. That is why RISE supports school teams on their unique continuous improvement journeys to identify new ideas that can improve student outcomes.

Grounded in high-quality and accessible data provided by the RISE Data Hub, which was built in close collaboration with our network of educators over many years, school teams pinpoint areas of focus based on their current student needs, identify a potential strategy to address that focus area, and then work to implement that idea and capture lessons learned as they work to refine or adjust their approach over time.

Part of RISE’s approach is understanding that while every school community is unique, school teams shouldn’t need to design every strategy from scratch. Yet too often our educators aren’t provided the space to connect with peers in other schools to learn about what’s working in their contexts. That is why we focus on bringing talented educators together in networked communities where they can problem-solve together and share best practices. Our network can use these spaces to scale practices that have shown success in one school to many others, leading to improved student outcomes for many more students.

As we embark on the next stage of our journey, we celebrate great progress, innovations, and student outcomes across partner schools. We also recognize continued opportunities for improvement. As our network grows, so too do opportunities to learn from the innovations and dedication that partner educators bring to this work. Now, more than ever, we are convinced that data, continuous improvement, and network communities can drive better and more equitable student outcomes, and that journey continues across the RISE Network.