Improvement Teams: Harnessing Data to Improve Student Outcomes

The work of continuous improvement can sound simple: identify an area of challenge, examine what may be causing it, brainstorm ideas to address it, put one of those ideas into practice, review the results, and repeat the cycle. While straightforward in theory, we know that a continuous improvement journey is usually anything but linear.

Given the evolving needs of our students and school communities and the inequitable student outcomes we see across education systems, educators are not content to simply maintain the status quo. Dissatisfied with the same approaches getting the same results, educators are joining collaborative teams to identify and pursue the next innovative practices they hope will support more students.

With support from RISE, school improvement teams focus on the work of getting better at getting better. High schools often organize teams around subject areas, creating time for teachers to review content-specific curricula, assessments, and data. Science teachers meet with science teachers; math teachers with math teachers. But what about all the Grade 9 teachers and staff who support the same students? When do they get the chance to plan student supports? When are students (versus content) the centerpiece of our conversations and collaboration?

Improvement teams help fill these gaps. Utilizing dedicated time during normal school hours, these teaming structures bring together a diverse group of educators to review important student data and address a specific gap or opportunity. Across all grades, improvement teams represent an effort to identify root causes, test solutions, and implement sustainable changes. Teams identify trends across groups of students and develop change ideas that can address larger-scale needs. At the same time, teams monitor individual student needs to ensure they are providing the one-to-one support that is critical to student success.

“The team works well together, leveraging each member’s strengths and collaborating effectively to achieve common goals,” said Dr. Eli Patterson of Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk. “The team is adept at identifying challenges and developing strategies to address the needs of our students by using data-driven approaches to find solutions.”

RISE supports improvement teams through coaching, strategic data calendars, facilitated improvement cycles, designed meeting protocols that are rooted in evidence and focused on student interventions, and increased data visibility through tools like the RISE Data Hub.

Oftentimes, improvement teams pilot a unique idea that helps address a very targeted opportunity. Over RISE’s history, schools have stood up change ideas such as summer bridge programs that help Grade 8 students more successfully transition into high school, FAFSA task forces to address the fact that so few of our graduating seniors are completing the FAFSA, and summer melt texting campaigns that support students by ensuring they aren’t missing a critical deadline post-graduation.

What’s unique to the RISE context is our ability to help scale these strategies across our school networks when they have evidence of effectiveness. When we see positive student outcomes in one school, we work hard to ensure those learnings are shared with all school partners. When we are successful, we are able to create a small shortcut on the path to improved student outcomes by amplifying what’s working in one or two schools across our network of 55 schools.