Beating the Odds: Community Bright Spots Where Smart Implementation Drives Student Success

This session launched CGLR’s new series Precursors to Success and Impact, which brings together our efforts to highlight bright spots and “Big Bet” strategies for accelerating learning recovery and advancement, and zeros in on what it takes to successfully implement proven strategies. This series will focus “less on what to do and more on how to do what must be done; in other words, how to successfully implement proven strategies.” As I explained in my introduction, “We want to show that success is not only possible, it is happening.” This week’s session gave us the chance to take a deep dive into implementation science while also hearing from “bright spot” districts and schools that are beating the odds through smart implementation of key strategies.

The discussion began with that deep dive into implementation science, with Ximena Franco-Jenkins, Ph.D., of the National Implementation Research Network at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill defining implementation science as “the methods or techniques that we use to enhance the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of the evidence-based practice.” Franco-Jenkins shared this idea in a fun graphic showing one’s “plan” for implementation as a straight line next to the reality showing many divots and obstacles, illustrating the many challenges that educators must get past to establish smooth implementation of an intervention. Franco-Jenkins further elucidated the importance of using implementation science to help address challenges and ensure that evidence-based practices are delivered effectively to students, stating:

Implementation science accounts for the challenges and the barriers of this real-world implementation. So we have and use tools and strategies to help mitigate those challenges and implement them with quality and really drive the outcomes. So implementation science is important because it really helps close the gap between what we know works and what actually happens in practice.…Too often strong programs or innovations don’t lead to better outcomes, but this not because they are ineffective, but because they aren’t implemented well. So implementation science really helps us accelerate that uptake of evidence-based practices, supports that consistency and high-quality use across settings, and helps the organizations or schools replicate, scale, and sustain what works over time.

Next, I had the opportunity to engage first with a national leader who has insights into implementation practices working for districts across the country and then with leaders from three “bright spot” communities who have been able to implement key “big bet” strategies and see real results for students. Raymond Hart, Ph.D., of the Council of the Great City Schools shared the outcomes he has seen across districts and discussed the critical role of principals and school/district leaders in enabling smart implementation. Then, Lindsey Blevins of Tuscaloosa City Schools in Alabama talked about how her district has successfully implemented statewide guidance for summer learning, which she was able to demonstrate by sharing data on student gains. Alicia Sanborn followed with a discussion of the Fresno, California, Washington Unified School District’s successful implementation of tutoring in partnership with Ampact’s Reading and Math Corps. She shared how the backing from both district leaders and community partners has supported their effort. Finally, Matthew Hornbeck of Hampstead Hill Academy in Baltimore, Maryland, reviewed his school’s integration of Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture and its commitment to providing teachers with coaching and training in support of continuous improvement in the classroom:

We have three full release coaches and those full release coaches have roughly 20 teachers under their wings, and they meet with them for both support and supervision. You have a goal-setting meeting at the beginning of the year and you’ve got your midyear check-in and your end-of-year evaluation conference or outcomes conference. But it’s really the weekly meetings that they have while they’re in the classrooms every day [that make the difference.]