AJE May 2021 Issue | In the NIC of Time: How Sustainable Are Networked Improvement Communities? by Ela Joshi, Christopher Redding, & Marisa Cannata

The full-length American Journal of Education article “In the NIC of Time: How Sustainable Are Networked Improvement Communities?” by Ela Joshi, Christopher Redding, and Marisa Cannata can be accessed here.

To many, the sustainability of educational reforms is the true marker of success (Coburn 2003; Datnow 2005; Hargreaves and Goodson 2006). To sustain a reform following the withdrawal of external support, it must be embedded into school and district norms and organizational structures (Datnow 2005; McLaughlin and Mitra 2001). Although sustainability is a goal for many school reform initiatives, attaining this goal has been elusive (Hargreaves and Goodson 2006). 

Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) have been proposed as a potential solution to address challenges of sustainability. NICs are consciously formed networks of local school and district stakeholders, researchers, and program developers focused on addressing persistent educational problems (Bryk et al. 2015). Three features of NICs demonstrate their potential to overcome challenges of sustainability to preserve educational improvements. First, by eliciting the expertise of diverse stakeholders throughout the district, increased ownership and understanding of the reform among diverse stakeholders can help to sustain reforms through policy changes and staff turnover (Russell et al. 2017). Second, the involvement of various stakeholders is also aimed at developing innovative solutions that can be imbedded in the specific contexts present across the network. Third, the social ties developed through NICs form the basis of an improvement infrastructure that can manage the ongoing implementation of the reform once external support is withdrawn (Bryk et al. 2015).

Despite the promise of NICs in promoting positive educational outcomes (Cannata et al., 2019), the emergent research base on NICs focuses on the process of launching a NIC, with less attention paid to the developmental trajectory of NICs over time and their impact on informal social networks (Martin and Gobstein 2015; Russell et al., 2017). Since NICs are designed with the intention of being sustained once reform ownership shifts to local stakeholders, understanding the sustainability of NICs is an important concern. Our data allow us to examine the features of the NIC that fostered the sustainability of the reform and the network itself, as well as the district- and school-level supports that maintained reform efforts.

For our study, we draw on data from a seven-year research-practice partnership within a large, urban school district in a southwestern state. We use data from seven participating high schools in the district, representing approximately half of the district’s high schools. The purpose of the larger project was to create, scale, and sustain a contextually-specific student ownership and responsibility (SOAR) reform. Three innovation schools piloted and refined the innovation before it was spread to four additional scale-out schools. The NIC examined in this study served as the mechanism through which SOAR was to be created, scaled, and sustained. 

The district innovation design team (DIDT) was the network hub and was comprised of researchers, program developers, a district coordinator, central office leaders, and teacher-leaders from each participating school. The DIDT oversaw the design, prototyping, progress monitoring, data collection, and refinement of the reform at the district level. The network also included members of each schools’ innovation design team (SIDT), which was comprised of several teachers and other school staff who either volunteered to participate in the reform efforts or who were nominated by his or her administrator for the work. Each SIDT worked closely with the DIDT to adapt, test, and implement the innovation in their respective schools. 

To describe how the network was sustained, we employ an exploratory case study approach using a mixed-methods design (Creswell 2003). Using a rich data set of interview and social network data, we identify both the changes in network interactions and the structures, systems, and tools (i.e., the organizational infrastructure) that contributes to these changes.

The social network analysis showed a contraction in the network with fewer cross-school ties and a greater reliance on the district coordinator to transfer knowledge between schools instead of direct school-to-school contacts. These findings are consistent with our qualitative evidence that finds that schools had greater autonomy to sustain the reform at each school site, with most schools relying on the district coordinator to bring schools together during the network meetings to work alongside rather than jointly with one another.

We also examined five features of the organizational infrastructure that were present following the withdrawal of external support: district allocation of financial resources, the leadership of the district coordinator, PDSA cycles, quarterly network meetings, and the promotion of teacher leadership. While some of these reflect a continuation of what was present in prior years, we observe a notable shift in the network’s central hub activities, with modification to the responsibilities of the district coordinator and a shift in the onus of reform leadership away from district leaders and towards school improvement teams. During this shift, the promotion of teacher leadership at the school level helped develop high levels of ownership among network members. Teacher leadership and local reform ownership were two key features of the organizational infrastructure connected to the sustainability of SOAR after external support was withdrawn. 

These findings have implications for the sustainability of the NIC following the withdrawal of external supports. Here, we highlight two specific tensions that emerged from our study. First, the high levels of ownership led teacher-leaders to feel agency to take steps towards sustaining network supports and remain committed to sustaining the reform efforts. Yet, burnout and turnover of these stakeholders was concerning for the long-term sustainability of the NIC. Second, the empowerment of teacher-leaders created opportunities to better align SOAR with school structures, but it also presented a challenge for sustainability as the continuation of the reform required greater support from school principals as the building leaders. In addition, this orientation towards school-based improvement was often at the expense of the cross-school learning that had previously been a driving force of the NIC.

In summary, when faced with staff turnover, policy changes, and reform alignment, features of the organizational infrastructure of the NIC, including network meetings, teacher leadership, and the use of PDSA, narrowed in scope but were sustained. That is, NICs can be sustained once external support has been withdrawn, but the transition is replete with challenges, foremost, the tension between the tendency towards site-based improvement alongside the hope for sustained, network-wide learning. 

In light of these tensions, future research may examine reforms which, when scaled, focus on scaling the understanding of the theory of action behind reform practices rather than the reform practices themselves. Preserving a common networked focus on the theory of action may better facilitate the maintenance of key network infrastructure but allow for localized adaptation of practices (Hopkins and Woulfin 2015). We also see a critical need for additional research focused on this tension between school stakeholders’ preference for site-based needs as opposed to the broader aims of the NIC. Finally, our finding that organizational infrastructure of the NIC changed upon withdrawal of external support raises the question of the extent to which the ambitious work of NICs can occur without the ongoing presence of external providers. Our results suggest that removing external support from NICs may undermine their efficacy. A more complete answer to this question from the experience of other NICs is needed (Peurach 2016).

References

Bryk, Anthony S., Louis M. Gomez, Alicia Grunow, and Paul G. LeMahieu. 2015. Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.

Cannata, Marisa, Lora Cohen-Vogel, and Michael Sorum. 2017. “Partnering for Improvement: 

Improvement Communities and Their Role in Scale Up.” Peabody Journal of Education 92(5): 569–588.

Cannata, Marisa, Christopher Redding, and Tuan D. Nguyen. 2019. “Building Student Ownership and Responsibility: Examining Student Outcomes from a Research-Practice Partnership.” Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 12(3): 333–362. 

Coburn, Cynthia E. 2003. “Rethinking Scale: Moving Beyond Numbers to Deep and Lasting Change.” Educational Researcher 32(6): 3–12.

Creswell, John W. 2003. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc. 

Datnow, Amanda. 2005. “The Sustainability of Comprehensive School Reform Models in Changing District and State Contexts.” Educational Administration Quarterly 41(1): 121–153.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Ivor Goodson. 2006. “Educational Change Over Time? The Sustainability and Nonsustainability of Three Decades of Secondary School Change and Continuity.” Educational Administration Quarterly 42(1): 3–41.

Hopkins, Megan, and Sarah L. Woulfin. 2015. “School System (Re)Design: Developing Educational Infrastructures to Support School Leadership and Teaching Practice.” Journal of Educational Change 16(4): 371–377.

Martin, W. Gary., and Howard Gobstein. 2015. “Generating a Networked Improvement Community to Improve Secondary Mathematics Teacher Preparation: Network Leadership, Organization, and Operation.” Journal of Teacher Education 66(5): 482–493. 

McLaughlin, Milbrey W., and Dana Mitra. 2001. “Theory-Based Change and Change-Based Theory: Going Deeper, Going Broader.” Journal of Educational Change 2(4): 301–323.

Peurach, Donald J. 2016. “Innovating at the Nexus of Impact and Improvement: Leading Educational Improvement Networks.” Educational Researcher 45(7): 421–429.

Russell, Jennifer L., Anthony S. Bryk, Jonathan R. Dolle, Louis M. Gomez, Paul G. LeMahieu and Alicia Grunow. 2017. “A Framework for the Initiation of Networked Improvement Communities.” Teachers College Record 119(7): 1–36.