Leading Continuous Improvement in Schools

This volume provides a set of principles and systematic methods for improvement to help district and school leaders achieve the continuous improvement goals embedded in the Professional Standard for Educational Leadership (PSEL) and the National Educational Leadership Program (NELP) standards. Bringing the PSEL Standard 10 to life, this book tackles the why, how, and what of continuous improvement through an equity lens.

In the first section, Leading Continuous Improvement in Schools provides an overall introduction to and rationale for continuous improvement, situating current approaches to continuous improvement, situating current approaches to continuous improvement in education within broader historical and sectoral contexts. The second section highlights how the tenets of improvement science – such as making iterative, incremental, evidence-based advancements; utilizing practical measurements; and acknowledging variability – position school and system leaders to adaptively integrate systematic and evidence-based approaches to change as part of ongoing organizational processes. The book concludes with a section that invites readers to consider leadership approaches that forward improvement work, how leaders can build internal capacity to engage in improvement, and how policy can support efforts to build and sustain the capacity for continuous improvement. Special features include beginning-of-chapter highlights, end-of-chapter connections to standards, and action inventories through each chapter. Overall, the volume provides a focus on the continuous improvement aspects of the NELP and PSEL standards that serves as a bridge, supporting students preparing to become educational leaders in their journey from learning about continuous improvement to learning how to lead continuous, equity-oriented improvement work in their own contexts.