Projects

Evaluation of the Networks for School Improvement Initiative

2020 – 2026

Overview
Evidence & Insights
Related Staff

Project Overview

Objective

To evaluate the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s portfolio of Networks for School Improvement grants that supported networks of schools in using continuous improvement methods.

Project Motivation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Networks for School Improvement (NSI) initiative to increase the proportion Black students, Latino students, and students experiencing poverty who are on track for high school graduation and college enrollment. The initiative awarded grants to intermediary organizations that established school networks and developed schools’ capacity to use continuous improvement methods. The NSI identify, test, and refine strategies to improve teachers’ practices and student supports. The foundation sponsored this evaluation to build evidence on the NSI approach.

Partners in Progress

Redstone Strategy Group and New York University. In addition, RAND is leading the evaluation’s efforts to study implementation of school networks (learn more about RAND’s research here), and the American Institutes for Research is leading the evaluation’s efforts to study implementation of continuous improvement (learn more about AIR’s research here).

Prepared For

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Evaluating whether building school networks’ capacity to use continuous improvement improves student outcomes.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Networks for School Improvement (NSI) initiative supports networks of schools in using continuous improvement (CI) methods to test and refine strategies designed to improve teachers’ practices and student supports.

Each NSI consists of an intermediary organization that leads a network of about 20 schools (ranging from fewer than 10 to more than 50 schools) and helps teams of school staff conduct CI. These intermediaries have partnered with almost 800 schools across approximately 150 districts and charter networks to identify, test, refine, and scale strategies to improve students’ academic and behavioral outcomes. The foundation funded three cohorts of five-year grants between 2018 and 2020, totaling more than $300 million in funding.

The foundation sponsored an evaluation to build evidence on the NSI approach, including the formation of school networks, the use of CI in schools, and the impact of these efforts on student outcomes. The evaluation addresses three main research questions:

How do intermediaries design and implement their NSI?
To what extent do participating schools implement CI activities?
What is the impact of the NSI on student outcomes? What aspects of the NSI approach are related to impacts on students?

The impact findings are preliminary because they are based on schools’ second year of participation, whereas the foundation initially expected the NSI to achieve full impact after three years. The foundation assumed that three years were needed for the NSI to develop connections among schools in their networks and to test and refine solutions through CI. In addition, the interim findings are based on school years heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Each of the three evaluation partners (RAND, the American Institutes for Research [AIR], and Mathematica) released an interim report addressing one of the research questions. RAND’s report describes intermediaries’ implementation of school networks, and AIR’s report describes schools’ implementation of CI using data through the 2022-23 school year. Mathematica’s report describes impacts of the NSI on student outcomes using data through the 2021-22 school year. The evaluation partners also released a report summarizing findings across all three research questions.

The findings in the reports are preliminary because the analysis of impacts is based on schools’ second year of participation, whereas the foundation initially expected the NSI to achieve full impact after three years. The foundation assumed that three years were needed for the NSI to develop connections among schools in their networks and to test and refine solutions through CI. It is also important to note that the interim findings are based on school years heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Publication