PDE Impact Story | Koru Strategy Group

Impact Story

A Statewide Approach to Comprehensive School Improvement

A statewide team supporting LEAs and schools identified for improvement across PA partnered with Koru to transform their approach from compliance-oriented to meaningful and purpose-driven.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) oversees more than 500 districts and 170 public charter and cyber charter schools across the commonwealth, organized regionally and supported by 29 Intermediate Units. Leaders from four IUs (Allegheny, Lancaster-Lebanon, Berks County, and Chester County) form a statewide team and provide leadership and regional supports across PA for schools identified for comprehensive school improvement.

In 2019, PDE had identified the first cohort of CSI schools and designed a new process and set of guidelines by which those schools were expected to develop and implement school improvement plans. As the statewide team began to introduce the new process with schools and LEAs/districts, they sought support from Koru to strengthen the quality of school improvement plans, and to shift away from a compliance-oriented mindset toward a purpose-driven approach to meaningful improvement in teaching and learning.

The Challenge

While PDE had thoughtfully developed structures to support and monitor school improvement, as the statewide team rolled them out, the feedback and early school improvement plans they received from districts/schools revealed a need for additional support. The statewide team saw opportunities to strengthen school improvement plans by guiding school teams through an evidence-based, collaborative approach to identifying improvement priorities, selecting instructional strategies, and developing action plans. By addressing these challenges, they hoped both regional improvement specialists (overseen by the statewide team) and school leaders at CSI designated schools would see and experience real value in the process -- both developing strong plans focused on student needs and engaging in purposeful monitoring routines throughout their implementation.

The Solution

To respond to these challenges, Koru and PA's statewide team worked together on the following elements:

Meaningful Improvement: through workshops and coaching with school leaders from CSI designated schools and regional improvement specialists, transform a compliance-oriented process into a meaningful system-wide engagement with real potential for positive change, building trust and commitment across all stakeholders.
Leadership Development: build long-term capacity to lead comprehensive school improvement across the state, working at all levels of leadership with specific attention to the roles of the statewide team and regional improvement specialists.
Design and Coherence: introduce frameworks to strengthen and integrate into existing plans and processes, with an emphasis on coherence. LEAs/districts and schools were sensitive to “one more thing on the plate” especially after the new school improvement plan (SIP) and guidelines had just been rolled out; we introduced practical principles and protocols from the Harvard Data Wise Framework* to key parts of the SIP process to strengthen collaboration and the use of evidence in identifying growth areas for both student learning and instructional practice.

Over three school years, from 2019-2022, Koru directly supported over 100 school teams, including 46 CSI schools across 8 IUs and 16 districts/LEAs, and provided mentorship and coaching to 24 leaders across the statewide and regional team, who earned formal coach certification and built internal capacity for continued leadership and scaling with other schools and districts/LEAs across PA.

“Schools have viewed the monitoring process from the perspective of compliance, completing monitoring check-off lists rather than engaging in reflection that leads to change.” -District leader

THE PARTNER

A Statewide Team from 4 IUs Supporting Continuous Improvement Across PA

THE CHALLENGE

Beyond Compliance: Establish a statewide approach for supporting meaningful school improvement using collaboration and evidence

KORU SOLUTION

Needs Assessment and Gap Analysis, Design and Coherence, Harvard’s Data Wise Framework, Leadership Development, Strategy and Scaling

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*Data Wise, revised and expanded edition: A step-by-step guide to using assessment results to improve teaching and learning by Kathryn Parker Boudett , Elizabeth A. City and Richard J. Murnane (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2020)

Continuous Instructional Improvement at Scale, by Adam Parrott-Sheffer, Carmen Williams, David Rease Jr. and Kathryn Parker Boudett (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2024), p. 11.

“Koru Strategy Group has been a partner in advancing improvement work across our PA schools. The use of the PA evidence-based framework, coupled with their focus on supporting schools to build robust systems and shifting mindsets, has helped our schools embrace the continuous improvement process. When the process is effectively implemented, high-quality outcomes naturally follow. Koru’s expert facilitation and resources on building alignment and coherence between district and school initiatives has strengthened our differentiated approach to school improvement that is responsive to each LEA and their schools’ highest-priority needs.”

Anu Anand, Regional Lead: K-12 LEA/School Continuous Improvement

Lancaster-Lebanon IU13

The Outcome

The statewide team built upon their work with Koru to scale an approach to school improvement across PA, supporting CSI schools to thoughtfully develop school improvement plans based on evidence, and to engage in a cycle of continuous improvement as they implemented their action plans. These efforts led to impressive results for the 2018 cohort of CSI schools. While schools across the state (and beyond!) experienced unprecedented challenges related to the pandemic and disruptions to schooling, during a 5 year period from 2018-2023, CSI schools across PA outperformed non-CSI schools in key performance indicators, increasing student achievement in English Language Arts and Math, and improving student attendance. 44% of CSI schools were no longer in the bottom 5% after 5 years.

The work also reshaped teams’ mindsets, and shifted beliefs and practices for school improvement. School teams grounded their work in purpose, found greater clarity in improvement priorities, and were committed to implementing new instructional practices across their buildings, reflecting on their impact on student learning.

“The process provided FOCUS and clarity. We set aside time to meet consistently to work on improving instruction and learning throughout the building.”
-Harrisburg SD educator

“The coaching sessions pushed our thinking. So often in our work, we choose a practice or strategy and run full steam ahead without pausing to assess effectiveness along the way. The coaching sessions provided us with the opportunity to pause and reflect.”
-Harrisburg SD educator

Koru Strategy Group helped with:

DESIGN AND COHERENCE

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION

SCALING AND SUSTAINABILITY

PLANS