Previous work around school quality has typically identified schools that are “beating the odds.” Such an approach finds “outlier schools” by analyzing student outcomes, and studies these schools to determine what they appear to be doing well. However, in our early thinking about improving school quality, we began reframing quality around adult behaviors and inputs and the context they build in a school – factors we can leverage. This redefining of quality around adults resonates with us because of problems we perceive with approaches that place the most weight on student outcomes, which are biased by family poverty and factors outside of schools’ control. Next, we asked “If we have metrics on adults, can we predict the student outcomes used in previous accountability metrics?” Eventually this reframing could serve as a new nomenclature for quality and a model for guiding improvement. Read more here.
