Book Study: Quality Implementation

As a member of the Curriculum and Teaching Standing Committee, I have been tasked with reading the first four chapters of Quality Implementation: Leveraging Collective Efficacy to Make "What Works" Actually Work by Jenni Donohoo and Steven Katz for our next meeting. Just by digging into the preface, I already know that this book connects to both my role on the CTSC, Literacy Coaching and my RTI role.

Collective efficacy is a significant belief system for improving student outcomes. When educators share the belief that they can influence student achievement, regardless of some of the difficult circumstances faced in schools today, the results can be very powerful.

An interview with the authors about their book can be found here:

Chapter 1: The Elusive Quest for Quality Implementation

Donohoo & Katz (2020) define Quality Implementation "as a process through which the evidence-based promises of improvement-oriented interventions get realized in practice" (p. 5). The authors suggest that the way to achieve quality implementation is through a progressive inquiry method that brings together theory and practice in a way that also acknowledges context. This process leads to innovative and lasting change.

Barriers to quality implementation:

The information is out there about how to best improve schools, however, barriers exist for doing what needs to be done for long enough to see if it works. An example of the length of time it takes for evidence-based practices to be implemented in the health care system was used to show that this is not unique to education. In education, we are quick to try something and decide that it didn't work the way we expected. We then either revert back to what was done before or try something new.

Schools cannot expect a change in outcomes until initiatives are implemented by the majority of teachers

According to Donohoo & Katz, this means that 90% of teachers in a building need to implement an initiative before a lasting change occurs. However, the authors caution that "gaining critical mass" isn't enough - there are other measures to consider. You'll know you have quality implementation through these four measures:

1. Depth - the nature of the change; deep and lasting learning for students/transformational shifts in educators' beliefs

2. Sustainability - the degree to which the change is sustained; ongoing habits of teachers and schools

3. Spread - the number of people or schools involved

4. Shift in Reform Ownership - do educators have the knowledge and authority to grow the reform over time?

One of the most significant challenges to achieving quality implementation is the entrenched beliefs held by teachers. This is where collective efficacy comes into play. When teachers lack collective efficacy, they revert to blaming external sources for failure instead of examining or challenging those beliefs through progressive inquiry. When collective efficacy is present, teachers are more likely to embrace educational change efforts as they are confident in their combined effort to do so.

As the gap between theory and practice is being resolved through progressive inquiry, changes in beliefs and values evolve over time