School improvement has been called many things: complex, daunting, elusive. While this may be true, at its core, school improvement, hard as it may be, is an equity imperative. The nation’s lowest-performing schools disproportionately serve students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, due to deep-seated inequities and centuries of systemic underinvestment.

State education agencies are central to this challenge. They hold both the responsibility and the leverage to drive improvement efforts by investing resources, dismantling barriers, and championing long-term, systemwide change. This is the only way to deliver on the currently unfulfilled promise that accountability designations unlock meaningful support for identified schools, and to shift the perception away from accountability designations signifying punitive labels.

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Findings

In this report, EdTrust conducted semi-structured interviews with state administrators who are leading or supporting school improvement work at their state education agency (SEA). The findings from this qualitative study highlight both the progress made and the current limitations of state supports to schools identified as needing improvement. Here are some takeaways:

• SEA administrators expressed a clear intention — and highlighted some ongoing efforts — to reimagine their role, moving beyond compliance monitoring and grants management toward developing meaningful resources, building local capacity, and offering technical assistance.
• School improvement efforts rely on strong leadership, especially at the state level. Interviewees highlighted the impact of their agency leaders in championing improvement efforts by aligning agency priorities, marshaling resources, and fostering coherence across the system.
• Several state administrators stressed the importance of building trust with schools and districts.
• The use of data to guide changes in school improvement efforts is more nascent, underscoring the need for continuous improvement and data-informed decision-making to refine support moving forward.

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Recommendations

Additionally, this report provides insights and recommendations for advocates to advance equitable school improvement within their states. Advocates can support these efforts at the state-level by urging their leaders to:

• Dedicate state funding to augment federal improvement dollars
• Revise school funding formulas and oppose school voucher programs
• Integrate improvement efforts into broader equity and accountability systems, as well as state initiatives and priorities
• Promote a culture of continuous learning across the school improvement ecosystem
• Provide tiered support for all schools to improve

Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages