We’ve been reforming schools about as long as we’ve had them. A lot of the attention focuses on controversial reforms like test-based accountability or merit pay. But much reform consists of more modest efforts to improve instructional practice through coaching, observation, training, and the like. These reforms tend to fly under the radar. In a new book, A Chance to Solve Their Own Problems, my friend and frequent collaborator Jal Mehta partners with a team of researchers, including Radford University’s Max Yurkofsky, to ask whether these reforms help and why they may not. Jal is the Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership at Harvard, where he directs the Deeper Learning Institute. I was curious to hear what they’d found. Here’s what Jal and Max had to say.
—Rick

Rick: You’re out with a new book, A Chance to Solve Their Own Problems. What’s it about?

Jal: Countless schools have tried to solve their own problems through continuous improvement and design methods—things like Data Wise, Instructional Rounds, and other cycles of inquiry. Our book is one of the first studies to examine whether and under what conditions these methods succeed, drawing on four case studies and almost 200 interviews.

Rick: What led you to tackle this topic?

Max: After Jal finished his 2013 book, The Allure of Order, he became interested in what might replace the top-down reform efforts like No Child Left Behind that had dominated education policy up to that point. Together, we came across Anthony Bryk’s 2015 book Learning to Improve, which introduced improvement science to educational audiences. We realized it fell into a middle ground between top-down and bottom-up reforms—drawing on data and disciplined experimentation while still giving front-line educators real flexibility and agency.

Rick: What did you learn?

Jal: The biggest lesson is that these methods are not self-executing; doing them well requires a very human process of interpreting data, developing new ideas, and building momentum for change. No dataset or method is a silver bullet.

Rick: Education is awash in improvement strategies, each of which arrives on a wave of high hopes. What do we know about their actual impact?

Max: The best research we’ve found on past eras of school improvement showed a familiar pattern: Solid ideas were implemented overzealously from the top. School leaders adopted the parts that were congruent with their worldview—like minimizing variation—and disregarded the parts about giving teachers more ownership. There was a Spinning Wheels quality to these reforms: They were a hot thing, poorly implemented, which gave way to the next thing.

Rick: If you have to distill the key findings of your book for educational leaders, what are they?

Jal: First, don’t expect improvement-science methods to solve your problems for you. They can be one part of a larger strategy; don’t assume they are the strategy. They work best when you have a clear goal—like reducing absenteeism—and you design an effort that has all the components needed to address that problem. Second, it requires skill and judgment to use these methods well. Should you “fail faster” or “go slow to go fast”? Dig deep into root causes or just try something and iterate? There are no black and white answers. Leading these processes requires adapting them to your specific context.

Rick: Appreciate the Spinning Wheels shout-out. Given that, what explains why a given effort is more or less likely to succeed?

Jal: Successful efforts married particular mindsets, routines, and practices. Mindsets are how you think about the work. Routines build a regular rhythm. Practices are what you do. Some methods naively assume that seeing a problem means you can address it, but people often need outside expertise. Finally, you need the right “relational container”—a space where people trust each other enough to share what’s working and what isn’t, without fear of repercussions.

Rick: Why isn’t there more focus on whether these improvement strategies actually, you know, produce improvement?

Jal: Max has written about what he calls “technical ceremonies.” There are strong incentives for school leaders to prioritize easily measurable reforms. But many improvement strategies ask leaders to reexamine basic assumptions and practices, which isn’t easy to measure. Some past studies have found positive to mixed results, but the challenge is that these methods are designed to build the capabilities of leaders and teachers, which is difficult to assess in a typical experimental study.

Rick: In the book, you argue that the success of these strategies tends to have less to do with the nifty new concepts than with boring old questions of pacing, culture, politics, measurement, and such. Why does that feel like such a contrarian impulse?

Max: As organizational theorists, we’re fascinated by the mundane ways schools frustrate reform. We agree with a central maxim of improvement science: Every system is perfectly designed for the results it gets. So, if you want new results, you must first understand how the current system works. Even methods designed to disrupt old patterns are vulnerable to being absorbed by the very structures and habits they aim to change. That’s a useful dose of humility for anyone thinking “this time is different.”

Rick: You mentioned Spinning Wheels. As you know, three decades ago, I argued in it that frustration with school reform is less about specific reforms and more about a systemic inability to pursue change seriously or well. Is that what we’re talking about here?

Jal: Much of what we saw fit that pattern: initiative churn, turnover undermining momentum, and methods abandoned before they take root. But we do have success stories: Chicago raised graduation rates by more than 25 percentage points over 20 years by carefully tracking struggling 9th graders and building systems to support them. Change is possible, but only when people carefully attend to those obstacles.

Rick: Looking to those success stories, what’s one piece of advice for school or district leaders who are interested in trying these methods?

Max: We believe in holding these methods lightly. Although we think they are a real improvement on what has come before, they aren’t perfectly designed for every school, district, or problem. Also, if administrators want teachers to use these methods, they need to model the same curiosity and commitment to continuous improvement. That includes being willing to adapt based on the feedback of those they serve.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.