A Network for Instructional Improvement

This book tells the story of how educators in a large urban district, supported by the University of Pittsburgh, came together to tackle persistent challenges in literacy instruction. This book offers actionable, research-based insights into how teachers and leaders can use continuous improvement methods to ensure all students thrive. We face vast challenges in education, but districts and schools are full of educators ready to take on problems of practice that can’t be solved quickly or alone. When we support schools and districts to become continuous improvement organizations, we create space for educators to come together as a network to understand challenges to high-quality instruction and to spread promising practice so all students benefit.A Network for Instructional Improvement: How Teachers and Leaders Made it Work tells the story of how a community of educators in a large urban district, with support from the University of Pittsburgh, worked as a network for six years to change literacy teaching and learning for students who are furthest from opportunity. The authors take readers into the heart of the project—the classrooms, the practices, the learning walks, the deep collaborative work of continuous improvement—and show how student achievement rose as a result. Using the stories of these educators and their schools, this book shares research-based, actionable examples of how teachers and leaders centered literacy teaching and learning on students.