The Delta Issue #20

You’ve got your resolution. Now make a plan to measure your progress.

By: Kunjan Narechania

Happy New Year, friends. Kunjan Narechania here. 

Every January I resolve to read more books in the upcoming year. I say, “This is the year I’m actually going to do it!” 

But guess what? I don’t say how many books. I don’t set a monthly goal. I don’t even have a calendar reminder on July 1 to check in on my progress. By the time December rolls around, the best I can do is resolve to read more books next year. What can I say, I’m only human.

All too often the same thing happens in education policy, only the stakes are much higher than my book list. We say our kids are going to become more proficient readers, but we don’t say how — and then we don’t track student reading until the end of the school year, by which time we find out that students aren’t reading any better, but it’s too late to do anything about it. 

State-level policy is supposed to change the student experience, but it won’t have the desired impact without a plan to hold ourselves accountable for making progress. 

How to measure and improve to achieve your vision for students

In December, I wrote about why mapping the implementation chain — the sequence of adults who influence what kids experience in classrooms, from policymakers to teachers — is the key to implementing good policy. But the process doesn’t end there. 

After you’ve defined a vision for the student experience and mapped the implementation chain, it’s time to collect data to measure whether actions are shifting within your chain — and then improve where you need to. 

Don’t skip this step. There is a zero percent chance that everyone in your state will adopt new behaviors from the outset. Checking in on progress 2-3 times per year will help the entire chain improve. 

There are three main methods for measuring progress:

1. Observation: Physically go into schools and see what’s happening there. What are students doing? What are teachers doing? What are principals doing?
2. Surveys & Interviews: Ask teachers, principals, and district leaders to self-report. Surveys are a great way to get a snapshot of what’s happening at scale. This annual RAND study is a great resource. 
3. Quantitative data: Count the number of teachers and principals who attended a curriculum training, for example. A glance at the numbers can often help fill in a complete picture.  

These methods may appear incredibly basic, and they are. That’s the point. States are often tempted to overcomplicate measurement — but if it’s scary, it won’t get done.

Make measurement easy, no Ph.D. required 

Let’s look at an example of how this works in practice.  

Say you set a statewide literacy goal for all 3rd- through 8th-grade students to read, write, and speak about meaningful, complex, grade-level texts. For that vision to come true, you need:

• Teachers to participate in training to understand the new curriculum in a collaborative setting with other teachers and make lesson plans using the new curriculum.
• Principals to ensure all teachers are trained on the curriculum and hire coaches to support, troubleshoot, and facilitate meetings with teachers.   

So how do you measure these actions? Here’s an example of what the implementation chains looks like when we add a measurement column:

Make measurement about growth, not punishment

This example is simplified for our purposes, but you can start to see how measuring the implementation chain works. When my team works with states, we operate on the principle that data isn’t a yardstick for slapping hands — it’s more like a growth chart for plotting progress.

Some of you might be saying, “This is all great, but it’s a TON of work. Who has all the time and resources for this?”

Everyone has resource constraints. But even with those constraints, I guarantee that you can do some version of measurement. We often ask our clients: Who can be an extension of your agency? Do you have vendors working in your schools? Do you have community partners? Great. Give them a rubric and send them into classrooms. You don’t have to ask for a nuanced evaluation — just ask “yes” or “no” questions so anyone can collect data for you. 

Here’s an example to show you how simple this should be:

Want to steal this rubric? Click here for an editable version that you can download and make your own. You can also narrow your observations to a sample size you can manage — but not going is not an option. You have to visit schools and understand what’s happening in classrooms if you want to influence the lives of kids. 

If you are a teacher, principal, or district leader and you have questions about measuring change to achieve your vision for students, I’d especially love to hear from you. Drop your question in the comments.  

Let’s Get Muddy

If you set a New Year’s resolution for 2025 and this post inspired you to make a plan to measure your progress, please tell me! How (and how often) will you check in with yourself? And if anyone wants to ask me in July about how many books I’ve read, I’d appreciate it.