Join WestEd Improvement Science experts at the 2024 Carnegie Foundation Summit, March 24–27, at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina in San Diego, California.
This year, we will be facilitating a full-day, pre-conference course on the use of system design principles to accelerate and sustain improvement, and two general sessions focusing on practical measures for math equity and justice and the Center Joint Unified School District’s efforts to navigate equity advancement within their school system.
The Summit convenes educators, policymakers, researchers, and others to share innovative ways to build systems that better serve teachers, students, and communities. Attendees can participate through remote access and in-person.
Learn more about our sessions below and get updates about our activities by following us LinkedIn and Facebook.
WestEd Sessions
Pre-Conference Full-Day Course
Leading Systems for Sustained Improvement
This session is designed for organizational leaders who have hit a wall turning smaller-scale improvement work into lasting results. Participants in this pre-conference course will experience the use of system design principles to accelerate and sustain improvement. Through a simulation with Legos, participants learn key concepts and organizational approaches that enable aligned, small changes on the front-line to add up to big changes in results. This fun and insightful activity will allow participants to apply lessons learned from a century of quality improvement work outside the education context to the challenges they face as school and district leaders.
In this full-day session, participants will:
- Be introduced to principles, methods, and tools to (re)design three interconnected systems (work, improvement, management) to meet every student’s needs
- Experience the power of aligning everyone’s efforts toward common goals while using a shared approach to improving their system as a whole
- Learn approaches and tools to recognize and solve the systemic roots of pervasive problems of practice
- Reflect on the importance of establishing the organizational culture required for system transformation, including: respect for every individual, leading with humility and curiosity, applying servant leadership, and developing staff to see and solve problems they experience
This session is ideal for leaders who are in a position to: lead system transformation such as district executive leadership teams (i.e., district Superintendents, Assistance Superintendents, and Directors), influence system transformation such as leaders of intermediary/support organizations (i.e., state agencies, County or regional offices, or non-profit institutions).
Presenters:
- Shelah Feldstein, Senior Improvement Specialist, WestEd
- Jon Dolle, Director of Improvement Science, WestEd
- Christina Dixon, Independent Improvement Advisor and Consultant
General Session
Practical Measures for Math Equity & Justice: Small Group Status Survey
Creating a just and equitable math classroom requires counteracting the status hierarchies that inhere in traditional math education, where some students are positioned as mathematically capable while others – all too often Black and Brown students – are not. WestEd and the CARE Network co-created a practical measure of small group status as a means to catalyze critical reflection on practice and inform action. In this session, participants will become familiar with a landscape of practices that attend to equity in math classrooms, learn about the small group status tool, its development and its use in an improvement network, and try it out themselves!
Presenters:
- Carlos Sandoval, Improvement Specialist, WestEd
- Sola Takahashi, Senior Research Associate, WestEd
- Jahneille Cunningham, Improvement Specialist, WestEd
- Yekaterina Milvidskaia, Resident Skeptic, High Tech High Graduate School of Education
- Curtis Taylor, Improvement Coach, High Tech High Graduate School of Education
General Session
Shifting Mindsets or Taking Action? Navigating Equity Advancement in School Systems
In this session, participants will learn about Center Joint Unified School District’s efforts to address the enduring strategic tension that haunts work to advance equity: How do you balance work to change mindsets with taking action? Participants will share their own experiences with this tension as well as the methods, tools, and approaches they have leveraged to address it. Through structured dialogue and information capturing, those who participate in this session will be able to problem-solve together, and they will gain access to a shared document of methods and tools, including those used by the presenting district.
Presenters:
- Erica Boas, Senior Improvement Specialist, WestEd
- Rawlin Rosario, Senior Program Associate, WestEd
- Scott Loehr, Superintendent, Center Joint Unified School District
- Chris Borasi, Director of Human Resources & Student Services, Center Joint Unified School District
- Isiah Iniguez, Improvement Associate, WestEd