Improvement Science in the Field

Edwin Nii Bonney earned his Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Missouri in 2021. His research centers on how educational leaders and educators disrupt and/or reinforce the marginalization of their minoritized, vulnerable, and racialized students’ languages, cultures, and histories. Dr. Bonney pays particular attention in his research to moments of disruption in and beyond educational spaces where students and community members are centering their own languages, cultures, and histories and are reshaping what is considered “normal” or standard. He has published several articles, book chapters, and policy briefs on decolonizing educational leadership, discourse analysis of educational policies and programs, refugee and immigrant education, school-community partnerships, and school-family engagement. Dr. Bonney teaches courses and advises students in the doctoral education program. He is interested in learning and working alongside educational leaders in tackling problems of practice so that their students can be equitably served.Sarah Capello earned a Ph.D. in Administrative and Policy Studies in 2018 from the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh and has nearly ten years of experience teaching in higher education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. One strand of Dr. Capello’s research focuses on transformative EdD education and supporting the growth and development of educational leaders who are scholarly practitioners through practitioner inquiry, doctoral assessments, and dissertation writing. A second strand of research focuses on instructional supervision for pre-service and in-service teachers. Dr. Capello has published articles in the Journal of Educational Supervision, Action in Teacher Education, College Teaching, Impacting Education, and has a forthcoming article in Teaching and Teacher Education. She currently teaches practitioner inquiry courses in the EdD program as well as chairs and serves on EdD dissertation committees.Maxwell Yurkofsky obtained his Ed.D. in Educational Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2020. He teaches in the Doctor of Education program and the Master’s in Educational Leadership program, and is committed to preparing school and system leaders to strategically utilize improvement science, organizational theory, evaluation, and design principles to inquire into and address high-leverage problems of practice. His research centers on understanding how school systems can organize for continuous improvement towards more ambitious and equitable visions of learning. Dr. Yurkofsky has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including Educational Researcher, Educational Administration Quarterly, Review of Research in Education, The Harvard Educational Review, Teaching and Teacher Education, Computers & Education, Teachers College Record, Educational Policy, and the Peabody Journal of Education. His dissertation won the “Dissertation of the Year” award from the Leadership for School Improvement Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association in 2021.

An “improvement movement” is afoot in education, in the United States and around the world. This movement empowers local teachers, leaders, family members, and community advocates to use rigorous approaches to local innovation to address local educational opportunities, needs, and problems. Improvement Science in the Field gives voice to these local change agents, makes their practice visible to others, and provides novel perspectives on the day-to-day work of advancing new ambitions for students’ learning and development. This volume is sure to inspire and guide others who are embracing the challenge of transformative educational change.

• AcknowledgementForeword (by Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, Ph.D., Clemson University)Introduction Part 1 - Cases on Leading ChangeChapter 1 - Leading Change in Racial Disparities in DisciplineChapter 2 - Leading Change in Enrollment of Black and Brown Students in Gifted Programs Chapter 3 - Leading Change in Teacher Stress and Mental HealthChapter 4 - Leading Change in the Overrepresentation of Students of Color in Special EducationChapter 5 - Leading Change in Onboarding and Support of Novice Teachers Part 2 - Cases for Practice & DiscussionChapter 6 - Practice Case on EL Family Engagement Chapter 7 - Practice Case on Discipline and In-School SuspensionsChapter 8 - Practice Case on Middle to High School Transitions Chapter 9 - Practice Case on Reading AchievementChapter 10 - Practice Case on Teacher DemoralizationChapter 11 - Practice Case on Gifted Education ConclusionAfterword - (by Sandy Strayer, Wendy Durham, Matt Woods, Elizabeth Motley, Kenya Gravely, Henry County)Appendix ReferencesIndexAbout the Authors