In the first of a series of research briefs focused on the biggest implementation challenges facing American education today, EDI looks at what data from the field can tell us about education leaders’ capacity to anchor their work in clear student outcome goals. Eyes on the prize: The capacity of education leaders to use system-wide goals to drive student success looks back at five years of data from “capacity reviews” using the Delivery Capacity rubric and discusses the challenges involved in setting meaningful system goals.
Two aspects of the Delivery Capacity Rubric ask specifically about goal setting.
First, the rubric asks:
Does the system have a clearly articulated and shared aspiration?
The rubric then breaks this down further into four key questions:
- Has your system clearly articulated an answer to the question “What are we trying to do?”
- Is the aspiration defined in terms of ambitious outcomes for students?
- Is the aspiration translated into a manageable set of goals, each with clear, specific metrics?
- Is the aspiration shared by the relevant stakeholders?
Second, the rubric asks:
Have the aspiration and associated goals been translated to concrete end targets and trajectories?
To specify what this means, the rubric goes on to ask:
- Has the system translated goals into numerical targets that are specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic and time-limited (SMART)?
- Has the system created a trajectory–a series of interim targets that plot the planned path of the metric between now and the target date–for each goal?
- Are targets and trajectories rooted in evidence from past experience or research?
- Are targets and trajectories included in the plan(s) and communicated with relevant stakeholders?
After 26 capacity reviews in 21 state agencies, a few patterns have emerged. Leaders have most often been advised to:
- Define their goals as clearly as possible–translating slogans and vision statements into measurable goals, and setting numerical targets and trajectories where none existed.
- Draw on what already existed and explain how multiple statements of “what we’re trying to do” fit together.
- Use the goals as the “architecture” to organize agency plans, assign ownership and establish performance management routines.
- Over-communicate about the aspiration and goals until everybody in the system had a shared understanding of what change they were trying to achieve for students.
It is tempting to think of goal setting (and especially the construction of trajectories) as a technical, statistical exercise. But this misses the point. A system’s goals express its level of ambition; they spell out what matters most; they make a powerful statement about how much the system values achievement for all students and equity for underserved groups. Goal setting is a core leadership function, and something in which all education leaders should invest time and effort.
To read more about setting student outcome goals, see EDi’s Eyes on the Prize.
