Skip navigation
Blog

How to Get Further, Faster: The Eight Hallmarks of Successful Strategic Initiatives

September 19, 2024, By Ben Court, Senior Director, K-12 Research

Many US school districts face similar challenges—including lackluster reading and math scores, disruptive behavior, absenteeism, and talent shortages. Yet, while some districts are making headlines with success stories, others struggle to make progress even after years of effort. What sets these successful districts apart?

In search of an answer, our team analyzed more than 500 district initiatives documented over the past seven years. This analysis revealed a distinct set of characteristics that consistently lead to newsworthy results. We call these the Eight Hallmarks of Successful Strategic Initiatives.

The Eight Hallmarks of Successful Strategic Initiatives

As the new school year begins and districts across the country launch fresh initiatives, aligning your plans with these hallmarks can increase your odds of success. To begin, learn more about each hallmark below and consider how each can be applied to current initiatives in your schools.

  1. Shared vision and goals

    At the center of nearly every success story, we find clearly defined goals that have been constantly reiterated and are commonly understood. In the strongest cases, leaders have documented four key pieces of information: the initiative’s objective (e.g., aligning districtwide ELA instruction with the science of reading), why achieving the objective matters, how success will be measured, and the actions that will be taken to achieve those results. In our experience, initiatives that launch without such clarity almost always fall flat. Change is too hard to sustain if the destination hasn’t been set.

  2. Role and ownership clarity

    To realize those goals, successful districts avoid K-12’s most common pitfall: leadership by committee. Leaders still bring the right voices to the table, but also define how each individual should contribute. Who is accountable for the initiative’s success? Who is responsible for planning? Who provides input, and who needs to be informed of progress? Most importantly, who has final decision-making authority? Clear roles and responsibilities lead to better decisions, fewer meetings, and smoother progress.

  3. Hardwired accountability

    While many think of accountability as “clear deadlines and consequences,” successful districts often take a broader view. Specifically, they ask initiative leaders to meet three criteria before plans can be approved:

    1) Define the problems that must be solved to achieve their objective
    2) Show how their plan addresses those problems
    3) Define how and when progress will be measured and communicated

     

    Hardwiring those criteria into initiative proposals ensures that time and resources will be spent addressing the most impactful issues and that teams can adjust quickly if implementation is off track.

  4. Balance of standards and autonomy

    Many superintendents strive to give principals autonomy in managing their buildings. However, to achieve district-wide results, some practices must be implemented consistently in each school. As such, clear communication of non-negotiable practices plays a key role in every success story we find. To increase buy-in for these requirements, innovative districts invite school leaders to help design standardized policies and processes before adhering to them as a team.

  5. Data-driven decisions

    The digital transformation of public education, accelerated by pandemic school closures, has flooded schools with data. However, many are now swimming in information without clarity on how that data should be used to inform decisions. Where initiatives succeed, we see leaders taking the time to ask the right questions: What data do we need to craft and monitor our strategy? Who needs access to that data? Do those individuals know how to access and use that data?

  6. Outsized investment in leadership development

    Educational leadership programs rarely provide sufficient training on how to manage change. In response, many forward-thinking districts are building programs to develop those skills “in-house.” Our research has shown that such training is often most effective when attached to specific initiatives – such as how to lead changes in reading instruction or manage the implementation of universal screeners for social-emotional support. This approach yields faster returns because leaders immediately apply new skills to their work.

  7. Continuous focus on teacher engagement

    During the pandemic, more than 80% of EAB’s partner districts reported pausing at least one strategic initiative due to low staff morale and engagement. Through helping more than 100 districts overcome that challenge, we learned that the key is to avoid one-off teacher appreciation efforts and establish a systematic process for identifying and responding to staff concerns. For many districts, building these processes has opened the door to changes that were previously untenable. As such, sustaining teacher engagement is now central to most of the more recent success stories uncovered in our research.

  8. A practice of sourcing and sharing innovations

    Many of our case studies started at a single school before expanding across multiple sites. Unfortunately, very few school systems have a process for identifying and scaling homegrown practices. This leaves innovations siloed in pockets of each district while others attempt to “reinvent the wheel.” Districts that have established such processes often quickly differentiate themselves from peers in their region, making progress on a wide array of issues by harnessing practical solutions developed in their own classrooms.

Our research and experience strongly suggest that these eight hallmarks can be used to strengthen any strategic initiative in school systems today. However, we’re not the first organization to emphasize the importance of building rigorous systems for managing and implementing change in schools, so why do so many continue to struggle?

Through interviews with nearly 100 district leaders, we heard a consistent response: Educators need practical help to turn theory into practice. The best way to make that transition is to ask the right questions when evaluating or designing plans. What are those questions? Download our latest resource, 32 Questions to Strengthen Strategic Initiatives here.

This research is part of EAB’s ongoing effort to help superintendents nationwide build high-performance school systems. To learn how these eight hallmarks apply to specific challenges such as raising reading scores and reducing absenteeism, along with how EAB can help you implement proven solutions to those challenges in your schools, visit eab.com/k12.

More Blogs

Blog

3 strategies to enable secure and productive learning online

Hear from one district three strategies with detailed guidance to accommodate teacher and student needs for online learning…
Data & Analytics Blog
Blog

3 ways to help teachers and students get the most out of online learning

One director of technology provides guidance on the steps that CTOs can take to prepare, and how they…
Blog

Efficient and effective communication strategies for schools and districts to connect with families during COVID-19

To keep their school communities well-informed about the effects of theCOVID-19 crisis, school and district leadership must execute…