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When I was chief program and strategy officer at a nonprofit, I had several dozen people in my org and six direct reports. I had a really good team. But sometimes (and this may sound familiar) they came to me with issues. Or someone brought an issue to their manager, who brought it to their […]

A partner asked me to help improve high school graduation rates. My first request was a list of 50 students who had dropped out. About 80% of students were already graduating. There were likely many things working simultaneously to produce that result, making it difficult to know which were most important. I suspected we would

In 2017, a state agency brought my team in to develop an improvement strategy for hundreds of schools in the bottom 5% of performance. We knew principals were one of the most important levers for improving schools, and the state was considering investing more in principal training and support. We wanted to know: were principals

About 12 years ago, I was facilitating a professional development workshop for several hundred teachers, most of them teaching in high-needs schools. The gym was loud and animated. A survey at the end of the first day indicated that participants thought the techniques and tools were applicable and relevant. I woke up the next morning

In early 2024, McKinsey released the study I would have conducted if I had a multimillion-dollar research budget. It takes on a question leaders of education systems, nonprofits, and funders everywhere are trying to answer: Why do some efforts produce sustained gains in student learning at scale while most fall short? The report’s findings are

The six high schoolers at the cafeteria table start to smile. A minute ago, when I pulled up a chair and invited myself to join them, I got surly teenage looks. “If you were in charge of this place for a week, what would you do to make this school better for as many students