Abstract
For decades, school improvement planning has been concerned with increasing individual student outcomes by using universal strategies for the purpose of narrowing or closing opportunity and achievement gaps (U.S. Department of Education, 2025), which scholars had described as a “thin equity” approach. However, despite decades of various phases of school improvement planning, disproportionalities in student outcomes persist. Recently the literature on school improvement planning spotlights an alternative approach aimed at transforming existing systems called equity-focused school improvement planning. This approach is concerned with interrogating systems reproducing inequities experienced by minoritized student groups and using continuous improvement methods to reduce variation in teaching and learning, frequently characterized as “strong equity.” Research has shown that district leaders who supported strong equity developed their own capabilities in equity-focused school improvement planning. Research has also traced ways that district leaders developed leadership of strong equity using various tools, routines, and structures with a diverse set of school-based leaders. District leaders helped to balance pressures for both attending to accountability requirements and systems improvement work. In this study, strong equity leadership is characterized as equity as capability (knowledge and skills), equity as process (tools, routines, structures), and equity as lens (balancing external accountability and internal systems improvement). This multiple qualitative methods case study of a large Mid-Atlantic school district examines the roles of three principal supervisors and three continuous improvement coaches in developing strong equity leadership of three principals for equity-focused school improvement planning. Thematic and comparative coding of nine semi-structured interviews and thirty-four documents found that the role of principal supervisor was distinctly focused on leadership coaching with principals to craft a theory of change that included (a) aligning the principal’s leadership goals to school improvement goals; (b) developing teacher capabilities in instruction using evidence-based strategies; and (c) holding principals accountable for enacting what was espoused in the school’s improvement plan. Continuous improvement coaches provided improvement coaching. They developed the capabilities of leadership teams using situated learning to embed learning from improvement work in the day-to-day operations of schooling, and democratic accountability, holding schools accountable for implementing the district’s equity-focused school improvement planning (SIP) processes. These included using data to frame a problem of practice, performing root cause analysis, and conducting two instances of continuous improvement using rapid, short-term, and closely examined cycles of change (Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles). Principals that developed capabilities in strong equity leadership and led equity-focused school improvement planning processes were able to determine what was working or adjust what was not working to produce equitable access to high quality instruction and improved student outcomes, especially with diverse multilingual populations. Implications of this study suggest principal supervisors and continuous improvement coaches valued learning-by-doing together with school-based leaders, contextualized what works and does not work for their school, and considered how district and individual equity stances shaped leaders’ orientation to accountability and improvement work when engaging in strong equity school improvement planning.
