Initiatives

Early Childhood Education Systems

Systems change is challenging because everything is interconnected. Therefore, interventions in one part of a system may lead to unintended consequences in another. We use a system dynamics lens to understand how to intervene so that more children can have access to high-quality early childhood education  (ECE). We strive to understand perspectives from parents, teachers, community leaders, superintendents, child care directors, and early childhood experts and pair it with quantitative data and computer simulation to understand what would happen if we simply added more seats, recruited more teachers, or changed teacher salary over time.

Our initiatives in early childhood include:

• Community-based system dynamics modeling of the early childhood system
• The Gateway Alliance: design, project management, and support for regional coordination of the ECE system in St. Louis

Radical Listening Research

We send community-based researchers out to listen and learn from students, families, and educators about their experiences with educational systems. By listening to people that are currently experiencing schools today, we are able to understand their points of pain and ways in which policies and decisions that are meant to help, sometimes harm. These interviews and listening sessions feed into a deeper understanding of initiatives and ways to restructure.

Examples of listening & research we’ve conducted include:

• Parent/caregiver, teacher, and caretaker listening sessions with those who have opted out of ECE systems.
• Teacher and school leader interviews to understand the impact of COVID on SLPS Consortium Partnership Network (CPN) schools.
• Teacher interviews with charter and school leaders on student mobility in St. Louis.

Education Structures in K-12

Doing more or less of the same activities in a system does not necessarily lead to a radical, long-term transformation that will meet the complex needs of educators and children in schools. We work closely with students, families, and educational leaders to understand system complexities and redesign changes.

Examples of design partnerships we’ve developed include:

• Research-practice partnership (RPP): to foster rigorous research partnerships with school leaders that lead to evidence-based decision-making in schools.
• Wraparound support structures between districts and nonprofits to meet the unmet social, emotional, and academic needs of students and educators in schools.
• School structures that support teacher leadership and decision-making teams in schools that serve students with a high proportion of unmet needs.
• Coordination & collaboration between charter and district public schools at the regional level.