In this live recording from the 2026 National Summit for Improvement in Education, Partners in School Innovation CEO Derek Mitchell interviews Tenette Smith and Elise Brown about their roles in Mississippi's extraordinary improvement in reading, and how they are bringing the lessons from that into their new work in Maryland.

Learn more about continuous improvement

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In this live crossover event for the National Summit on Improvement in Education and the Deeper Learning Conference, Alec Patton interviews Ben Daley, Jim May, and Ash Vasudeva about what deeper learning and continuous improvement have to offer each other.

Learn more about deeper learning

Learn more about continuous improvement

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

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Alec Patton talks to Patrick Yurick about how High Tech High Chula Vista came together to create a mural as a memorial to one of its students, Sean Fuchs.

This episode is about a disturbing subject—we don't recommend listening with kids around.

Episode Resources:

Photos of the completed mural (both versions) and more

"Choosing Sean," an article Patrick Yurick wrote for Unboxed

The Imagine Mural in Changing the Subject

__Sean Fuchs performing the poem that inspired the Imagine Mural

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Stacey Caillier talks to Cornelius Minor about what it means to be bold in education right now, and the journey he and his colleagues took from observing a problem to making meaningful change with students.

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

What are you waiting for? Sign up for National Summit for Improvement in Education or The Deeper Learning Conference (March 30-April 1st)!

• Watch this if you’re trying to figure out which conference to come to.

Learn all about Cornelius Minor and The Minor Collective here.

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Robyn Snyder, Director of Supplemental Services at Clovis Unified School District, Ray Gamez, the principal of Janet L. Young Elementary School, and JJ Donat, who’s the guidance instructional specialist at Janet L. Young, about how that school cut the suspension rate for African-American students from 8.7%. to 4.2% in a single year.

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out!

If you're looking for a good introduction to Continuous Improvement in education, start here.

Alec Patton talks to Beverley Jenkins and Kate Hogan of the System Improvement Leads Networked Improvement Community and Nicole Leveille of Cloverdale Unified School District about how Cloverdale dramatically increased the percentage of students with IEPs in the general education population, and cut chronic absenteeism among students with disabilities in half.

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out!

Episode Notes:

• You can read an article by Kate Hogan and Sandra Park about this improvement network on

Unboxed

here

!

• To learn more about the System Improvement Leads (SIL) team and their supports, visit

systemimprovement.org

• To learn more about California’s Compliance and Improvement Monitoring process, visit

caltan.info

• In partnership with Cloverdale, SIL has published a strategy handout

linked here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Liz Chu, Executive Director of the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University, about the new book she co-authored, The Learning Hive: Leading Collective Innovation to Transform Education Systems.

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Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out!

Referenced in this episode:

• The Learning Hive: Leading Collective Innovation to Transform Systems

(Teachers College Press 2025) by Elizabeth Chu, Andrea Clay, Ayeola Kinlaw, and Meghan Snyder

• An Innovative New Vision of Leadership and Governance in Education: Learning Hives Show What's Possible

(Teachers College Press blog)

• The CARPE network

• Partners in School Innovation

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Alec Patton talks to math teachers Sunny Chan and Sandy Tu, and improvement coach Amanda Meyer, about Fremont High School's remarkable success at improving ninth-grade on track.

Every other week, the High Tech High Graduate School of Education publishes a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

Amanda is going to be talking about her work on ninth-grade on track in Oakland at the National Summit for Improvement in Education. It'll be like experiencing this podcast episode in 3D! Book now so you don't miss out!

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• The Gradebook Review protocol used in the Breakthrough Success Collaborative was adapted from High Tech High Graduate School of Education's CARE Network.

• The Gradebook Audit protocol mentioned in the episode was co-developed between educators in Oakland Unified and the Breakthrough Success Community

• To learn more about the Breakthrough Success Community and how to join, visit https://www.btsc.coredistricts.org/

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education