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Act on Evidence Toolkit

About

We’ve heard from district leaders that they need a way to use evidence to improve their existing programs. “I don’t want to create a brand new summer learning program that’s aligned with research. I want to understand what our district needs to do to strengthen the program we already have,” one leader shared.

Another said, “We’ve had a lot of initiative fatigue. We don’t usually stick with anything long enough to see it work.” 

Educators invest time, money, energy and expertise in creating programs and initiatives they care about. They want to incorporate evidence-based research, but they don’t want to start from scratch to do it. And they don’t need to. 

EdResearch for Action’s Act on Evidence Tool helps education leaders evaluate existing programs to understand if and how those programs align with evidence and how to make them more evidence-based. Knowing where programs stand allows leaders to prioritize their efforts to become more evidence-aligned and opens the door to significantly improving opportunities and outcomes for students.

The Act on Evidence Tool is a collaboration of EdResearch for Action, the Rennie Center for Education Policy Research, and DeliverEd and draws from EdResearch for Action’s briefs.

Intended Use

While the Act on Evidence toolkit is designed primarily for school and district leaders (e.g., Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, Chief Academic Officers, and Principals), leaders at other levels of K-12 education (e.g., SEA leaders, policy-makers, advocacy groups, etc.) may find this toolkit helpful to understand the most critical components of effective, evidence-based strategies.

This toolkit can be used at any point of the school year to support planning, implementation, and continuous improvement: 

  • Leaders who are planning to roll out new initiatives to support students can leverage each tool’s rubric for specific examples of how to design those initiatives in alignment with evidence around what works and planning template for mapping out specific actions related to top priorities. 
  • Throughout implementation, leaders can use the tools to reflect and revise plans based on the alignment between how programs are currently being executed and how research suggests they should be in order to achieve maximum impact for students. 

These tools can be tailored to individual contexts and situations so that leaders can reflect, prioritize, plan and monitor to continuously improve their initiatives’ alignment to research to accelerate improvement and achieve more equitable outcomes for students.

Overview

The EdResearch Act on Evidence Toolkit includes four tools (each its own webpage and PDF) organized around specific topic areas: Academic Acceleration, Student Mental Health and Well-Being, Family and Community Partnerships, and Coherence Across Initiatives. 

Each tool walks leaders through a four-step process to:

  1. Assess Current Programs: Use the toolkit to evaluate your existing educational programs. This involves examining whether these programs are aligned with evidence-based practices and determining their effectiveness in supporting student achievement.
  2. Identify Gaps and Opportunities: Analyze the results of your assessment to identify areas where your programs may not align with the latest evidence-based strategies. Look for gaps or weaknesses that need to be addressed to enhance program effectiveness.
  3. Develop an Improvement Plan: Based on your findings, create a plan to improve the alignment of your programs with the evidence base. This might include adopting new strategies, refining existing ones, or discontinuing practices that are not evidence-aligned.
  4. Monitor Progress and Adjust: Continuously monitor the impact of the changes you’ve implemented. Use the toolkit to measure progress and make adjustments as necessary to ensure ongoing alignment with evidence-based strategies and improve student outcomes.

The reflection rubric articulates the evidence-based strategies associated with a set of priority components of student supports identified by districts.

Tips for Use

  • Teams should anticipate spending roughly 3-5 hours to complete this tool, though depending on the size of the team and level of conversation this can range. Ideally, teams will be made up of leaders from across the organization with a collective view of implementation across a variety of initiatives/programs. 
  • This tool intentionally includes both a reflection and planning section because they are intended to be used together (e.g., it is not recommended to use the reflection rubric without planning for improvements, or use the planning template without first reflecting on existing alignment). We encourage you to integrate this planning into any existing district or strategic plans you have!
  • The reflection rubric is comprehensive and very few (if any!) programs will meet all of the expectations for “strong alignment” – certainly not at first! Don’t be discouraged. This is intentional so that you can align around what good looks like and work to prioritize and plan targeted improvements over time. This is a quality improvement tool to facilitate structured conversations, drive strategic planning, provide a metric for reassessment, and optimize all aspects of your recovery efforts.
  • The reflection rubric and planning template can be completed across all components or with a focus on a subset of components to determine what it takes to align in a given area.

Learn More

Interested in learning more about how the Act on Evidence Toolkit can help you understand and improve existing programs’ alignment with evidence? Please use this form to let us know, and we will reach out with information on upcoming webinars and other opportunities to learn more!

Have feedback? Need more help?

Please share any feedback you have or request additional assistance by emailing Heather Boughton

Email Us

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How do I download and complete the toolkit?

A: You can review the content for each of the four rubrics online and download a PDF version of the tool using the following links: 

  • Academic Accelerations
  • Student Mental Health and Well Being
  • Family and Community Partnerships
  • Coherence Across Initiatives

Note that we are asking you to provide a small amount of information about yourself so that we can learn more about who is utilizing the toolkit in order to improve it over time.

Q: What if our district is only focused on one area? What if a section doesn’t apply to us?

A: That’s great! You can use whichever portions are applicable to your situation. They are designed to be used independently.

Q: What if I have questions about how to complete the tool?

A: We would love to answer them – please reach out to Heather Boughton with any questions.