The Gates Foundation’s Networks for School Improvement (NSI) initiative supported networks of schools that used continuous improvement (CI) methods to iteratively test and refine strategies addressing a common challenge, while learning from one another. The foundation awarded more than $300 million in five-year grants to intermediary organizations that led 34 NSIs across roughly 150 districts and charter networks.

The foundation sponsored an evaluation to build evidence on the impact and implementation of the NSI approach. The evaluation addressed three research questions, each explored by a different evaluation partner:

1. How do intermediaries design and implement their NSI (RAND)?
2. To what extent do participating schools implement CI activities (American Institutes for Research)?
3. What is the impact of the NSI on student outcomes? What aspects of the NSI approach are related to impacts on students (Mathematica)?

A summary report that describes findings across these research questions can be found here. Also available are reports describing (1) how intermediaries designed and implemented their NSI (here), (2) how participating schools implemented CI (here), (3) how these aspects of implementation are related (here), and (4) the impact of the NSI on student outcomes (here).