STATE SERVICES

SEA Strategic Mapping

In addition to the organizational assessment, we engaged several state education agencies (SEAs) in our Strategic Mapping Process. The Strategic Mapping Process led SEA leaders and department directors in a collective analysis of their capacity to support their districts in need of improvement. In this 2-day process, we assisted the SEA in collectively identifying the central challenges facing their districts and the strategies and resources that currently and could potentially support their schools' improvement efforts. The process then engaged the multiple leaders and departments in the SEA to collectively consider how their current array of strategies and resources are addressing the central challenges facing their districts, as identified by the SEA. In addition to this analysis, the process allowed the department to identify core challenges which are having systemic impact on the ability of their identified districts to make significant improvement.

Outcomes:

As a result of the 2-day mapping process, multiple members of the SEA were able to collectively consider:

• the central challenges facing their districts in need of improvement from significantly and substantively improving student achievement
• the array of challenges facing their targeted districts in need of improvement and how they relate and impact one another
• the two or three central challenges having systemic impact on the districts' ability to effectively foster and support student achievement in their district
• the strategies and resources currently being employed by the SEA and the degree to which those SEA-based strategies and resources directly or indirectly impact these identified central challenges
• potential strategies and resources that might have a greater impact or substantively address the challenges of their districts to raise student achievement
• The Education Alliance at Brown University's staff facilitated this two-day process and subsequently provided the SEA with documentation of their collective analysis, potentially informing the SEA leaders regarding how the SEA might better be able to impact district improvement in their state.

For further information regarding the Strategic Mapping Process, please feel free to download and review the following materials:

Strategic Mapping Process Overview
Sample Problem Diagnosis Map

States interested in our SEA Capacity Building efforts are encouraged to contact Deborah Collins, project director, at 401.867.8973.