The Proof Is in the Progress: Implementation Success

How do you know curriculum implementation support is working? Two signals matter most: whether educators are starting to take ownership of the work themselves, and whether that shows up in your outcomes data. This is the third post in a four-part series on what effective implementation support looks like. New to the series? Start with our first post.

You don’t always see the shift coming. But you know when it's arrived—when the work moves from outside the district to within.

From Observation to Ownership

In Salem, New Hampshire, when Great Minds® Success Lead Jeniqua Moran joined district leaders for a walk-through, they visited classrooms together, looked at the data, and debriefed on what it showed.

Between that visit and the next meeting, the district went back and conducted walk-through observations for every teacher on their own.

“They saw the value,” Moran says. “And they did it without me having to say anything.”

In Chicago, Success Lead Lainie Augensen watched a principal take a professional leap. After two years of working together, the principal planned and ran her own curriculum-aligned professional learning day, built specifically for her teachers. Teachers said it was the best one they had.

“You could see the moment it clicked for her,” Augensen says. “It wasn’t out of reach. She could actually do this on her own.”

When Outcomes Speak for Themselves

The data backs this up. In Texas, districts using Great Minds for professional development and coaching gained 3.4 percentage points in proficiency over two years, compared to just 0.5 points for districts using the curriculum without support. In other words, districts saw nearly seven times the growth by adding an implementation layer.

These results reflect what our Theory of Action White Paper outlines as a key difference between having strong materials and having the conditions in place to make them work.

In Arkansas, Great Minds began by supporting state coaches in Wit & Wisdom™ and that work grew to include principal walk-throughs and classroom observations.

When federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding ran out, the state had to pause. But the outcomes had been tracked against Arkansas’s own indicators for instructional capacity, and the data was hard to ignore. The state came back with more funding and expanded the scope to all K–3 teachers.

“Because we grounded everything in data,” says Dr. Monique Durham, Regional Director on the Success Team, “the state was willing to take a bet on us.”

What It All Comes Back To

The throughline is the same in every case: the capacity to see what’s happening, respond to it, and improve.

But the real reason all this is worth it is exemplified by a moment that stays with Dr. Durham. At a school board meeting in Bartow County, Georgia, a principal introduced a third-grade student named Carlos.

Carlos talked about the texts he was reading, how he could see himself in them, how they pushed his thinking, and how they made him feel smart.

The walk-throughs, data, and funding decisions all matter, but they’re all in service to students in the room who feel seen, challenged, and capable.

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