National Center for School-University Partnership

What is NCSUP?

The National Center for School-University Partnerships (NCSUP) was established in 2023 and extends the work of the Improvement Leadership Education and Development (iLEAD) network. iLEAD was established in 2017 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, with significant support by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. iLEAD was a growing professional community of district-university partnerships from across the country who seeked to support local education agencies (LEAs) and institutions of higher education (IHEs) in their use of continuous improvement methods to develop leaders and educators, and address persistent problems that face districts, schools, and their communities. 

Our Work

Using Improvement Science to Accelerate Learning and Address Problems of Practice: NCSUP's purpose is building on the work of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Center supports improvement partnerships nationwide to address high leverage problems of practice. Using Improvement Science, the Center is working to ameliorate chronic absenteeism. This aligns with the Improving Student Achievement Agenda announced by the Biden-Harris administration.

Additionally, NCSUP provides professional development, technical assistance, and tools to help partnerships committed to the use of improvement science to develop leaders, address local problems of practice, and promote equitable educational opportunities and outcomes for all students.

The Model

The Breakthrough Collaborative Model (created by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement [IHI]), brings together teams from different organizations, including districts, schools, and universities, to address common problems such as chronic absenteeism, student mental health, and low graduation rates, among others. Working together, teams in a Breakthrough Collaborative use common tools and a structured learning process to share ideas, test new approaches, and measure progress toward achieving their shared aims. The collaborative learning process, which lasts approximately one year and includes regular and expert coaching, involves several phases including:

• Learning – Participants learn about the challenge, identify best practices, and set goals for improvement.
• Testing – Teams test new ideas and interventions to see what works, for whom, and under what conditions.
• Spreading – Successful ideas and interventions are documented and spread across the participating organizations and beyond.
• Sustaining – Teams work to sustain improvements over time by monitoring progress and making ongoing adjustments.

By partnering together to identify and implement best practices, districts, schools, universities, and other youth-serving institutions can improve the learning opportunities and outcomes of every child, particularly those historically marginalized.