A Tale of Two States - Alignment and cohesion to close long-standing disparities in student outcomes - Examples from Two State Education Agencies

Oct 15, 2026

A policy brief examines how two U.S. state education agencies pursued systemic change using the Active Implementation Frameworks. It describes the SISEP Center’s role in building implementation and scaling capacity within state education agencies, regional entities, districts, and schools, emphasizing horizontal and vertical alignment. The brief compares the benefits and challenges of different organizational approaches, detailing one state’s progress toward durable infrastructure and sustained mathematics outcomes, while highlighting persistent readiness gaps for simultaneous alignment in the other.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Overview and purpose

SISEP Center’s implementation and scaling aim

Alignment: horizontal and vertical coordination

Selection, stage-based activities, and co-creation

State One: MID-SOUTH

Readiness assessment and vertical alignment focus

Team structure supporting teacher practice

Outcomes and remaining readiness gaps

State Two

Implementation teams and scaling partnerships

A Tale of Two States: Alignment and cohesion to close long-standing disparities in student outcomes Ryan Jackson, K. & Ward, C. Maya Angelou often said,“Once we know better, we need to do better” and Edgar Villanueva asks us to imagine,“What if?”(Decolonizing Wealth, 2018) . Effective implementation capacity is essential to improving education. The State Implementation & Scaling-up of Evidencebased Practices Center supports education systems in creating an implementation infrastructure for evidencebased practices benefiting students, especially those with disabilities. [https://sisep.fpg.unc.edu](https://sisep.fpg.unc.edu) The purpose of this brief is to provide examples from two state education agencies in the United States who took a different path to systemic change through the use of the Active Implementation Frameworks (Fixsen et al. 2013a; Metz & Bartley, 2012) . Both states received intensive implementation-informed support from the State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices (SISEP) Center. The aim of the SISEP Center is to establish implementation and scaling capacity in a State Education Agency (SEA), its regional entities, its districts, and their schools to continuously support teacher practice and improve outcomes. Under optimal conditions, a simultaneous process of horizontal and vertical alignment occurs: horizontal alignment across the SEA to reduce duplication of efforts at the state level that often translates into burdensome duplication of efforts in districts and schools; vertical alignment as the state facilitates and resources a co-creative process with its regional entities, districts, schools, and stakeholders to design an implementation infrastructure. Everyone’s efforts, horizontally and vertically, are focused on supporting state, regional, district, and school leaders, who in turn support continuous improvement of teacher skills to maximize academic and behavioral outcomes for all students. The benefits and challenges inherent in the separate approaches will be presented to offer the field a deeper understanding of organizational readiness for change and the importance of co-creation to engage benefactors from every level of the system to implement, sustain, and scale-up a practice with evidence (Metz, 2016; Tommeraas & Ogden, 2015) . Using the mission-driven approach of the SISEP Center, organizations ask,“How?”five times (Blase, Fixsen, & Ryan Jackson, 2015); how will students benefit, how will teachers be supported, and how will school, district, and regional Implementation Teams be supported by the state? Across the globe governments and ministries, purveyorsand practitioners, families and communities are asking,“What does it take, how do we effectively support use of a practice with evidence, and how do we do it?” Metz & Albers (2014) suggest it takes careful selection of a practice, use of stage-based activities, and the co-creation of an implementation infrastructure by teams with diverse perspectives and roles, so that data can be used for decision-making and continuous improvement across all levels of the system. Tommeraas & Ogden (2015) suggest it takes an active implementation approach (Fixsen et al. 2013a; Metz & Bartley, 2012), a stable infrastructure, and long-term governmental funding to sustain and take to scale effective use of a practice. Evidence from the field of implementation science suggests that systemic change of this magnitude requires careful attention to readiness and co-creation. Developing readiness for change, or the developmental point at which an organization and its benefactors have the capacity and willingness to engage in system-wide change, can seem impassable at times (Fixsen et al. 2013b) . Inversely, it is invigorating when ‘dense webs of relationships’ engage in a co-creative process to build trust and understand the needs of all benefactors (Metz, 2016) . Use of a co-creative process is predicated upon an expli

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the brief?

To provide examples of how two U.S. state education agencies used Active Implementation Frameworks to pursue systemic change with SISEP Center support.

How does the brief define the role of alignment in implementation?

It explains that horizontal alignment reduces duplication across the state, while vertical alignment supports a co-creative process from the state to regions, districts, schools, and stakeholders.

Why does the brief emphasize co-creation and readiness for change?

It argues systemic change at this scale requires attention to organizational readiness and relies on co-creation processes that build trust and enable evidence-based improvements across all levels.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Alex Sinclair