Frequently, districts use a single procurement process and request for proposal/contract documents to purchase everything from goods and supplies, like food and laptops, to instructional services. However, the latter are quite different from durable goods and supplies, which are easily quantified and measured. Determining whether a district got its money鈥檚 worth for instructional services is less straightforward; nationally, districts have in ed tech tools .

, a strategic initiative of the, has offered tailored support, technical assistance and expert guidance to nearly 20 school districts. These resources and hands-on experience empower them to achieve measurable, long-term student outcomes. Under the outcomes-based contracting model, at least 40% of a provider’s pay is contingent on meeting agreed-upon student outcomes. This approach compels mutual accountability between school districts and providers and helps shift districts from buying services to prioritizing buying outcomes, ensuring that dollars spent deliver academic impact.

Two critical features make outcomes-based contracting effective. First, tying financial incentives directly to educational achievements ensures that every dollar invested drives tangible student success. Both the district and the provider have a financial stake in producing the agreed-upon results, with financial repercussions if either side does not uphold its end of the deal.

For example, a charter school network signed a $700,000 contract for high-impact literacy and math tutoring. It was 40% contingent on performance on the NWEA MAP and state assessment results, and the agreement included a midyear assessment to measure student progress. When it was discovered that not all students had taken the midyear assessment, the district and provider had to work together to ensure those students took the test in order to fulfill their contractual obligations.

Outcomes-based contracts include financial incentives tied to measurable student outcomes, like a midyear assessment, to formalize both sides’ commitment to student achievement.  

In addition to the financial incentives, the model requires ongoing commitment and partnership. This begins with presenting the contract to the school board for approval and gaining community buy-in, rolling it out in the district and ensuring all parties are aware of their responsibilities. The contract includes specific requirements, measures and outcomes for each student that districts and providers are required to revisit and continuously check throughout and at the end of the contract period. 

Final payment depends on three critical factors: whether the student met the attendance requirement, whether the provider upheld its responsibilities (such as ensuring students have the same tutor for each session) and whether the student achieved the expected outcomes. During ongoing continuous improvement meetings, the district and provider examine data for each student. If one is not on track for any of the three critical factors, they collaborate to determine how to address this deficit. 

This approach is much more in-depth than a typical contract. Because the final payment is contingent on specific outcomes for individual students, the outcomes-based model forces districts and providers to thoroughly evaluate their performance and adherence to the contract. This thorough review process guarantees that both sides remain focused on student success and accountability.

A great example of this collaborative approach is Jackson Public Schools in Mississippi. The district spent significant time working with principals to schedule high-impact math tutoring sessions to ensure at least 70% of its approximately 800 middle schoolers attended. Throughout the program, Jackson Public Schools monitored attendance and collaborated with the provider to address any challenges. Though attendance fell early in implementation, the district and provider, working together, were ultimately able to maintain an attendance rate of 70%-81% for the duration of the program.  

Districts are not simply committing to meeting a 70% attendance threshold in isolation. Instead, they are engaging in regular, collaborative progress monitoring with their providers. The schedule for evidence-based continuous improvement meetings is established in the contract 鈥� no less than every two weeks. These meetings ensure regular check-ins on progress toward achieving the specific goals articulated in the contract. If any issues arise, the district and provider work together to find solutions.

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Additionally, this collaborative accountability has demonstrated improved instructional alignment between districts and providers. In the case of Jackson Public Schools, the district noticed some differences between how the provider was teaching the standards and how they were assessed on state exams. As a result, the provider adjusted its instruction and started sharing sample lessons and items ahead of time, allowing the district to give further feedback. The provider found this so valuable that it extended this practice to other partners as well.

These are just a few examples of how outcomes-based contracting directly translates into maximizing the impact of a district鈥檚 investment in instructional support services. It promotes a culture of mutual accountability and collaboration, holds all parties responsible for measurable outcomes through a contractual obligation, encourages efficient use of resources, prevents investments in ineffective solutions and drives meaningful progress in student success. 

Through clear and quantifiable expectations within contracts, districts and providers move from trying to work together, despite other priorities, to being mutually accountable for instructional interventions that lead to student success. District leaders, accountable to the community and students they serve, can work closely with providers to meet shared goals, turning accountability from a concept into a concrete practice. This collaboration drives continuous improvement and helps districts make strategic decisions under increasingly complex resource constraints while staying focused on what matters most: student learning.

What is striking has been the pervasive weariness evident in the commentaries on the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The news was heralded as 鈥�,鈥� 鈥溾�� and .鈥� As for responses? At the end of on the results, AEI鈥檚 Nat Malkus concludes that 鈥渘othing less than Herculean efforts will make up for such shortfalls鈥� 鈥� but on just what those efforts should be, he was silent. Writing for 蜜桃影视, political scientist Vladimir Kogan concludes that 鈥渢he new federal data send a clear message that we must do better鈥� 鈥� but, once again, nothing about how.

Other responses have been predictable. In her , Diane Ravitch wrote: 鈥淲ill politicians whip up a panicked response and demand more of what is already failing, like charter schools, vouchers, high-stakes testing and Cybercharters? or [sic.]will they invest in reduced class sizes and higher teacher pay?鈥� Her response points to a familiar split in the education policy community: On the one hand, the defenders of public education blame chronic underfunding of schools and of teacher salaries in particular, and an overreliance on teaching to the test. On the other, their conservative critics point to lack of school choice, poor teacher preparation programs and (more recently) the woke invasion of classrooms. 

Both sides are partially correct, of course: In multiple states, a heavy reliance on local property taxes to pay for education creates regressive per-pupil funding, meaning that more dollars go to the education of more affluent students. Teacher preparation still relies too much on textbook theory instead of clinical practice (a vital switch the medical profession made a century ago). Tests, especially in reading, are poorly designed (e.g., 鈥淗amlet was confused because 鈥� A, B, C or D  鈥� circle the right response鈥�). Too many parents are stuck sending their children to underperforming schools.

But these are just symptoms. Factors beyond the schoolhouse door 鈥� the legacy of race-based redlining, the underfunding of health care for the worst off, the lack of support for child care and parental leave, and other social and economic policies 鈥� remain hugely impactful. But inside the education system itself, the fundamental cause of poor outcomes is that education policy leaders have eroded the instructional core and designed our education system for failure.

Pre-K is a wild West, with the result that students enter kindergarten with large gaps in their readiness to learn. Children aren’t seriously assessed until they are 8, by which time it鈥檚 too late for sustained intervention 鈥� the gaps never close. Meanwhile, curricula, tests and teacher education programs exist in deep silos, creating a fragmented system where teachers aren鈥檛 trained to teach the materials their schools use and tests don鈥檛 test students鈥� mastery of those materials (with a tiny exception in Louisiana).

Almost uniquely among advanced industrialized nations, U.S. school systems disconnect testing from student incentives. State tests are used to evaluate schools but are often irrelevant to students: Only 11 states still require high school exit exams for graduation, and there are often alternative pathways for those who fail the test. We don鈥檛 link the results of high school exit exams to college admissions 鈥� instead, using grade-point averages and tests like the ACT and SAT, which are disconnected from course curricula. Speaking of GPA, we have steadily inflated grades at school and college: We simply call success what was once failure.

We have also created a preferential ranking of subjects. Student achievement in reading and math, and, to a lesser extent, science, get all the attention, while students who are drawn to robotics, graphic design, the arts, environmental science, etc., can鈥檛 take high school assessments that count for entry into higher education. At the same time, with a few shining counterexamples, our career and technical learning options are a pale shadow of the world鈥檚 best: While Switzerland designs exacting pathways from school to employment with options for a return to higher education, America shunts millions of students into dead-end experiences,  where they discover that their CTE has failed to provide an employment-ready credential. Many of these same students end up at community colleges with extraordinarily low graduation rates. 

Perhaps in response to two decades of disappointing results, academic achievement itself is increasingly out of fashion. Critical thinking, metacognition, grit and positive mindset, and 鈥�21^st century skills鈥� are in 鈥� competence in mathematics, not so much. It seems to have escaped us that students cannot think critically about nothing in particular; mastery of content is a prerequisite.

The turn away from academics is rocket-propelled by a genuine problem. American teenagers stare at social media on a screen almost nine hours every day, with one result being surging loneliness and depression. Many American school systems have reacted by putting social and emotional learning at the top of the agenda. Few would argue that students shouldn鈥檛 be given effective support 鈥� putting mental health counselors in large high schools, for example, makes sense. But the pretense that there is a new science of SEL is largely pablum. When you chase it to ground, what it means is that teachers should encourage, not discourage, students: a poor test result calls for more effort, not the conclusion that the child is bad at math. Such wisdom has been available for 2,000 years.

To top it all off, the American K-12 education system spends at least $30 billon per year on educational technology with essentially nothing to show for it.  As it was for the introduction of radio, then TV, then computers, so it is likely to be for artificial intelligence 鈥� the latest great hope to circumvent and supplant effective, inspiring teaching of children by a human being. 

As we have sown, so shall we reap. The unique sense of achievement that a student experiences when she or he masters a rigorous skill, digs into deep knowledge, creates a piece of writing or art, completes a challenging science assignment or piece of music 鈥� this is all being washed away. We are tired of bad news, and our instinct is now to punish, or at least ignore, the messenger. But our students are desperately the worse for the mess we have made of their schooling.

Boards erupting in chaos over censorship and assorted culture wars? Same as it ever was. Rancorous board debates over various opportunity-hoarding privileges 鈥� tracking, selective magnet schools, adjusting neighborhood enrollment boundaries, etc 鈥� distracting boards from real school governance? Standard operating practice. 

So when I read AJ Crabill鈥檚 book, Great on Their Behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How Yours Can Become Effective, I nodded when he wrote, 鈥淚t is common that school boards are professionally ineffective.鈥� ()

He would know. He鈥檚 a former board chair for Kansas City, Missouri鈥檚 public schools, and has worked with numerous boards as the national director of governance at the  

Spring is school board election season where voters cast their ballots for Board of Education members in April and May. I chatted with Crabill shortly before his book鈥檚 March 28 publication. In it, he聽 argues that this sorry state of school board affairs need not be permanent. He provides an incisive account of the strengths 鈥� and most common flailings 鈥� boards bring to their work, as well as a five-step approach towards making them effective.聽

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

蜜桃影视: Let鈥檚 start with the backstory 鈥� how did this book come to be? Why did you decide to write it?

Crabill: So the intention is pretty straightforward: to accelerate the transition of school boards across the nation from focusing on adult inputs (things like staff, books, programs, and facilities) to focusing on student outcomes. That is the central premise. That’s the beginning, middle and the end. Everything else is just details. 

It does start with an account of how school boards get stuck focusing on adult inputs, and some of the harms of that. But the rest of the book is really focused on getting school boards intentionally and unapologetically focused on growing what students know and are able to do.

That’s presumably rooted in some of your time on 鈥� or working with 鈥� school boards, right? 

Certainly. And my experiences, and everything I’ve read, and the research literature also point in the same direction: the things that school boards focus on actually do, in fact, matter. When school boards focus on student outcomes, they鈥檙e more likely to create the condition from improvements in student outcomes. If school boards focus on the color of the cheerleaders鈥� uniforms, we’re more likely to have the proper color of uniforms. 

Or your anecdote in the book about a board that spent a meeting obsessed with a potential change to the color of their school buses, right? That was arresting. 

Yeah, I mean, one member was saying, 鈥淚鈥檓 philosophically opposed to non-yellow school buses.鈥� I mean 鈥� look, I don’t have to make up stories. They鈥檙e all true 鈥� sadly, all true.

I believe you. I’ve sat through enough of these that I no longer have to suppress what used to be shock at what privileged families will say in . 

In fact, let me ask you about a related tension. You suggest that the board improvement process starts with clarifying a vision and setting priorities. That requires something like a board and community consensus, but right now, there鈥檚 ample discord around American visions for public education. Boards host a lot of arguments about things that aren’t student outcomes. What if the process of electing school boards is in tension with getting members on the same page long enough to improve them, no?

Yeah. All of school boards鈥� natural incentives are aligned with a focus on the adult inputs. You have to acknowledge that and figure out how to solve both sides of the equation. There has to be some realism here: School boards are never going to be able to escape all of the incentives around them. Whether it’s the training they receive, mandates from the state, the demands from neighbors who want their pet interests attended to, all of that is going to have to be wrestled with. 

But that’s why I suggest boards spend half of their time on priorities around student learning, which still leaves the other half free for other priorities, whatever else the community values 鈥� finances, yellow school buses or anything else that comes up. We want board members to leverage the amount of focus that is beneficial for students, but also sustainable, given the realities of their circumstances.

A number of education reformers over the years have seen exactly what you’ve just described and they’ve concluded that school boards aren鈥檛 salvageable. Could we do more for kids with an entirely different model of governance?

This question鈥檚 been brought up repeatedly over the years. The problem is, we don’t have any evidence of other governance models that significantly outperform elected school boards. Go from an elected board to one appointed by the mayor, or a hybrid model, and all of it winds up with the same propensity for becoming focused on adult inputs. They fail for different reasons and in different ways, but they fail all the same. 

Charter school boards are wildly susceptible to becoming focused on their founder rather than on student outcomes. Appointed boards are wildly susceptible to becoming vehicles for patronage rather than focused on outcomes. So they wind up failing in very different ways, but failing nevertheless. Add up all the data and there doesn’t seem to be a compelling argument that, if we just select members in a different way, that that will solve governance problems. 

My answer is more nuanced and more practical. It鈥檚 this five-step continuous improvement process that offers a practical thing that we can do tomorrow. We don’t have to wait for legislation. We don’t have to wait for the 鈥渞ight鈥� superintendent or the 鈥渞ight鈥� children, the 鈥渞ight鈥� parents, or the 鈥渞ight鈥� teachers. We need to focus, set priorities, monitor our progress towards them, align resources with our goals and then share our progress with the community. 

How can elected boards manage controversies like the recent spate of book censorship arguments?

This is like the difference between debating the placement of a single stop sign versus debating about safety. The job of the board isn’t to pick and choose where to put stop signs. The job of the board is to get underneath arguments about stop signs and figure out, OK, what is the community value that is really at stake here? Safety. 

The same principles apply to the books鈥� example. The board should be very aggressive about codifying community expectations to protect the values beneath. These are what I refer to in the book as 鈥済uardrails.鈥� On certain books, communities will differ. One might say, the value that we have around book selection is: We want them to be inclusive. We want all of our curriculum and learning materials to be representative of the diversity of our student body. But another community might say, the thing that we value about books is how they represent and lift up a view of American exceptionalism. If they don鈥檛 match that, we don’t want them in our libraries. 

These are two competing sets of values, and they’re entirely appropriate for their respective communities. The job of the board is to represent the vision and values of their community, and those values are going to differ wildly by place. So, codify the values and then let the district鈥檚 professional education team figure out what it looks like to honor these values in the daily practice of the school system. 

And I think that variety is great. Part of what鈥檚 awesome about America is that, whatever your thing is, there’s probably a geographic community somewhere for you, and you have the freedom to pack up and move to that community. When you get there, the local school board should represent the set of values you sought out. 

This gets tougher in places where the vision is contested, right?

Yeah, and you’ve got a lot of these more purple places. A lot of school districts across the country are countywide systems, and so you wind up with this mashup of urban, suburban and rural, all in the same school system. It gets a lot more challenging in those places, because you wind up with boards that have this kind of bell curve distribution of ideology with left partisans and right partisans 鈥� all serving on the same board together. Usually most people are somewhere in the purple middle.

But the work is the same. They have to go out and do a lot of listening 鈥� and then accept the reality that the final product, the final set of goals isn鈥檛 going to look like someone on either political pole might want. Their job is to represent the values of the full community.

How is it that boards get so far off track?

One thing that I often say while working with school boards across the nation is, 鈥淭he student outcomes don’t change until adult behaviors change.鈥� What can most drive changes in adult behavior? The three things that we’ve identified, the most potent levers for adult behavioral change are knowledge, skills and mindset. 

Knowledge. What do I know? 

Skills? What can I do with what I know? 

Mindset? What is my view of the world? How do I make meaning of the things that are occurring around me?

Knowledge-based board failures are basic things. Do we have goals? Are we spending time on things that are actually about what students know and are able to do? Can we distinguish between an adult input and a student outcome? These are solvable through training on state requirements and best practices. 

Skill-based failures happen when we don鈥檛 deploy time efficiently and impactfully. What skill set do we need to transition from the status quo behaviors to the behaviors that could make the biggest difference for students? 

Mindset is by far the most impactful driver for behavior changes. It鈥檚 about seeing the world differently so that I can behave differently.

What makes mindset so powerful?

Here鈥檚 an example I used in the book: Imagine a school board that believes that 鈥渢his kid AJ just doesn’t want to learn.鈥� That gives rise to one set of adult behaviors, one that can legitimize efforts to push little AJ out, because obviously anytime  AJ doesn’t perform, it鈥檚 taken as proof that he just doesn’t want to learn. Whereas if I adopt a different mindset, 鈥淎J does want to learn, but there’s a gap between where he is and where he wants to be,鈥� then my commitment is to help him bridge that gap. 

Nothing about little AJ has changed. My knowledge and skills haven鈥檛 changed. But now I see the universe as one in which AJ wants to learn and I am the bridge for him. Now all of my knowledge and skills can be deployed in a powerful and transformative way that actually makes a difference. And when, for whatever reason, AJ still doesn’t learn, I still know that he wants to and I鈥檝e got to look for the next thing that I’ve got to change about my adult behavior to set him up for success. And then the next thing. And so on. 

It confers a sense of resilience in the face of the inherent challenges that come with education. Teachers work so hard because education is such a hard process, and they have to stay resilient. An empowering mindset supports that resilience, a disempowering mindset undermines it. That is just as true in the boardroom as it is in the classroom.

But it鈥檚 tough to shift to that mindset, no? It鈥檚 something that I’ve thought about a lot, because I鈥檝e done a lot of work in early education, and we have this compelling research base around investing in very young kids, in the birth to 5-years-old range. The evidence shows that this is to shift children鈥檚 trajectories, because their brains are uniquely plastic 鈥� they鈥檙e still developing. But we don鈥檛 talk about the less-sunny implication there: We should intervene early because adult behaviors are way harder to shift. How can boards make those shifts 鈥� and sustain them?

I highlight research on this in the book. It shows differences in outcomes between school boards that got no training or coaching, boards that got training on being more student-focused and boards that got training and coaching on that focus. The training helped! The boards that just got the training saw some slight increases in student achievement compared with the boards that got nothing. But the boards that got both training and coaching saw something like twice the growth. So training is necessary, but coaching is essential. 

So it takes boards having a willingness to be coached and supported, and to ultimately change behavior. I鈥檝e certainly had the privilege of watching school districts do this work and show real improvement, put real points on the board. I had the privilege of working on this during my own years of board service in Kansas City. Over a six-year period, we were able to double the percentages of students on grade-level reading, grow graduation rates by 15 points and then 鈥� for the first time in decades 鈥� gain full accreditation from the state. 

The book is full of stories like these. And they make one thing clear: When school boards get intensely focused on improving student outcomes, great things happen for the students.

Obviously, the book鈥檚 full of concrete ideas for improving a school board 鈥� but if you could share one piece of advice with elected members out there, what would it be?

Work with your board chair to identify to what extent your meetings even look at student outcomes. I conclude the book with this 鈥� telling readers that if they鈥檙e ready to take the next step, . Actually evaluate your recent board meeting to see where you spent your time. Then sit down with your board to ask one another, with sincere curiosity, if this is what we want. Do we want to continue this pattern? Or do we need to focus more on student outcomes to actually move the needle on student performance?

School board members want great things for their students. My experience has been, when board members are confronted with this, the conversation opens them up to an urgency around action.