From well-intentioned to evidence-informed: Making the shift on a large scale

MARGARET (MEG) LEE AND MIKE MARKOE, FREDERICK COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, USA The challenge of becoming evidence-informed Moving a school to become more informed by evidence about how learning happens and how that evidence is best applied is a huge undertaking, which requires a commitment of time, dedication to focused professional growth and collective will to make meaningful changes. Multiply that school by 70 and you understand what it takes to shift a large school district into an evidence-informed organisation. We like to compare it to moving a large ship. There is no ‘spinning a wheel’ in a particular direction; instead, the trajectory of change is charted by many deliberate, incremental turns in the same direction. Our American school district of 48,000 students – Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland – has spent the last decade making such incremental shifts in practice. They are all in service of our commitment to be an evidence-informed school system to serve every