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Continuous Improvement ROI: Concept Explainer

March 3, 2022

In an ideal world, we’d ground decisions in how to evolve our ESSER spend in what we know is and isn’t changing outcomes for students. But given our current context (too soon to know outcomes and limited capacity for deep data collection and analysis), we instead need to rely on what we can learn about ROI (return on investment) from metrics focused on implementation and leading indicators of change.

In this Concept Explainer video on the ROI of ESSER Investments, you will see how to approach the concept of ROI through a continuous improvement mindset, where we explore alternative options for the “return” that we typically think of as student outcomes.

Generally, districts use three types of ROI:

  1. ROIe = evaluation of a long-term existing program to determine whether to stop or scale—typically this requires longer timelines
  2. ROIsp = strategy prioritization to determine what investments will lead to our desired outcomes
  3. ROIci = continuous improvement to scale or change early-stage investments in order to maximize future outcomes.

Given where we currently are in the timeline of ESSER spending:

  • ROIci can be one of the most effective ways to quickly iterate on our ESSER initiatives for the largest impact on student success.