Northwest Regional Comprehensive Center

Internationally known researchers and educators Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley will lend their considerable expertise to a major regional initiative planned by the Northwest Comprehensive Center (NWCC). The two authors and Boston College professors will work with NWCC, state education agencies, and rural schools throughout the Northwest to create school-to-school networked communities. Through these networks, schools will share common problems of practice and work to significantly improve student outcomes.

According to NWCC Director Danette Parsley, the five-year project will offer participants a platform for sharing innovative, research-based, and promising solutions to the challenges they face. “We’re very excited about combining our knowledge of the Northwest region and the needs of our rural schools with the international experience that Drs. Hargreaves and Shirley bring to this project. The collaboration will provide mutually beneficial ways to link rural Northwest schools with their international peers.”

During a visit to Portland, Hargreaves explained that the network will address how to overcome the challenges of rural poverty and small scale in narrowing achievement gaps.

Over the past seven years Hargreaves has worked with networks around the world, focusing on how their structure can contribute to improved student outcomes.

According to Hargreaves, networks yield tangible and intangible benefits.

Hargreaves said he was drawn to collaborate with Education Northwest’s NWCC because “this project has the passion, the commitment, the resources, and the timescale to lead the country” in replicating the benefits that shared networks have shown in other parts of the world.

Hargreaves is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Educational Change and has authored or edited numerous publications, including Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School (with Michael Fullan). His research focuses on successful educational change strategies in high-performing schools, districts and countries; organizations that perform beyond expectations in business, sport and education; and special education reform strategies achieved through whole-school changes that also benefit all students. Hargreaves and Shirley recently published The Global Fourth Way: The Quest for Educational Excellence. Shirley’s primary research focuses on models of community organizing for school reform