A chance to solve their own problems. Chapter 3: Mindsets, routines, and practices

What does the research say?

Chapter 3 draws on a four-year (2016–2019) comparative case study in which Mehta et al. (2026) tracked several continuous-improvement and design-based reform initiatives across U.S. school districts, drawing on more than 350 interviews, 145 observations of meetings and trainings, and 165 observations of classroom instruction. From this evidence, the authors advance a cross-cutting theory of educational change built on three interlocking elements: mindsets (the beliefs and ways of thinking that motivate change), routines (the structured ways adults organize their collaborative work), and practices (the concrete ways educators teach and interact with students and colleagues). Their central claim is that lasting change happens only when all three elements reinforce one another in a virtuous cycle — mindsets supply motivation, routines provide the container for sustained collaboration, and practices generate the results that renew motivation. Case comparisons illustrate the point: a literacy improvement network that aligned all three elements produced durable instructional change, while a district-wide data-inquiry initiative and an innovation district that emphasized mindsets but neglected routines both stalled, leaving educators isolated, under-supported, and prone to burnout.

Why is it important?

This chapter matters because it offers an explanatory framework for a puzzle that has long troubled the field: why so many well-resourced, well-intentioned reform efforts fail to produce lasting change. Rather than attributing failure to poor implementation in the abstract, Mehta et al. (2026) show that reformers tend to over-invest in one or two of the three elements — for example, cultivating enthusiasm and belief without building the structures needed to sustain collaborative work, or introducing new routines without equipping educators with the specific practices required to use them well. By identifying mindsets, routines, and practices as interdependent rather than substitutable, the chapter provides a more precise diagnostic tool than prior single-factor accounts of reform, and it helps explain both the successes and the limits of the continuous-improvement and design-thinking methods that have become widespread in American education over the past fifteen years.

What are the implications for improvement efforts?

For practitioners and system leaders, the chapter suggests that improvement planning should explicitly audit for all three elements rather than assuming that momentum in one area will carry the others. Leaders should build regular, structured time and space for educators to collaborate (routines), pair that structure with concrete instructional strategies and expert support such as coaching (practices), and cultivate shared beliefs about the purpose and direction of the work (mindsets) — with particular attention to routines, which the authors found were the element most often underestimated or neglected, even in efforts that succeeded in shifting mindsets. The chapter also underscores the importance of a supportive “container”: internally, a relational culture of trust rather than compliance; externally, protection from competing political pressures or clear connection to stakeholders’ broader goals. Finally, the authors note that sustaining any of these cycles depends on having credible ways to measure progress, a theme they take up in the chapters that follow.

Read the book

Nothing quite replaces reading the original from which this chapter was sampled: A chance to Solve Their Own Problems: Inside the New Methods Seeking to Remake Public Schools