A Chance to Solve Their Own Problems: Inside the New Methods Seeking to Remake Public Schools - Hardcover

Jal Mehta; Maxwell Yurkofsky; Kim Frumin; Amelia Peterson; Rebecca Horwitz-Willis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674290291 ISBN 13: 9780674290297

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2026

Synopsis

An inside look at the promise and pitfalls of continuous improvement and design in education—showing why reform sometimes succeeds, sometimes fails, and what leaders can do about it.

While the headlines have been consumed by No Child Left Behind, Common Core, charter schools, and battles over DEI, a group of practitioners have been trying to develop a new set of approaches to taking on the perennial problems of schooling. And rather than betting on a new program or a new policy, these reformers have bet instead on a different way of working that they hope will yield much better results. By teaching educators across the nation and the world how to examine data, build systems, and organize for improvement, they are aiming to make existing systems more problem-focused, disciplined, and imaginative. Thousands of schools and districts have taken up these methods, including many of the largest school districts in the country.

In A Chance to Solve Their Own Problems, a team of Harvard researchers investigates how these methods work in action. Drawing on hundreds of interviews as well as in-depth case studies, they offer a definitive account of why these methods succeed in some contexts and falter in others, illuminating the crucial roles of relationships, equity commitments, organizational context, and politics. The book reveals that the most successful applications are less about rigid adherence to a process and more about a human-centered approach that prioritizes trust, relationships, and a culture of learning.

By blending clear-eyed critique with a constructive vision, A Chance to Solve Their Own Problems invites scholars, leaders, and practitioners to rethink how improvement work is organized, supported, and sustained. It is both a cautionary tale and a guide for those committed to making lasting progress in the complex human systems we call schools.

About this title

About the Authors

Jal Mehta is Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, author of The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling, and coauthor of In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School.

Maxwell Yurkofsky is Assistant Professor in the Doctor of Education Program at Radford University and coeditor of Improvement Science in the Field: Cases of Practitioners Leading Change in Schools.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674290291
• ISBN 13: 9780674290297
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352