INSIGHTFUL JOURNEYS: How HMH Insights will redefine the way curricular programs are evaluated, deployed, and measured in the U.S. Education Sector

Abstract

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ("HMH") is a leading provider of books and digital learning experiences in the U.S. education sector. HMH was founded in 1832 and has published educational books for 140 years. In 2021, HMH announced its “Digital First” strategy, memorializing its evolution from a paper-focused publisher to a digital learning experience provider. In 2023, HMH launched an additional digital transformation initiative in HMH Insights, a free, consultative partner program between HMH and U.S. school districts to help district leaders accelerate student growth by better-aligning curricula to target student needs. Insights centers on two data visualizations. The first, the “Coherence Map,” displays a school system’s curricular programs across the district’s Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework (including assessments and teacher supports). The second, the “District Learning Profile,” uses MTSS tiers and district-specific student performance data to show a district’s performance across student groups. Together, these visualizations measure the alignment between curricular programming and student needs across a district’s entire student body. Insights was transformational for HMH, shifting HMH from a product-focused vendor to a consultative solution provider in the eyes of its district customers. For districts, Insights helps district leaders align curricular programs and teacher supports based on student performance data. At the sector level, Insights’ visualizations provide a lingua franca that allows districts to evaluate the effectiveness of curricular programs and teacher supports for specific MTSS student groups in other districts across the sector. This Capstone focuses on HMH’s strategy to launch Insights, whose workstreams I co-led since August 2022, and the cultural changes required to situate Insights for success. Bringing Insights from concept to major strategic initiative, with strong executive endorsement across HMH’s employee base, faced steep adaptive challenges related to existing sales and executive mindsets and the organizational ambidexterity needed for Insights to realize its potential. As an Insights workstream co-leader, I discovered, analyzed, and profiled effective and less effective levers to shift mindsets and evolve HMH’s culture to propel Insights’ scale. My strategic project will help practitioners read and navigate power dynamics related to their adaptive leadership so they can more effectively effect cultural change. With HMH Insights, addressing the adaptive, cultural challenges was key to unblocking the barriers that gated Insights’ scale. Doing so paves a path to a ‘collective intelligence’—an era where districts will benefit from a friction-free flow of data to guide their selection and deployment of curricular programs and teacher supports across MTSS tiers.