Vision

The Ball Foundation envisions a high performance education system in which all children learn at high levels regardless of race, national origin, socioeconomic status, native language or culture.

Mission

The mission of The Ball Foundation, a partner in transforming schools, is to increase literacy achievement for all students using systemic changes to improve professional practice.

Our Work: Education Initiatives Value Proposition
The Ball Design for Sustaining Literacy Improvement for Every Student Through Whole Systems Change

In the business world, a value proposition is defined as the unique added value or benefit an organization offers customers (O’Dell and Grayson, 1998). Value propositions are often a way for companies to differentiate themselves from competitors and position themselves to be attractive to their target customers. They typically reflect how a company wants to be perceived in the minds of customers. The value proposition of Education Initiatives (EI) is what EI can offer to its partners and to the field that is unique and powerful. In other words, it is the answer to the question, "Why should we partner with you?"

As illustrated below, it is in the convergence and integration of efforts to improve literacy instruction and whole systems change where the value proposition of Ball EI resides.

EI has developed and implements The Ball Design for Sustaining Literacy Improvement for Every Student Through Whole Systems Change based on knowledge drawn from both the fields of literacy education and whole systems change. Literacy learning—including reading, writing, speaking, and visually representing—is foundational to formal education, and literacy is an essential skill if one is to have a realistic opportunity to be a productive citizen. EI believes that literacy instruction and support for literacy instruction are core processes for schools and school districts. Schools and school districts are complex, human systems. As a result, a whole systems approach to literacy instruction and support for literacy instruction is much more likely to

• produce connected and coherent change in instructional, organizational, and leadership practices (what people do and how they do it),
• migrate improvements quickly and deeply throughout a system, and
• create conditions in schools and districts for ongoing learning and sustainability.

The complexity of the instructional challenges associated with literacy instruction are the reasons why Ball EI works to improve literacy through whole systems change.

Reference:
O'Dell, C. and Grayson, C. J. (1998). If only we knew what we know. New York: The Free Press.

Further Reading:
Ball Foundation. (2009). Framework of competencies for professional practice: Literacy instruction and support for literacy instruction. Glen Ellyn, IL: The Ball Foundation.

Gopalakrishnan, S. and Hill, R. (2009). Designing for organizational transformation: key ideas in a creating a coherent, continuously emerging system, in Review, Spring 2009. Glen Ellyn, IL: The Ball Foundation.

Continue reading: How we partner with school districts