As part of the RISE Network’s ongoing tenth anniversary celebrations, we sat down with Co-Founder Bob Hughes to discuss the role of visionary philanthropic leader Barbara Dalio in RISE’s founding, break down what educational innovation needs to look like to make a real difference for all kids, explore why he believes the education sector will need more partners like RISE in the years ahead, and much more.
You can catch up the first two installments of our RISE co-founder interview series here and here.
Our conversation has been lightly edited.
Alexandra Broin: Bob, not many people know that you played an important role in getting the RISE Network off the ground. Tell us more about how RISE came to be.
Bob Hughes: First of all, I just want to say that I feel like I played a really small role in all of this. I was a bit player.
The story of RISE really starts with Barbara Dalio. She was working with a transfer program in Connecticut supporting high school students who had dropped out or were really behind on their credits. The school was struggling, and Barbara was looking for advice on how she could help. I was the executive director of New Visions for Public Schools at the time, and a mutual connection introduced us.
Barbara’s first ask was simple and, I’ll admit, a little surprising: Can you just meet me at the school? It was an early indication of how incredibly committed and hands-on she is. She didn’t just want to talk about the school, although we did that. She really wanted to show me what was going on with the educators and the students — to see their challenges firsthand.
I’m a New Yorker. I didn’t own a car, so I rented one and drove out to Connecticut to meet with Barbara and the school team. I was in second gear the whole time because I couldn’t figure out how to shift that thing!
We spent the day walking around the school together. Her commitment to the educators and students was striking. She has a particular affinity for young people furthest from opportunity, especially English learners, and it really showed. To this day, I have not met another donor like her. She rolls up her sleeves and gets involved in the nitty-gritty of the project in a really powerful and valuable way.
AB: Barbara’s incredibly thoughtful and active engagement with educators and students stuck out to me, too, when I spoke with her for her upcoming feature in this blog series. What happened after that first school visit?
BH: Barbara and I spent more time together visiting schools, and I showed her the approach we had been taking at New Visions. She wanted to bring our data-driven model to Connecticut, but she wanted an organization that was really focused on the local context, which was a smart and important insight. I got to help her think through how to do that. We convinced [RISE Co-Founders] Emily [Pallin] and Andew [Ferguson] to join us, and they took up the mantle and really started fleshing out what RISE would become.
AB: What was it like in those early days?
BH: Honestly, it was like watching white lightning. Emily jumped in and quickly started building this organization from the bottom up. New Visions was a regular point of comparison, and I was happy to share what we were doing and how, and why it may or may not work for them. Emily drew lessons from our work, but changed and tweaked everything based on her knowledge of the schools they wanted to support.
What’s more, Barbara, Andrew, and Emily worked together constantly with Connecticut educators to ensure RISE developed the services and support that principals and teachers actually needed to improve the student experience.
AB: Your description sounds a lot like the RISE I’ve met more recently. It’s almost like the innovation and improvement mindset they support schools to adopt today was there from the very beginning. Is that right?
BH: It is. They never set out to bake a cake and then turn around and sell it to schools. They are in the kitchen and constantly testing and refining recipes. (Interviewer note: Emily Pallin agrees!)
One crucial thing the RISE team got right from the get-go was their focus on building trust and strong relationships with school partners. An intermediary has to have the trust of superintendents and principals. These types of organizations simply don’t succeed if the founders and funders don’t share an aspiration to be incredibly responsive to schools and kids. To always be listening and learning right alongside them.
The first thing Barbara and Emily did when launching RISE was hit the road. They met with school leaders and asked them: What do you need? How can we be helpful?
And then: If we were to help you use data to drive instruction in your schools, what would that need to look like? If we were to connect you really intentionally with your peers, what could you do?
The leaders were really excited. It’s so unusual for a partner to come in with that approach. I feel a little hokey saying this, but another thing I love about Barbara, Andrew, and Emily — and what school and district leaders pick up on really quickly — is their authenticity. The RISE Network’s commitment to its members is real and authentic, and that starts at the top. It’s an important part of why RISE has been able to grow in a really steady, organic, and ultimately very effective way.
AB: You’ve talked a lot about your admiration for Barbara Dalio and her approach as a funder. Shortly after RISE started taking shape, you moved over to the Gates Foundation and into the world of philanthropy yourself. How else has your relationship with Barbara over the years influenced your work as a donor and investor in schools and their nonprofit partners?
BH: When I think about the RISE origin story and the keys to the network’s success, there was data and trust, and there was also just a really big table. Barbara made sure that she had strong relationships with teachers and students, of course, and also with labor union officials and others who could help her develop a well-rounded understanding of schools. She has surrounded herself with a really strong and multi-disciplinary set of advisors.
I’ve seen this approach pay forward for RISE. Because Barbara starts with listening to diverse perspectives, she is adept at picking up on themes and shared priorities. And she’s really attuned to the felt needs of educators, including how those needs evolve over time. She’s never resting on her laurels. The RISE team is constantly talking, learning, and helping educators push important ideas forward. We need more funders like that.
AB: You’ve recently transitioned from your role at the Gates Foundation, and I’m grateful to speak with you at a time when I know you’re doing a lot of self-reflection about where you’ve been and where you’re headed. What advice would you offer others in philanthropy based on your experience at Gates these past ten years?
BH: The world really needs more organizations committed to using data to be more effective and thoughtful in planning education interventions that will actually make a difference for kids. About two-and-a-half years into my work at Gates, we launched the Networks for School Improvement (NSI) portfolio, and RISE became one of the 34 grantees we invested in over the years along with some of the bigger names in continuous improvement like New Visions, High Tech High, and the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago. (For obvious reasons, I recused myself from that selection process!)
Here are some takeaways from that initiative:
First, we need to identify the people who can lead continuous improvement efforts and put kids and the adults who serve them at the center of their work. RISE is really focused on young people and their teachers, and empowering them to be effective in their contexts. As I’ve already shared, that approach really comes from the top — from the orientation of RISE’s founders. As a sector, we have to keep finding and investing in those leaders. The team at Gates hadn’t heard of RISE before the NSI open application process, but RISE quickly became one of the jewels of the initiative.
In addition, we need to consider not only the data, but the processes that need to be in place for educators to use data to improve education for all kids. With artificial intelligence, the cost of data is going to go down. But the relationships that are necessary for educators to act on that data with confidence and transparency are always going to be mission critical. We need people who are both tech savvy and can tend to human interactions in ways that reflect how simultaneously strong, yet fragile our relationships really are. We need to invest in people who recognize that educators are capable of amazing things when they have a clear sense of purpose, but only with the right supports in place.
And, finally, we all need to embrace change and continue to grow and evolve as the world does. You can’t freeze-frame a product or service at this time in education. We can’t make an investment and think we’re done. RISE is regularly reimagining itself as an organization as well as the support it provides to schools. Because the team is willing to grow and evolve, they’ve remained a trusted resource for their school partners. With all of the technological changes we’re seeing today, that approach is only going to become more important in the future. We need to invest in nimble organizations, like RISE and the other NSI grantees, working side-by-side with educators to ensure students thrive today and keep thriving when things look different tomorrow.
AB: Tell me more about how you think about innovation and improvement in the years ahead. How do we keep growing the impact of organizations like RISE moving forward?
BH: We know what works, but the reality is that we know what works in certain locations with certain people. We do have broad universal rules, but they always have to be contextualized.
Philanthropy has traditionally built these beautiful, bespoke flowers and then expected them to seed and grow everywhere. But the truth is that many of these flowers — including many of the very best ideas and interventions in education — are actually only appropriate in a particular climate, with certain water ratios and growing seasons, and all the rest of it.
AB: My rose bush isn’t necessarily going to thrive in the same spot as my tulips?
BH: Ha! That’s right. Unfortunately, this means that the entire process of scaling and expanding the reach of organizations doing incredible work for kids tends to be a bit of a thinning out. What you actually want to do is choose the right plant for the appropriate conditions, recognizing that you think about a variety of factors when making that choice (soil, light, climate, etc.). From there, you tend it carefully to ensure it is successful. In the case of RISE, you want to choose the right types of services, then strengthen them by fostering the conditions necessary to ensure they thrive.
AB: When I spoke with Barbara, she shared a similar sentiment — that organizations often face immense pressure to grow rapidly and that, without the thought and care you describe, they can lose something important along the way. With so many schools and students in need, what are we to do with this knowledge about the often negative correlation between breadth and depth of impact?
BH: In my experience, good organizations iterate as they scale and are in the constant process of reinvention and improvement. RISE continues to do this. But as a field, we have to get much better at implementation science!
We have to figure out how to more readily take practices that work in a carefully controlled lab-like setting and make them real for kids and adults in different contexts. Instead of trying to seed these monocultural gardens, we need to make sure lots of different flowers can grow and thrive in lots of different soils and climates. We need to embrace variation, not try to control it. We are clinging to that garden metaphor today!
Most of us recognize that variation in student need is a reality, but variation in educator practice is, too. We’re all human! The real question is: how do we learn from that variation and get better over time? This question demands that we get more innovative around delivery. That’s one of the many reasons I’m so confident that RISE has a really important role to play in the future of education.
Take data. One of the gifts RISE has given to the world is a deeper understanding of the ways educators should be using data. Data-driven instruction, or DDI, is not new in education. But RISE made the information really meaningful and actionable through both the tools they’ve built and the processes they’ve wrapped around those tools. They’ve made data come to life in educators’ day-to-day interactions with students. With RISE as a partner, data is something teachers and principals can act on, something they can trust will help them improve their craft and actually make a difference for kids. It’s changed not only what interventions they choose to enact, but how they put those improved practices in place.
AB: Supporting educators to get better at implementation science takes a lot of time and support. It can feel daunting! How can we encourage more schools, districts, and outside partners to get started?
BH: First, we need to make visible that every teacher is already doing this, whether they know it or not. If a middle school teacher has five periods and supports 90 kids, we know that the first lesson isn’t going to look like the last lesson. They’ll have changed it, even as they cover the same material. That’s continuous improvement!
We need to create space for teachers and principals to be deeply curious about their own practice and what works and what doesn’t and why. It won’t just happen. We have to build the structures in which educators can name the variation they see between their students and across class periods, look at data, make observations and self-reflect, and have access to the expertise of colleagues who can push their thinking and offer new ideas. Often, the time for this work exists, but we need to repurpose it. Because when teachers and principals have this type of support, they really do get smarter and better about serving more kids well.
AB: What gives you hope right now? What are the bright spots in education for you personally?
BH: Kids are incredibly sophisticated about what supports and experiences they’re receiving at school — and also about what’s missing. I’m really excited about what’s possible when we put youth voices at the center of our work. Young people have skills and perspectives that many of us who’ve been around for a long time just don’t have. If we listen to young people — really listen — and support their active participation in reimagining our schools, we can move past old binary arguments, like whether we should be investing in charter schools v. neighborhood schools. We can focus on creating high-quality schools period. We can have brave and bold conversations about what education can and ought to be.
AB: How can RISE be part of those new conversations?
BH: They’re already doing it every day by improving the way our schools work for the kids furthest from opportunity. Today, RISE stands shoulder to shoulder with organizations that have been engaged in continuous improvement for much, much longer than they have. It’s really remarkable. They’ve played a really important role in Connecticut education, but they’re also showing us what’s possible in public education more broadly.