Resources
A-GAME Resources
A-GAME Resources to Inform Alternative Education Campus Accountability
Responsive Goals Directory
Are you searching for responsive goals for student populations, national situtations, or changes in data availability? A-GAME will help you get back on your “A-GAME”.
Over the 2020-2021 school year A-GAME worked with 10 charter school authorizers and their alternative education campuses (AECs) to create over 100 unique responsive goals. We have summarized those goals into a database that you can now access. Download the latest A-GAME resource, “Responsive Goals Directory,” and see the different ways leaders have measured success among their AECs, as well as the unique ways AEC support their students.
College and Career Readiness Flow Chart
The Los Angeles County Offce of Education (LACOE), in collaboration with two of the county’s authorized alternative charter schools, DaVinci RISE and the North Valley Military Institute, used the A-GAME process to add more college and career-ready opportunities than are currently recognized by the state in its college and career readiness measure. Using A-GAME facilitated discussions, LACOE learned of and appreciated the many diverse college and career-readiness opportunities that the schools provide. Though some of the pathways illustrated in the flow-chart are still under development, we believe that authorizers and alternative schools, alike, can benefit from the thinking expanded of the group about which pathways prepare students for a successful future. Pathways flowing through multiple shapes in the diagram indicate that a student needs to complete each item along the pathway to be considered college or career ready.
Workforce Readiness Evaluation Rubric
This tool was developed by New Legacy Charter School in collaboration with the Colorado Charter Schools Institute and A-GAME and can be used as a student self-evaluation, advisor observation, and a worksite evaluation tool. As a workforce readiness evaluation tool, the rubric can evaluate how students feel about their preparedness for the workforce, as well as how teachers/advisors of workforce preparation courses determine whether students are prepared to enter a work experience opportunity (e.g., job shadow, internship, apprenticeship, or work for credit opportunities). In addition, mentors and students’ supervisors in the students’ workforce experiences can use this tool to evaluate students’ performance in each area as it pertains to the specific career opportunity.
Better Goals. More Learning. Using Student (re)Engagement Levels to Create Meaningful Goals and Measures
A-GAME originally set out focusing exclusively on measuring the quality of alternative education campuses (or AECs). Members joined as they were frustrated by accountability systems that rely on traditional measures, because they don’t tell the whole story. Schools serving large numbers of disengaged and barely-engaged students typically receive low marks on state and authorizer performance frameworks -- even if they produce positive results for students documented through other measures.
This document is designed to show how to avoid this problem and measure what really matters for all schools!
Introducing the A-GAME: New Ways of Measuring Quality
With traditional assessments unavailable, authorizers and schools are looking for new ways to measure quality. Join a session to learn about the Advancing Great Authorizing and Modeling Excellence (A-GAME) initiative on creating responsive goals based on student population. Focusing on alternative education campuses, 50 authorizers collaborated over the past year to develop a method for creating new measurements based not on averages but on population.
Minding the Gap: How State Policies Can Create Conditions for Innovation in Alternative Education Accountability
Minding the Gap is a resource to help state education agencies, charter school authorizers, leaders of alternative education campuses, policy-makers, and researchers understand how states are balancing the demand for rigorous public accountability with the diversity of alternative education campuses (AECs) and the real-life experiences of students they serve.
Measuring Quality: A Resource Guide for Authorizers and Alternative Schools
For charter school authorizers, alternative education campuses can be a challenge, as students tend to be highly mobile, are chronically absent, and are often years behind in academic learning. Therefore, data is scarce and not reflective of all students enrolled by the AEC throughout the year. This document provides concrete recommendations and specific examples of ways to measure outcomes for AEC charter schools.
Evaluating a New AEC Applicant
This rubric provides examples of how authorizers can rate applications to open an alternative charter school and is consistent with the guidance and recommendations put forth in the A-GAME’s Measuring Quality: A Resource Guide for Authorizers and Alternative Schools.
Assessing an AEC for Renewal
This rubric provides an example of how authorizers can assess an application to renew an alternative charter, and is consistent with the guidance and recommendations put forth in the A-GAME’s Measuring Quality: A Resource Guide for Authorizers and Alternative Schools.
Measuring Quality: Walkthrough Guide
This powerpoint is a complement to the Measuring Quality Guide already available. The deck walks participants through the main ideas within the Guide.
A-GAME: Case Study Exercise
This is a case study in which participants are asked to rethink accountability beyond comparing to averages and using proficiency rates on state assessments. The powerpoint is the first part of a series that will eventually lead through the charter life cycle of application and goal creation through renewal.
Renewing Schools using Engagement Phases and Non-Traditional Goals, Part 1
With COVID-19 causing a hiatus in state assessments, over 45 charter school authorizers joined together to explore reliable ways to measure school quality that do not rely on state assessments. The powerpoint, used in the second convening of A-GAME authorizers, takes a charter school authorizer through the process of assessing a school based on students identified by their engagement in school.
Renewing Schools using Engagement Phases and Non-Traditional Goals, Part 2
This resource offers examples of goals for growth, culture/climate, high-school completion, and career and college readiness.
Social Emotional Learning and Responsive Goals
At the final Spring 2020 A GAME convening, charter authorizers explored the process for researching for the best SEL assessments. Included also are three examples of authorizers using A-GAME-inspired goals in their authorizing practices.
Additional Resources
Additional Resources to Support Authorizers and Schools
SEAtS Webinar: Strengthening a non-traditional approach to student success
December 1, 2020 | Presented by Jody Ernst (Momentum Strategy & Research), Kennisha Kelly (Kingsman Academy), and Naomi Rubin DeVeaux (National Charter Schools Institute)
Letter to the Honorable Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor at the U.S. House of Representatives
Written by the A-GAME team
Analysis: Seeking new ways to evaluate charter schools serving the highest needs students that might work for others shuttered by COVID-19
By Nelson Smith
"With the coronavirus pandemic bringing the school year to a sudden halt before spring tests and high school graduations, school administrators and state policymakers are struggling with how to evaluate schools when there are big gaps in data."
So-called “alternative” accountability is turning out to be really pertinent at a time when states and school districts across the country are reeling from gaps in standard data.
Covid-19 Resource Hub
Alternative education campuses or AECs target students who will be most impacted by lengthy disruptions in daily life, such as their school unexpectedly closing. The A-GAME leadership suggests that charter authorizers provide guidance expressing your expectations and the contractual and legal requirements your schools must meet during this unprecedented time. The guidance should include academic goals as well as your expectations around wrap-around services, including: services for mental health, social-emotional well-being, parenting, special education, food, housing, and other life essentials. The resources and information provided here may be helpful for you and the schools you authorize to provide meaningful services to students and their families.
Resource Packet
The resources in this packet include studies on the performance of students who attend alternative education campuses.
Transparency
Grant Evaluation and Transparency
Year 3: AEC Pilot Project Report
In Year 3 of the Charter Schools Program National Dissemination Grant, the A-GAME team provided one-on-one consultancy services to 11 different authorizers and 16 schools through AEC Pilot Project (pilot project) engagements. Each pilot project supported efforts to implement AEC measures, goal setting, or performance frameworks.
Year 2: Report
As of September 2020, the A-GAME project has disseminated best practice resources to 93 percent of authorizers with AEC charter schools (175 out of 188). The figure below shows the number of authorizers (with and without AEC charter schools) that have accessed project resources by the type of dissemination strategy.
Year 1: Interim Report
As of June 2020, the A-GAME project has disseminated best practice resources to 93 percent of authorizers with AEC charter schools (174 out of 188). The figure below shows the number of authorizers (with and without AEC charter schools) that have accessed project resources by the type of dissemination strategy.
Summary of Meeting Grant Objectives
This document tracks the progress the A-GAME has made towards meetings its objectives, set forth when we began on this journey. The document provides descriptions of the thought behind the deliverables and the plans around broad dissemination.
Shaping the future
"The A-GAME is equipping charter school authorizers and leaders with the resources they need to create ambitious yet attainable goals that assess school quality and effectiveness so families can make the best choices for students with the greatest needs."
Naomi Rubin DeVeaux | Vice President for Authorizing & Accountability | National Charter Schools Institute
