About A-GAME
For that Custom-Fit
We work with schools, boards, authorizers, and state education agencies to create customized school goals that work.
We start by examining your context, priorities, and current situation--we recognize that each one of us is different. Based on your priorities, we design a process that results in unique responsive goals, just right for your school(s) and situation. Through 15-20 virtual meetings, we are able to learn how you currently assess quality, discover what you value most, and help you identify more nuanced and responsive ways to Assess: Global access, Academics, Mission, and Equity, including social emotional development.
You will work with content experts from start to finish. We will provide you with completed goals with research-based targets and clearly defined business rules. By working with the A-GAME, you will be ready to launch and implement responsive and effective goals that truly capture school improvements and quality.
Our office greatly values the relationships we have established with the charter schools in our portfolio. As an authorizer, compliance monitoring is certainly an important part of the work, but catching schools doing something wrong is no fun. It's more enjoyable and inspiring to recognize schools for doing something innovative and effective. Students and families are better served when all stakeholders are pulling in the same direction.
John Carwell
Delaware Department of Education
A-GAME has allowed us to engage in meaningful conversations with our authorizer about critical accountability topics, thanks to the facilitation skills of the A-GAME team.
Mark P. Ryan, Ph.D.
Superintendent at North Valley Military Institute
The collaboration with the A-GAME and charter school leaders offers us an opportunity to refocus our thinking on how schools can best capture and reset goals to promote and highlight successful student outmodes based on data, experience, and personalization.
Delia Castillo
Los Angles County Office of Education
A critical part of our work as authorizers is to build trusting relationships with charter school leaders. We are leaning into our relationships with schools more than ever before to better support staff, students, and families. By staying student focused, we are able to prioritize what is most important to our work.
Corey Loomis, Ed.D.
Riverside County Office of Education
Our work with A-GAME was extraordinarily helpful. The team facilitated several exercises that helped us remain our work with alternative high schools and, really, all charter schools. This step was critical to moving our work forward and provided tangible next steps to focus on with schools. The process brought great energy to the specific need for alternative accountability.
Erin E. Enderson
Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center
As a community-based authorizer, we engage in open and transparent conversations with AECs in our portfolio to develop responsive goals. Coming to the table as learners allowed our schools to be more with us and went a long way toward building trust. This results in more meaningful goals that better match the support needed in AECs to help students learn, grow, and drive, while at the same time building greater buy-in and understanding of accountability metrics for the schools we work with. Partnering with AECs has opened our eyes to strong accountability measures that we may not have thought of but get to the heart of what it takes to achieve outside the box results for vulnerable students.
David Frank
New York State Educational Department Charter School Office
Working with the team was a great learning experience and I am enthusiastic about what we produced.
Miguel Contreras
Executive Director, Gateway College and Career Academy
The Problem: Disengaged Youth Leave Schools...
Today we are seeing unprecedented numbers of students absent from school due to the fears associated with the pandemic. Many of them are students with disabilities, English learners, or low-income.
If schools do not reengage these students, these students will drop out of school altogether. Schools are building programs to address social emotional development, and states and authorizers should measure their impact.
Creating Responsive Goals
Some schools build healthy climates that support the whole person. We can see the difference when we visit and through anecdotes, but, until now, we have not been able to measure the difference.
We create valid, reliable, quantifiable goals that measure the entire school.
A-GAME Goals
A-GAME Goals is not a one-size-fits-all framework but a process for creating goals that measure what matters. Working with schools, boards, and authorizers, often together, the A-GAME Goals creation process ensures that schools are held to high standards based on what families value most.
The goals are reliable and valid. The authorizer or school board no longer seeks externally valid assessments but becomes the external validator of the school's educational program.
ASSESSING...
GLOBAL ACCESS
Beyond Career and College Readiness, A-GAME goals ensure students have taken measurable steps into the real world.
ACADEMICS
Beyond growth and achievement on state assessments, A-GAME Goals include high school credit earning rates, GPA, internal benchmarks, portfolios, lexile growth, and more.
MISSION
A-GAME Goals measure the extent to which students embody the school's mission.
EQUITY
A-GAME Goals start with the student and measure their growth and achievements. They include measures of school climate, student engagement, and social emotional development.
The A-GAME Coalition of Early Adopters
We are grateful to these authorizing agencies that have recognized the "accountability discount" between what their communities value and what is valued by their frameworks. They have changed how they conduct academic oversight and moved beyond the broad-brush strokes typical in state frameworks to nuanced approaches to illuminate schools' missions as well as student engagement and early academic progress.
Creating Solutions Together
What began as a partnership to support authorizers and alternative schools has become relevant to all schools. The National Charter Schools Institute and Momentum Strategy & Research (together the A-GAME) now work to develop Responsive Goals with all public schools (elementary, middle, and high schools) as well as charter authorizers, district offices, and state education agencies. Whether for school improvement planning or high stakes accountability, we can help set goals that focus on students first and address all elements of the school's mission.
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The Trailblazers
We are grateful for the thought leadership of these charter school authorizers and schools, who joined us to blaze a new pathway to measure school quality that does not rely on state standardized assessments alone. They think outside the box and have moved beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to measuring school quality.
Alameda County Office of Education
Audubon Center of the North Woods
Buckeye Community Hope Foundation
DC Public Charter School Board
Hillsborough County Public Schools
New York State Education Department
Ferris State University
Nevada State Public Charter School Authority
Chicago Public Schools
The State University of New York
Central Michigan University
Inyo County Office of Education
Colorado Charter Schools Institute
Delaware Department of Education
Detroit Public Schools Community District
Los Angeles County Office of Education
Missouri Charter Public School Commission
Pillsbury United Communities
Riverside County Office of Education
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
Utah State Charter School Board
Pilot Authorizers and Schools
We appreciate the hard work of the authorizers and schools who helped us pilot this approach. They have been working tirelessly to create goals that capture the social-emotional development, academic achievement, and student engagement during COVID-19 that move beyond a one-size-fits-all framework.
- Colorado Charter Schools Institute (Authorizer)
New Legacy
- Delaware Department of Education (Authorizer)
Positive Outcomes
- Detroit Public Schools Community District (Authorizer)
Pathways Academy - Inyo County Office of Education (Authorizer)
Youthbuild Charter School
LA Education Corps - Los Angeles County Office of Education (Authorizer)
Da Vinci RISE High
North Valley Military
- Missouri Charter Public School Commission (Authorizer)
De LaSalle Learning Center
- New York State Education Department (Authorizer)
New Dawn Charter Schools
New Ventures Charter School - Pillsbury United Communities (Authorizer)
Minnesota Online High School - Riverside County Office of Education (Authorizer)
Gateway Charter
Leadership Military Academy - Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (Authorizer)
Columbus Collegiate Academy
Columbus Collegiate Academy: West Campus
Dayton Leadership Academies
Dayton Early College Academy
DECA Prep
KIPP Columbus
Phoenix Community Learning Center
ReGeneration Schools Bond Hill
Sciotoville Community School
United Preparatory Academy
United Preparatory Academy - East - Utah State Charter School Board (Authorizer)
Roots Charter High School
Hear It From Our Partners!
A-GAME has helped bring clarity and unique measurable goals to our clients. Here is what they have to say!
Measuring School Quality Using the A-GAME Philosophy
Hear from school leaders about the process of engaging with their authorizer through the A-GAME. Understand how our work supports the unique mission, vision, and program of each school while also holding the schools to rigorous, high standards of achievement and growth.
https://charterschoolcenter.ed.gov/webinar/measuring-school-quality-using-game-philosophy
New Goals for New Times (Building Hope, Florida)
The A-GAME is in many states, from New York to Florida, Missouri to Colorado. This introductory presentation for schools in Florida describes the process, step by step.
A-GAME Grant Report
Report highlighting all of our work over the past three years under the federal grant.
