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About A-GAME

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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.

Find the Package that Fits!
John Carwell

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

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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 staff.

Mark P. Ryan, Ph.D.

Superintendent at North Valley Military Institute

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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

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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

Riverside County Office of Education

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Our work with A-GAME was extraordinarily helpful. Naomi and the team facilitated several exercises that helped us remain our work with alternative high schools (and really all charter schools) through an equity driven lens. 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

David Frank 1

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 measure 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

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Working with you 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.

Young boy sitting alone with sad feeling at school. Depressed african child abandoned in a corridor and leaning against brick wall. Bullying, discrimination and racism concept at school with copy space.
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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.

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ASSESSING...

A-GAME - Global Access

GLOBAL ACCESS

Beyond Career and College Readiness, A-GAME goals ensure students have taken measurable steps into the real world.

A-GAME - Academics

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.

A-GAME - Mission

MISSION

A-GAME Goals measure the extent to which students embody the school's mission.

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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.

Colorado Charter Schools Institute

Colorado Charter Schools Institute

Delaware Department of Education

Delaware Department of Education

Los Angeles County Office of Education

Los Angeles County Office of Education

Missouri Charter Public School Commission

Missouri Charter Public School Commission

Riverside County Office of Education

Riverside County Office of Education

Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

New York State Education Department

New York State Education Department

The State University of New York

The State University of New York

Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Public Schools

Ferris State University

Ferris State University

Massachusetts Elementary and Secondary Education Department

Massachusetts Elementary and Secondary Education Department

Bay Mills Community College

Bay Mills Community College

Arizona State Board for Charter Schools

Arizona State Board for Charter Schools

Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center, Charter School Division

Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center, Charter School Division

Albuquerque Public Schools

Albuquerque Public Schools

Who We Are
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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Meet the A-GAME Team
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Naomi Rubin Deveaux
Partner at the National Charter Schools Institute

When I was a charter school authorizer in Washington, D.C., I felt confident using our frameworks that we built for K-12, adult education, and even early childhood programs. However, measuring the quality of our alternative schools remained amorphous. When the opportunity arose to work for the National Charter Schools Institute and partner with Jody at Momentum to create measures for non-traditional schools, I jumped at the opportunity. When the pandemic jolted life as we knew it, and education as we expect it, our work took even more relevance and significance. I am thrilled to be able to work with authorizers and schools across the nation on building better goals in a collaborative and holistic manner. I bring to the table a passion for quality schools and high expectations for all students, which cannot, not should not be measured by state assessments alone (or at all):

  • Fulbright Scholar
  • 7+ yrs overseeing charter school qualit
  • 6+yrs providing charter school advocacy and support 
  • 10+ yrs teaching in charter and district high schools
  • 10+ yrs as an active board member
  • Member of Center for Learner Equity
  • Pahara-Aspen Institute Fellow
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Jody Ernst, Ph.D.
Vice President of Research and Policy Analytics (and co-founder) at Momentum Strategy & Research

I come to this work with the students in the forefront of my mind. I was a disengaged teen who ended up dropping out of school at the end of my Jr. year of high school. While I can’t say what would have happened if I had an alternative school option, I know that I was very detached from the large high school that I attended.

For me this work is about ensuring quality educational options are available for ALL students, and I do not feel that our current focus on standardized tests alone captures what many schools are providing. And the hyper focus on these tests has shifted schools' priorities to making sure that their students do well on those tests, often to the exclusion of innovative and engaging programs that might otherwise keep students engaged.

In working to help schools measure their success with students from multiple perspectives--academic, behavioral, social-emotional, career and college readiness--we incentivize schools to focus on all aspects of child and adolescent development.

Below is a short list of the professional experience I bring to this process:

  • Ph.D. in Differential Psychology with emphasis in statistics and psychometrics
  • Former Research Director at Colorado League of Charter Schools
  • National expert in research, measurement, and accountability design
  • Develops accountability frameworks for schools, districts, authorizers, and states
  • Maintains national database of alternative education campuses
  • Former board member of Reaching At-Promise Students Association
The Trailblazers
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

Alameda County Office of Education

Audubon Center of the North Woods

Audubon Center of the North Woods

Buckeye Community Hope Foundation

Buckeye Community Hope Foundation

DC Public Charter School Board

DC Public Charter School Board

Hillsborough County Public Schools

Hillsborough County Public Schools

New York State Education Department

New York State Education Department

Ferris State University

Ferris State University

Nevada State Public Charter School Authority

Nevada State Public Charter School Authority

Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Public Schools

The State University of New York

The State University of New York

Central Michigan University

Central Michigan University

Inyo County Office of Education

Inyo County Office of Education

Colorado Charter Schools Institute

Colorado Charter Schools Institute

Delaware Department of Education

Delaware Department of Education

Detroit Public Schools Community District

Detroit Public Schools Community District

Los Angeles County Office of Education

Los Angeles County Office of Education

Missouri Charter Public School Commission

Missouri Charter Public School Commission

Pillsbury United Communities

Pillsbury United Communities

Riverside County Office of Education

Riverside County Office of Education

Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

Utah State Charter School Board

Utah State Charter School Board

Pilot Authorizers and Schools
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
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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!

Play Video
Play Video
Join the A-GAME Community!
Play Video
The Resources Alone Are Amazing!
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Create Better Academic Goals!
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Use National Data Not Found Anywhere Else!
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Join an Engaging Community!

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.

https://charter.support/webinar/new_goals/

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A-GAME Grant Report

Report highlighting all of our work over the past three years under the federal grant.

View Report

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