What We Do
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 will be students with disabilities, English learners, or low-income.
If schools are not incentivized to (re)engage 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.
Number of Starting 9th Grade Students in Graduation Cohorts from 2013-2015
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 help create the goals that measure the entire school that are quantifiable, reliable, and valid.
A-GAME Goals
We help you create valid and reliable goals that measure the WHOLE child and the WHOLE school. We ensure that all students are captured in goals, promoting better equity in our accountability systems.
- Start with the student (with authorizers and schools working in collaboration)
Accountability systems should recognize student starting points and ensure that all students are included in the accountability metrics. - Measure what gets done
Any school that welcomes struggling or disengaged students and gets them back on track should be recognized instead of penalized. - Use best available data
meet standards and use national comparisons, when available. Avoid relying on comparisons to local averages that simply show half the schools, by definition, underperforming. - Tell the whole story
Schools need reliable metrics for motivation, engagement, and social-emotional well-being, and readiness for real-world work, in addition to valid measures of academic achievement and progress.
We work with Authorizers, Schools, Boards, and State Education Agencies.
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.