Houston Independent School District's ASPIRE Program Serves as National Model for Improving Student Achievement

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation today released a report detailing the impact of performance management on teacher effectiveness and student performance in Houston Independent School District's (HISD) middle schools.  The report demonstrates how HISD—as well as other school districts and charter management organizations across the United States—are improving student achievement and making significant progress in closing the achievement gap.

Performance management is defined as a leadership culture designed to improve student academic achievement enabled through technology to gather, share and act upon relevant and timely information.  

The district's "Accelerating Student Progress. Increasing Results & Expectations." (ASPIRE) program has resulted in above-average growth across all academic areas for HISD middle school students.  Additionally, the number of schools receiving state accountability ratings of "Recognized" or "Exemplary" has doubled.

HISD's performance management is a continuous process of aligning the goals of individuals and teams with the organization's strategic goals—and harnessing the power of data to improve results and develop people.  ASPIRE engages every employee in creating a culture of excellence.  It incentivizes the right behaviors among school leaders to accelerate student learning.  ASPIRE measures the performance of every department and campus to identify and share best practices across the district. 

Through ASPIRE, educators and staff receive relevant and actionable data to improve students' academic growth.  Including useful tools and reports for use in goal setting, the program helps teachers plan differentiated instruction and interventions, and promotes follow-up with students.

Key metrics are used to measure the progress of the ASPIRE program, including value-added growth scores (using Dr. William Sanders' EVAAS® system), the Texas Education Agency Standard Accountability System rankings, and attitudinal survey data among principals, teachers and staff. 

The EVAAS® system assigns a score reflecting each student's one-year growth.  A growth gain of zero means that the growth achieved is what was expected over a year's worth of instruction.  If the growth achieved in the classroom is greater than expected, the model shows a positive Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) gain.  

The composite growth for HISD middle school students (grades six through eight) over the past three school years (2006-07 through 2008-09) has been extraordinary, showing composite growth across all academic areas at +2.4 NCEs.  In fact, there was above-average growth across all academic areas tested, with the greatest amount of growth in Reading (at a +3.0), followed by Language (+2.5), Mathematics (+2.2), Social Studies (+2.2) and Science (+2.0). 

The ASPIRE Award program recognizes and celebrates the exceptional work and contributions of all campus-based employees and academic leaders as they work to improve the growth of every student.  In addition, the district applies innovative, research-based strategies to recruit and retain a highly talented workforce that will best serve and support all aspects of their core business—student learning.

Campus leaders and HISD teachers are rewarded individually based on student growth in their classes.  In the 2008-2009 school year, 78% of employees in the HISD earned an ASPIRE award, up from 58% of employees in 2005-2006, demonstrating improved teacher effectiveness.

"ASPIRE has created an organizational focus on student achievement data," said Ann Best, Chief Human Resources officer.  "It also prevents inattention to results and ultimately forces us to provide for more rigorous instruction, while also helping to attract better teaching talent to the district and retaining top performers."

Every action HISD takes is now driven by the data it is actively collecting and analyzing.  The ASPIRE program is under constant review to identify opportunities for improvement and it delivers substantial proof that student achievement and teacher effectiveness is increasing in HISD middle schools.

To view the full report online, go to www.msdf.org/Houston_ISD.aspx.

About the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (www.msdf.org) is dedicated to improving the lives of children living in urban poverty around the world. With offices in Austin, TX and New Delhi, India, and Cape Town, South Africa, the Dell family foundation funds programs that foster high-quality public education and childhood health, and improve the economic stability of families living in poverty. The foundation has committed more than $650 million to global children's issues and community initiatives to date.

SOURCE Michael & Susan Dell Foundation