Striving Together: 2009 Strive Report Card and Networks Progress Report

Strive Report Card

A year has passed since the release of the first annual Striving Together: Student Progress on the Roadmap to Success report and we find ourselves in the midst of challenging economic times, requiring us to make some very tough decisions when it comes to improving education. Now more than ever, we are required to do more with less and use data to drive our decision-making, especially when it comes to ensuring the success of our most precious resource – human capital.

The Striving Together report serves as a catalyst for discussion in our community about the current state of education and a launching point to identify critical areas we need to focus on to achieve our shared goals. While last year’s report intended to set a baseline, this year’s report includes trend information and establishes benchmarks, where available, that we are actively working to achieve. These benchmarks align with the existing goals of our partners and take into account suggestions generated through community conversations.

Strive established a committee comprised of local data experts to help develop this report. We ask the reader to use caution when attempting to make comparisons across the data. In many cases, different assessments are being used across geography and grade level; therefore, comparing data across school districts is not always possible and is, more importantly, not the purpose of this report. While the report will enable us to analyze trends across the existing data, it will also help us to identify additional data that we need, in order to measure our success. In short, we hope that good data will drive out bad data.

Download the 2009 Strive Report Card

Strive Networks Progress Report

The focus of Striving Together: Progress Report on Student Success Networks and Other Strategies is on the successes and challenges faced by the networks of Strive partners working to improve the state of education. There are currently 15 networks of providers working in strategies that the partnership identified as being integral to student success.

Over the past two years, more than 250 organizations have stepped up to participate in these networks, and they have dedicated countless hours of time into developing shared action plans that will help ensure students get the support they need to succeed inside and outside the classroom. There is a renewed commitment to use data among these partners to not just prove what they are doing is working, but to use data to drive decisions to continuously improve their work over time to better serve students.

This report is divided into two major parts. The first part is divided into sections organized into three core values these Networks share: collaboration, alignment and effectiveness. Each Student Success Network is highlighted within these values to show the impact it is currently infusing in our community.

The second part of this report is a directory of Student Success Networks so you can see at a glance who is involved, their shared problem, how they will make a difference, what progress will look like, and their desired outcome.

Download the 2009 Progress Report on Student Success Networks and Other Strategies

Duncan Makes $44 Billion in Education Funding Available to States

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently announced the availability of $44 billion to states and schools as the first round of funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Of the $44 billion, $11.4 billion went out to states on April 1 through the Title I, IDEA, Vocational Rehabilitation, and Independent Living programs. The remaining $32.6 billion under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) will help states balance budgets and avoid reductions in education and other essential public services.

“…It’s critical that money go out quickly but it’s even more important that it be spent wisely,” Duncan said. “The first step toward real and lasting reform that will ensure our students’ competitiveness begins with absolute transparency and accountability in how we invest our dollars, educate our children, evaluate our teachers, and measure our success….” Of the $32.6 billion in SFSF funds, $26.6 billion is dedicated to ensuring that local school districts and public institutions of higher education have the resources to prevent cuts to education funding and retain teachers and professors, while $6 billion can go toward education, public safety, or other government services. Before a state can receive these funds, it must first submit an application to the U.S. Education Dept. (ED) providing assurances that it is committed to advancing education reform in the 4 specific areas mentioned in the ARRA:

1. Making improvements in teacher effectiveness and ensuring all schools have highly qualified teachers.
2. Making progress toward college- and career-ready standards and rigorous assessments that will improve both teaching and learning.
3. Improving achievement in low-performing schools by providing intensive support and effective interventions in schools that need them the most.
4. Gathering information to improve student learning, teacher performance, and college- and career-readiness through enhanced data systems that track progress.

Source: http://www.ed.gov/programs/statestabilization/2009-394-cover.pdf

Standards and Achievement

The current issue of Time magazine provides a nice overview of national standards, including a brief history and the efforts being undertaken by the current administration to develop them (see: How to Raise the Standard in America's Schools).

No Child Left Behind requires students to be tested annually in reading and math, but leaves the task of creating assessments up to the states. This results in different measures of student success by state, and some critics will argue that states make their tests easier so it appears their students are doing well.

The following map paints a picture how how rigorous the states' tests are compared to national tests. Rigor is a measure of the difference between the number of students performing at or above proficiency on state and national assessments. A positive score indicates that the state has a more difficult test than the national test. A negative score indicates that the state's test is easier than the national test.














Ohio's score is -46 and Kentucky's score is -13. You can also explore the map on your own.

CPS Fourth Grade Achievement Over Time

The chart below shows fourth grade reading and math achievement by school for Cincinnati Public Schools over the last five years. The size of the circle corresponds to student enrollment, and the color of the circle represents the school's state designation. Click the 'play' button at bottom left to watch the data over time.

CPS Fourth Grade Reading and Math Achievement

There is a lot of data packed into this small chart and a lot can be learned by interacting with it. A larger version of this chart is also available.

Gapminder pioneered this tool to display data and statistics in a fresh new way. It is now more widely available and can be used to display your own data.

2009 Strive Report Card

We are proud to announce the impending release of the 2009 Strive Report Card!

Drees Pavilion in Devou Park
Wednesday, April 29, 10:00-11:00 AM

Click here to RSVP
Click here for directions

AGENDA

• Updated data across nine past and two new indicators, including trends and benchmarks
• An analysis of key themes from the trends the partnership is observing
• An outline of proposed strategies for the community to consider based on what the data tells us

SPECIAL GUEST!
We will also have a special guest. Ben Hecht, president & CEO of Living Cities will be joining us to share how the work of the partnership in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky is driving educational transformation nationally.

WE HAVE A LIMITED NUMBER OF SEATS SO PLEASE RSVP BY CLICKING HERE.