The Blueprint for Educational Change is the Central Texas community’s effort to build the most successful educational pipeline in the country to ensure our competitiveness and quality of life as a region.

The Blueprint is a first of its kind regional plan that addresses the needs across the entire educational continuum from kindergarten through post- secondary and on to career and lifelong success.

The community’s promise is that all Central Texas children will start school ready to learn, have equal levels of academic potential and be fully prepared after high school graduation for college, career, and lifelong success.

 

The Blueprint for Educational Change’s goals are:

1. All children enter kindergarten school ready.

2. We eliminate achievement gaps while improving overall student performance.

3. All students graduate college-and-career ready and prepared for a lifetime of learning.

4. Central Texas as a community prepares children to succeed.

 

 

 

Goal #1 – Children enter kindergarten school ready.

The foundation for success in education and in life is laid in early childhood. Yet over 40% of Central Texas children are 18 months behind by the time they enter kindergarten, not knowing a single color or letter, while others are writing, counting, and talking in complete sentences.

Ensuring that all Central Texas children enter school ready to learn will return each $1.00 investment over 13 times, according to MIT.

 

Draft Blueprint Objective:

  • 70% of children enter kindergarten school ready by 2015.
  • 95% of children enter kindergarten school ready by 2020.
Action Strategies*
Draft Success Indicators*
  1. Define and adopt school readiness standards for the region.

  2. Create a promotional school readiness campaign focusing on key child development milestones and achievements in support of Success by 6 “Ready Family” efforts and other Early Childhood Education initiatives.

  3. Increase enrollment of both public and private Pre-K programs through regional promotional campaigns and support of state policy efforts to scale accessibility and quality.

  4. As part of “Ready Community” efforts, develop an inventory of best practices in early childhood education programs and work to increase accreditation rate through Rising and Star and NAEYC certifications.

  • Percent of Rising Star, NAEYC, NAFCC  accredited Early Childhood Education centers

  • Percent of Early Childhood Education centers adopting and measuring school readiness outcomes

  • Percent of 3 and 4 year-olds enrolled in Head Start (2005)

  • Percent of eligible 4 year-olds enrolled in public Pre-K (2006)

  • Percent of children entering Kindergarten school ready

  • Percent of children of same district public Pre-K entering Kindergarten school ready

  • Percent of first graders on grade level in (a) Reading and (b) Math by the end of the school year

*Objectives and Success Indicators are under development by Blueprint partners. They represent objective measures to evaluate and track our progress over time.

Goal #2 – Central Texas eliminates achievement gaps for all students while improving overall performance.

Central Texas enjoys high performance rates in many districts on many indicators of student achievement, yet large gaps among ethnic and socioeconomic groups remain. As Hispanic, Black and Economically Disadvantaged students often have passing rates 30 points lower than the average on Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) tests.

Demographic and economic projections for the region tell us that we can only be globally competitive if all our students succeed.

 

Draft Blueprint Objective:

  • 8th graders across all subpopulations achieve 60% higher outcomes on state assessments, both passing and commended by 2015.
Action Strategies*
Draft Success Indicators*

  1. Align curriculum across grades for critical transition years: Kindergarten – 1st Grade, 5th grade – 6th grade, 8th grade - 9th grade, high school - college. 

  2. Develop ELL program standards across the region to create common interventions and content for this highly mobile population.

  3. Create incentive programs for teacher assignment to ensure an equitable distribution of experienced and high quality teachers in high needs schools.

  4. Identify and promote best practice interventions to increase student achievement for specific student sub-populations and for key transition years.

  5. Expand volunteer programs to increase recruitment, easily match individuals to volunteer opportunities and track volunteer activities to student outcomes.

  6. Promote and advocate the Piercing the Cultural Bubble “Para Una Buena Vida” Campaign message in schools and communities.

 

  • Middle school attendance rates

  • Middle school student mobility rates

  • Middle school student disciplinary rates

  • Percent of middle school students enrolled in extra-curricular activities

  • Percent of 8th graders meeting criteria on state assessments (TAKS)

  • Percent of 8th graders achieving commended on any state assessment (TAKS)

  • Percent of middle school students who failed both 4th & 5th grade reading TAKS and then passed any TAKS

  • Percent of middle school students who failed either TAKS or class who are participating in a school intervention

  • Qualified teachers (certified and teaching in field) at middle schools

  • Experienced teachers (≥ 5 years) at middle schools

  • Middle school teacher mobility rates (2004-2007)

 

*Objectives and Success Indicators are under development by Blueprint partners. They represent objective measures to evaluate and track our progress over time.

Goal #3 – Students graduate college-and-career ready and prepared for a lifetime of learning.

90% of the fastest growing jobs require some post-secondary education yet only 2/3rds of our 9th graders graduate high school, and only 43% of those are ready for college level classes without remedial work.

To succeed in the 21st century and build a world-class economy, Central Texas must have the best-prepared graduates - those who have the academic skills, creativity, and job skills needed to succeed in life.

 

Draft Blueprint Objective:

  • 95%+ graduation rate by 2015.
  • 20,010 more students enroll in college by 2010.
  • Double the number of students who are college-and-career ready by 2015.
Action Strategies*
Draft Success Indicators*

  1. Refine and adopt college and career readiness standards for the Central Texas Community.

  2. Align and expand programs to simplify high school to college transitions and develop stronger articulation with higher education and with career pathways in high demand in Central Texas. 

  3. Expand higher education capacity in the Central Texas Region.

  4. Develop and promote industry collaboration to provide career relevance to core subjects and to develop skills critical to success in both college and career. 

  5. Identify and promote business skills and high-need occupations to students while they are in secondary and higher education.

  6. Review and systematize emerging best practices in high school redesign.

  • Percent of first-time 9th graders completing Algebra I in that school year

  • Percent of first-time 9th graders taking Geometry

  • Percent of first-time 9th graders who repeat 9th grade

  • Percent of non-first-time 9th graders who repeat 9th grade

  • Percent of students who drop out in 9th grade

  • Percent of students who have taken dual enrollment course(s), have taken AP/IB course(s), or have taken upper level CTE course(s)

  • On-time graduation rate (4-yr cumulative)

  • Drop out rate (4-yr cumulative)

  • Percent of college ready graduates

  • Percent of students graduating on minimum high school plan (MHP)

  • Percent of Seniors who did not graduate on-time who graduate in 5th year (or later) of high school

  • Percent of high school graduates enrolling in college in the fall after graduation (full-time or part-time)

  • Percent of students who persist after first year of college

  • Percent of high school graduates enrolling in college in the fall after graduation who complete higher education ≤ 6 years of graduating high school

*Objectives and Success Indicators are under development by Blueprint partners. They represent objective measures to evaluate and track our progress over time.

Goal# 4 - Central Texas as a community prepares children to succeed.

Studies have shown that over 50% of a student’s performance is driven by factors outside of schools including socioeconomic conditions, parent education level, and cultural expectations.

Communities that support education both inside AND outside the classroom create a culture of learning that raises the performance level of all students and strengthens the system of education and the community.

 

Draft Blueprint Objective:

  • Community based organizations, parents, local industry, and education work together to create successful conditions for learning and achievement.
Action Strategies*
Draft Success Indicators*

  1. Launch a major regional education “movement” leveraging campaign messaging around the theme Graduates Are Made. Not Born. TM 

  2. Provide outreach to recruit significantly higher numbers of community volunteers into schools as mentors, tutors and coaches (see Goal 2).

  3. Identify and promote best practices in corporate citizenship in education including volunteerism, sponsorship, career awareness, industry skills alignment and financial support.

  4. Assist school districts, higher education and communities in creating an integrated communication strategy and engagement plan. 

  5. Identify existing measures such as school climate surveys to determine the common factors already collected by districts (parent involvement, volunteer counts & hours, etc.) to help measure community support for schools.

  6. Advance community action plans generated from the 2007 and 2008 Deliberative Dialogues and expand the dialogues process to other parts of the Central Texas region.

  7. Expand outreach to Spanish-speaking families through messaging and events that tie education to personal and community prosperity (Para Una Buena Vida).

  • Percent of participation of non-district personnel in District Advisory Committee (DAC)

  • Percent of growth in parental involvement

  • Percent of organizations meeting collaboration standards

  • Number of volunteer hours

  • Number of volunteer hours devoted to academic student support (tutoring, coaching, career planning)

  • Number of business volunteer hours in schools by employer

  • Number of students participating in youth support services and activities (mentoring, coaching, after school programs)

  • Rate of community responsiveness to district requests for support and participation (length of time to respond, match of response to request, duration of support)

  • Efficiency in community/district resource use

  • Total non-school funds allocated to public education and higher education

*Objectives and Success Indicators are under development by Blueprint partners. They represent objective measures to evaluate and track our progress over time.

 

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