Published: December 06, 2007
Groundbreaking Initiative to Improve Teaching, Learning
ASPIRE program receives backing from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
HOUSTON - Teachers, students, and parents in the Houston Independent School District will soon benefit from a new data system that will monitor individual student progress, inform classroom instruction, and help teachers to provide more targeted support. HISD will receive $4.5 million over three years from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the ASPIRE-Accelerating Student Progress, Increasing Results & Expectations-data system.
By tracking student results, teachers will be better able to identify individual strengths and weaknesses and target their support where it is needed most, helping all students to meet the high academic standards set by HISD and the state. The ASPIRE Initiative reflects HISD's continuing commitment to improve teaching and learning so that all young people can get the high-quality education they deserve. 
Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra welcomed the support for Houston's groundbreaking project. "For the first time we are charting the individual academic growth of every child, and we're going to use that value-added data to design specific ways to help every child continue to improve," Dr. Saavedra said.
Funding from the Gates Foundation will be used for several major components of the ASPIRE program, including professional development opportunities for teachers to learn how the "value-added" data system can be used to guide planning and instruction. The grant also will support new communication systems and online tools to help share the knowledge across the district.
"Students come to school every year with various levels of preparedness. Some are ahead of where they should be academically and some are behind. Regardless of whether a teacher's students start the year below, at, or above grade level, all of that teacher's students should make progress during the school year," Dr. Saavedra said. "Now we will know which strategies or approaches are working, and we'll be able to replicate those strategies in other schools and other classrooms."
Year-end standardized tests provide a "snapshot" of student achievement but tell educators little about which students are making the most progress and why. The ASPIRE system uses Dr. William Sanders' EVAASŪ model to measure student progress at the school, grade, teacher, and student levels. Using this value-added growth measurement, teachers, schools, and HISD leadership can begin interpreting the impact of the curriculum, instruction, and specific programs on student achievement.
With ASPIRE, HISD will still use data from the state TAKS test and the national Stanford test to measure each student's academic growth over time. Further analysis will measure a teacher's impact on each individual student, data that HISD will use to adjust instruction and student support.
"We've learned that we can't simply expect good instruction and curriculum to show up at our schools, we must be deliberate about creating it and we should constantly nurture it," said Steve Seleznow, program director for education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "The ASPIRE program will help teachers, school leaders, and parents to closely monitor student growth and identify what works and what is needed to help students succeed."
Campus level analysis will be made available to parents and the community. The district has created tools for parents and community to learn about value-added analysis, including a website.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people-especially those with the fewest resources-have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Patty Stonesifer and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
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