District & School Partnerships
All Students Ready for College and Career: The Education Trust – West Signature Toolkit: Educational Opportunity Audit and Blueprint Design.
Helping Educators Close the Gap
The Education Trust – West (ETW) offers assistance to leaders in school districts committed to preparing all students for both college and career. ETW helps leaders tackle the persistent problems that schools and districts face as they strive to enhance teaching and learning. Specifically, this includes working with districts committed to implementing a more rigorous high school curriculum. The Education Trust – West’s Educational Opportunity Audit and Blueprint Design Toolkit is a comprehensive process to determine student interventions, professional development, staffing, curriculum, facilities, and budget needs. Additionally, ETW provides support for creating an ongoing public engagement strategy. Along with ETW’s assistance, districts will engage in a partnership to develop an implementation plan for comprehensive high school reform. This work culminates in a Blueprint for preparing all high school students for college and career.
The tools developed by The Education Trust – West in the Toolkit are designed to analyze the high school program currently being offered by the school district, develop consensus among stakeholders for necessary reforms, and move the district toward a common high school core curriculum that prepares all students for a full range of postsecondary options.
The Education Trust – West’s Educational Opportunity Audit and Blueprint Design Toolkit Details
High School Educational Opportunity Audit
During Phase I, ETW conducts an Educational Opportunity Audit to determine current levels of high school students’ preparation as well as to identify necessary changes in policies and practices related to:
- Curriculum and instruction
- Student safety nets, interventions, and special populations
- Human resources
- Professional development
- Facilities
- Budget
- Career Technical Education
- College-going Culture
ETW analyzes artifacts including student transcripts, master schedules, course catalogs, and any other pertinent documents. The Education Trust—West Practice Team, comprised of all former practitioners who successfully led their schools through similar reforms, will facilitate district staff through a “data team” meeting which includes an analysis of student transcripts to identify gaps and “chokepoints” (barriers) students experience at their high school. Concurrent with this analysis, ETW will conduct focus groups with all stakeholders and hold community conversations at the high schools. Through these conversations, all stakeholders are engaged in meaningful dialogue about high school reform. Other key components of the public engagement also include cultivating community partnerships with community-based organizations, parent and student groups, local business leaders, and higher education agencies.
The Audit results in a High School Educational Opportunity Report which is presented to the district’s board of education. This report identifies gaps that students have in accessing and meeting a rigorous curriculum preparing them for college and career.
Blueprint for Implementation of a College and Career Ready Curriculum for All
During Phase II, the district develops a comprehensive Blueprint for Implementation of a College and Career Ready Curriculum for All, based on the Audit report findings and recommendations. The plan identifies action steps, timelines, roles and responsibilities, challenges, as well as outcome measures or indicators. The superintendent identifies members (including teachers, administrators, students, parents, community and business leaders, and higher education representatives) of the steering committee who will guide and monitor the development and implementation of the Blueprint. Working committees for each area of the Blueprint are formed, whose members are responsible for the actual development of the Blueprint.
The Blueprint addresses each of the following areas:
- Curriculum and instruction needs
- Student support, safety nets, interventions and special populations (Special Education, Alternative, and English Language Learners)
- Teacher recruitment and staffing needs
- Professional development needs for teachers
- Funding requirements to implement the reforms
- Facility needs to implement the reforms
- Ongoing public engagement efforts
Once the elements of the Blueprint are complete, and timelines and resources needed for full implementation are determined, the steering committee and Superintendent are asked to give final endorsement of the plan. The board of education then receives the Blueprint for their formal approval. Approval of the Blueprint’s plan signifies the district’s commitment to enacting a college and career ready curriculum for all students, and places the district at the forefront of educational reform in the state of California.
Now, the district – in full partnership with its community stakeholders – can begin implementing a thoughtful and meaningful plan based on the needs of the districts' students preparing the students for all postsecondary opportunities. Key indicators of post-secondary success which have been identified through the ETW practice work, can assist the district in determining how many students are improving and in which areas the district may need to concentrate additional effort. These indicators allow the district to ascertain if they are on trajectory to meet their goals. Some of these indicators are: increased mathematics achievement in early grades, increased AP enrollment, higher rates of students graduated prepared to enter into credit-bearing college level courses, and rising college-going rates.
