Texas

Texas Affiliate

Through support and leadership received from a number of Texas-based businesses, foundations, education organizations and individuals since 1995, Just for the Kids-Texas is promoting school improvement across the state. Click here for a listing of our major supporters. We also wish to acknowledge the following collaborative partners in Texas: the Texas Education Agency, Texas Association of School Administrators, Texas Association of School Boards, Texas Business and Education Coalition, Texas Education Reform Caucus and Foundation, Texas High School Project and Dallas Achieves!.

Contact:
Susan Bonesteel
Director State Services, NCEA

For additional information on becoming a Just for the Kids state affiliate, click here.

About the Organizational Levels

Recognition, Intervention, and Adjustment
Recognize, intervene, or adjust based on school performance
Recognize, intervene, or adjust based on teacher performance
Recognize, intervene, or adjust based on student performance
Monitoring: Compilation, Analysis, and Use of Data
Develop student assessment and data monitoring systems to monitor school performance
Monitor teacher performance and student learning
Monitor student learning
Instructional Programs, Practices, and Arrangements
Provide evidence-based instructional programs
Ensure the use of evidence-based programs, practices, and arrangements in every classroom
Use evidence-based programs, practices, and arrangements
Staff Selection, Leadership, and Capacity Building
Provide strong leaders, highly qualified teachers, and aligned professional development
Select, develop, and allocate staff based on student learning
Collaborate in grade level/subject teams focused on student learning
Student Learning: Expectations and Goals
Provide clear, prioritized academic objectives by grade and subject that all students are expected to master
Implement the district's written curriculum and ensure that all students achieve specific academic goals
Ensure the district's written curriculum is taught to and mastered by all students

In addition to Organizing Themes, the three levels of every school system--district, school, and classroom--provide a second organizational dimension to The Framework. Within each of the five themes, each Organizational Level plays a particular role in Consistently Higher Performing Schools. Different levels of the school system must be involved, to differing degrees, in order to reach maximum effectiveness in the specific theme area. The assignment of practices to a specific school level may be as important as the practices themselves (in other words, "who" is as important as "what").

All activities in The Framework must be performed, if student achievement is to be sustained over time. Certainly, an individual school or class of students may succeed without the involvement of a particular school level, but that success is less likely to be sustained over time than success deriving from a well-balanced effort by an entire system. For example, if a task, such as developing a detailed and coherent curriculum, were not assumed by the district as recommended in The Framework, effective school-based educators would create their own. (By contrast, ineffective schools would likely do without a cohesive curriculum, and thus would contribute significantly to their students' level of performance.) When schools or classroom teachers take on tasks that are most effectively assumed by another level of the system, in addition to the activities they should be addressing at their level, the entire system becomes strained. Both teachers and students perform less effectively, and grow more likely to burn out.