Leading research organization calls Vision Network a “Pioneer”

An independent evaluator, the American Institutes for Research (AIR), cited Delaware’s Vision Network as a national exemplar of alignment from the state to the district to the classroom level: “[The Vision Network] is a pioneer in identifying and leading the work on key levers for significant education reform, which are now recognized and promoted by the US Department of Education. All of the components of Vision 2015…are major areas targeted for attention with an integrated approach.

The 2010 evaluation indicates promising results aligned with the goals of the Network, including remarkable school-level gains and faster overall improvement in 2009-10 than the rest of the state. The evaluation is now focused on a dashboard of key leading (engagement, implementation) and lagging (student achievement, graduation) data identified by the Vision 2015 Implementation Team and AIR.

The greatest indication of the Network’s effectiveness is the marked improvement seen in  schools demonstrating fidelity and energy in their implementation, as opposed to schools with weaker implementation that are not gaining as rapidly. Since we have no comparison group of schools (due in part to a small sample size in Delaware from which to pull), the comparison among Network schools is as telling as we can get.

Some schools have had remarkable progress, such as Kuumba Charter School’s dramatic gains in math and MOT Charter’s improvement in writing.

Look out for our upcoming series featuring Network schools’ accomplishments and stories about how they got these results.