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Our story began in a large, urban district, predominantly blue collar community with huge apartment complexes that became home to wage laborers and families living on public assistance. Nearly three quarters of the district’s children were Hispanic, 11% white and 9% African American with 3% other ethnicities. 38% of the students in the district spoke Spanish or were learning English as a second language.
In 1999 a new awareness began to evolve when No Child Left Behind put pressure on states to raise the bar on public education. The district began to search for a way to start making academic achievement the focus. In searching for a way to focus on achievement the district starting looking at research based processes. It identified the plan-do-check-act continuous improvement process as an effective model to develop a program to increase student achievement.
The steps to the continuous improvement model include:
- Plan – Development of a calendar or pacing guide
- Do-10 to 15 minute daily standards based direction lessons
- Check– weekly evaluation or assessment of students
- Act – Reteach when necessary
Using this model the Standards Plus Program was developed and a school was chosen to be the Standards Plus pilot program.
This elementary school was in a high-crime, high poverty area where 89% of the students were eligible for free or reduced lunch, 85% of the school population spoke a language other than English and 61% of the student body was considered English language learners.
Implementing the Standards Plus Program accomplished several things:
- It created a school wide focus by providing all students with structure and daily access to grade level standards
- Gave teachers instruction directly tied to the standards
- Allowed a research based program to be implemented
- Eliminated the need for teachers to create, invent or design standards based lessons
These lessons, aligned to a specific standard,
gave students multiple opportunities
to learn specific elements of each standard
therefore insuring the students had multiple exposures
to learn the standard.
Following a school wide implementation of Standards Plus, the pilot school showed the largest gains of any other school in the district and began to close the achievement gap. Given the school population, the gains were remarkable.
Within 3 years of the Standards Plus implementation 60% of the students were meeting or exceeding standards in both subjects.
Using the instructional focus of Standards Plus across grade levels ensured all students equal access to instruction and a belief that all children can learn given an opportunity to access effective instruction.
60% of the students were meeting or exceeding standards
Following the district wide implementation of Standards Plus over the next several years, the district gained national recognition and received two national awards for overall student achievement by receiving The national DISPELLING THE MYTH AWARD and the ALL KIDS ALL STARS TROPHY, both awarded by the Education Trust (established by the American Association of Higher Education). The district outpaced the average statewide improvement five years in a row.
The consistent district wide increase in student achievement prompted the creation of the Learning Plus Associates Nonprofit Organization whose mission is devoted to developing and providing standards-based curriculum so all students have access to this federally approved curriculum using effective schools and total quality management research.
To continue to meet the mission of increasing student achievement, beginning in 2011 and over the next 3 years all profits were used to rewrite all lessons to match the newly adopted Common Core Standards, carefully following the same research model that had been proven successful in the past.
Common Core Standards Plus continues to prove to be an effective program in increasing student achievement and providing students equal access to all standards.
Our dedication is to all students working to gain knowledge and skills for the future and teachers who work diligently to provide the best educational opportunities their students.