Overview

Background

Founded in 2005 as Massachusetts Public School Performance to serve a small cohort of Boston charter schools, The Achievement Network (ANet) is designed to help schools achieve excellence and close the achievement gap. In the 2011-12 school year, ANet has grown to work with 252 schools, over 68,000 students and 2,900 teachers in eight geographic Networks.

Need

Half of all low-income students are not on track to graduate from high school by age 18 and those who do graduate will perform on average at an eighth-grade level. This is an injustice for individuals and our country. Our urgency comes from knowing that students from low-income areas are succeeding already in so many classrooms and schools. When we can translate isolated successes into system-wide change, this problem will be solved. Our program specifically addresses schools’ general lack of:

• Actionable data or access to ongoing comparative data
• Capacity or an established performance culture to identify gaps in student mastery and address them in real time
• Forums to share best practices
• “Proof points” of systems where success is possible for all students

Mission

The Achievement Network (ANet) is a non-profit organization committed to helping all students achieve academic excellence by providing effective data-driven strategies to identify and close gaps in student learning.

Approach

There are three main components that make up the full ANet partnership with schools.

1. First, we provide standards-aligned quarterly assessments and user-friendly data reports to determine which standards students are mastering and which standards students are struggling to comprehend.
2. Second, ANet provides intensive coaching to help schools use the data effectively to action plan and re-teach concepts students have not yet mastered.
3. Third, ANet facilitates a peer network of leaders and teachers for best practice sharing and collaboration to accelerate improvement in network schools. ANet’s comprehensive solution builds partner schools’ capacity to use data effectively in their schools and increase student achievement.

Goals

To be the premier provider of data-driven strategies that improve the academic achievement for all students by:

• Providing the tools and support for schools to become largely self-sufficient in using data-driven strategies to raise student achievement;
• Closing the achievement gap and raising student academic performance of Network schools at a higher rate than comparable schools and Networks; and
• Developing a sustainable organization through recurring revenue from schools, districts, charter management organizations and state/federal contracts.

ANet provides schools three services that make up the full partnership. First, we provide standards-aligned quarterly assessments and user-friendly data reports to determine which standards students are mastering and which standards students are struggling to comprehend. Second, ANet provides intensive coaching to help schools use the data effectively to action plan and re-teach concepts students have not yet mastered; and third, ANet facilitates a peer network of leaders and teachers for best practice sharing and collaboration to accelerate improvement in network schools. ANet’s comprehensive solution builds partner schools’ capacity to use data effectively in their schools and increase student achievement.