Top performing low-income schools across the country are demonstrating that the achievement gap can be closed. One common practice in these schools is how they effectively use student achievement data to identify gaps in student learning and then relentlessly target their teaching to catch up students who are falling behind. Founded in Boston in 2005, The Achievement Network (ANet), an entrepreneurial non-profit organization on the cutting edge of the education reform movement, is designed to help schools achieve excellence and dramatically improve student achievement. ANet has been the recipient of the prestigious Investing In Innovation (I3) grant from the federal government; was awarded the New Schools Venture Fund "Organization of the Year" in 2011; and is a partner in the 100Kin10 movement, which seeks to recruit, prepare, and retain 100,000 science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers in 10 years.
ANet's comprehensive solution builds partner schools' capacity to use data effectively in their schools and increase student achievement. There are three major components that make up ANet's partnership with schools. 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 schools across the network.
ANet currently serves 350 charter and district schools educating 100,000 students in Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Newark, Chicago, Tennessee, and New York City. ANet schools have increased the percentage of their students reaching proficiency on state year-end summative tests; these outcomes outpace gains made by the states in which we work, often by twice as much.
