February 25, 2009 - In an effort to prepare students for post graduation success, the Austin Independent School District (AISD) has undertaken a transformation of secondary education across the school district. In pursuit of this objective, Office of Redesign staff supported campus staff by assisting them in making structural changes in their schools and in implementing instructional improvement systems based on research-based reform models.

One model of school restructuring adopted by AISD is the Institute for Research and Reform in Education’s (IRRE) First Things First (FTF) initiative at the LBJ, Reagan, and Travis high schools. For the 2007–2008 school year, the program evaluation of the FTF initiative assessed the following outcome measures: (a) self-reported student attitudes and evaluations of their family advocate, (b) math and reading Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) performance in FTF and non-FTF campuses, (c) disciplinary referral patterns across FTF and non-FTF campuses, and (d) results from the engagement, alignment, and rigor (EAR) observation protocols during the 2007–2008 school year. Below are several key findings from the evaluation.  
 

• The responsibility for conducting EAR protocol visits was not evenly shared by staff within and outside campuses. Often, only a handful of observers on campuses accounted for the majority of classroom visits.
• As the school year progressed, a greater percentage of classrooms met the EAR thresholds. However, among classrooms selected for observation, fewer than 30% satisfied the rigor requirement.
• Overall, approximately 85% of students surveyed at FTF schools could identify their family advocate.
• One-third of students at FTF campuses reported having met with their family advocate at least once a week, outside of formally scheduled class periods.
• The percentages of students at FTF campuses who met the passing standard on the math TAKS increased sharply and significantly from 2006–2007 to 2007–2008. However, these gains were not symmetric across ethnic groups, nor did they remain when controlling for student- and school-level characteristics.
• Both FTF and FTF-comparison campuses experienced dramatic declines in the percentages of students with discipline referrals and in the per student discipline referral rate from 2006–2007 to 2007–2008. At FTF campuses, high student attrition, particularly among students who had chronic disciplinary problems and who were predisposed to dropping out, may have contributed to these declines.  
   
  For more details about AISD’s FTF implementation, view the full report at: http://www.austinisd.org/inside/docs/ope_2007_2008_First_Things_First_Evaluation.pdf