Paying Attention
Brent Beasley, CEO of Fort Worth Education Partnership, speaks with guests about topics such as education, current events, Fort Worth, and the paths that led them to where they are now.
Paying Attention
Go Beyond Grades Tarrant County
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Brent visits with Loretta from AB Christian and Alyssa the Director of Go Beyond Grades about the efforts in Tarrant county to reduce the parent perception gap. Loretta talks about integrating it into their organizations and what the benefits to parents and caregivers Go Beyond Grades provides.
Welcome to the Paying Attention Podcast. I'm Brent Beasley. I lead the Fort Worth Education Partnership. And I'm really excited today to have as our guests Alyssa Studer and Loretta Burns. And both of them are involved with the Go Beyond Grades initiative that Fort Worth Education Partnership sponsors. But really appreciate you guys joining us today.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I appreciate it. Go Beyond Grades was a an idea that came a couple of years ago. We had been doing a lot of work on, you know, informing the community about how our kids in Fort Worth are not doing as well academically as maybe we thought they were. And so we talked a lot about the percentage of kids who are at grade level in Fort Worth, and it's really low. You know, right now it's about 37% of kids in Fort Worth meet grade level across all the different subjects. And we started wondering how come people aren't parents aren't more upset about this? You know, we just couldn't quite figure out why it wasn't on anybody's radar. And we finally came up with the idea, maybe, oh, maybe it has something to do with like they're getting good grades. We it was just a we weren't sure, but we had an idea. And about that time we read an article by the found the founder of this organization called Learning Heroes that now that that started a Go Beyond Grades initiative about this very thing. Uh, the the the connection between grades and kids actually performing at grade level on the the state standards, and it was like a light bulb moment for us. And so that's when we started kind of looking into this whole go beyond grades idea. And um now we've hired Alyssa Studer to lead the effort, and because it started as just like a public awareness campaign, and then now we're really trying to go deeper with it. So, Alyssa, I'd love to hear you kind of talk about what go beyond grades is and what you're trying to do with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, so like you said, it started as a public awareness campaign, so coined, copyrighted by learning heroes, national organizations. So they run these campaigns in multiple different kinds of metro areas across the country. Um, I think it's like probably 10 to 15 at this point. And so in spring 2024, they ran the largest campaign here in Tarrant County. Um, and so did some really interesting pre- and post polling, alluding to what you were describing, Brent, as the parent perception gap. So polled parents to see, you know, what percentage of y'all out there believe that your child is on grade level in reading and math, and then ran the campaign, shared some really key information with those parents through the campaign and then pulled them afterward. Um, and so we had a lot of success in Terrant County with just the general awareness to show them, hey, just because your kid is maybe getting an A or a B or maybe even a C on a report card doesn't mean that everything is necessarily okay, that they're on grade level. Um, we can talk a little bit about what that actually means.
SPEAKER_03Let's talk about those initial numbers when we started. So, because it was 96% of parents when we polled believe that their child is at grade level. Is that right? And then we know the reality at the time was 40%, I think. And so there that's what when you refer to this perception gap, that's the gap between the what people believe and what the reality is. So it's a huge gap. So yeah, yeah. Um and yeah, what about what say a little more about that, like the difference between grades and being on grade level, because that may not be obvious to everybody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so when we were polling people, we realized, okay, where are they getting this information from? Why do they think their children or their students are are doing well when they in reality are not? And so realize that the source of information that a lot of these parents and families are looking at are the report card grades, which when you think, well, what is the difference between grades on the report card and being on grade level? Um, it's pretty simple. Most people know what report card grades are. They're the the letters or numbers in different cases, depends on the age level that you're looking at. But the letters are numbers on a report card. Um, and they're very much so based on individual teachers' subjective, you know, grading scales. So I was a teacher, you were a teacher. We all have our different grading mechanisms, but for the most part, when you grade someone or you deliver a grade, it's based off of some combination of participation, homework, uh, test scores, effort even. Um, and so as you can imagine, every single human, you know, decides those things a little bit differently. Obviously, you use rubrics to grade homework and test scores, but like my judgment of someone's effort and participation might be different than yours. Um, so that's really what grades are. When someone's on grade level, that's a little bit different. That means that that student has the specific knowledge and skills or the essential knowledge and skills for that particular grade in that particular subject, meaning if they possess those knowledge and skills, then they have everything that they need to move on and be successful in the next grade level in that subject or in the subsequent subject that follows it. Um, to measure that, we use standardized assessments or classroom tests in some cases. And so, you know, they're both really, really important. Um, but when you don't have the full picture, when you're maybe missing looking at one of those, that's when we get this really big perception gap.
SPEAKER_03One time you were telling me about you and your husband, who uh when you were both teachers.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And and the differences between because I think this is a great illustration of what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so my husband and I, we originally moved to Texas. Um we were in a teaching program, so we were placed in Fort Worth. I tell people I didn't even know Fort Worth was a city. I thought I was headed to Dallas, ironically, but I really do love Fort Worth. Right. Um so I was a high school chemistry teacher at Northside High School, so really close to Lake Worth, where you taught. Um, and then he was also a high school chemistry teacher, but at OD Wyatt, so slightly different part of town. Um, we had the really unique opportunity to build our curriculum together. Um, and so literally every test, every piece of homework we gave students, like we we created together and we're administering the exact same thing. Um, oftentimes I coached also while I taught, and so sometimes I got a little bit behind on my grading, and he would help me out and grade some of the homework because of course he knew what he was looking at too. And I remember very specifically looking at something that he had graded, and it was one of my star students, and I was like, what the heck, man? Like, she's great. Like, why is she getting a B on this? Like, she should be getting an A. Um, and he went through and he explained it happened to be content where it wasn't just like algebraic stuff that you do in chemistry. It was a written response, and so it was a little bit more subjective in the way you might grade it. Um, and we found out that day that he was a much harder grader than I was. Right. Um, and so to bring it back to you know, the difference in grading, like a kid who probably took my chemistry class versus his maybe was more likely to get a slightly higher grade.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, just because he was a little bit more of a stickler.
SPEAKER_03Even though they would do the same on the standardized test. Yep. But yeah, but the subjectiveness of the grades. Yeah, really interesting. Loretta, you you lead uh A B Christian Learning Center, and I want to hear a little bit about your experience working with kids and families there and how this concept that we're just talking about here got you interested in wanting to be involved. But maybe first of all, just kind of what it tells tell us what is A B Christian Learning Center and what do you do there?
SPEAKER_00Okay. A B Christian Learning Center uh operates out-of-school time programs for low-income at-risk families at no cost to the families. We concentrate in those areas where students don't have access to programs because of uh financial means, transportation, but whatever means that we can provide that additional academic enrichment after school or during the summer for their benefit. We've been in business since 2006, so this is a year 20 for us in providing those services. We work in providing those services, we work very closely with families because kids don't drive themselves anywhere. They need parents, they need parent consent, and they need parent buy-in to get anything accomplished. So we work very closely with families, and in that time span, because my background was a lot like my family's background that we served, I realized a lot of things and empathize with some of the things. And some one of those base things was knowledge that they have intimidation for getting additional knowledge. You turn your child over to the school system because they they will educate your child, and then you bring them home, and I will feed my child. So when I learned about go beyond grades, uh I was shocked uh to find out the difference between a child's report card and their reading on grade level. And parents can't act on what they don't know. They don't know what they don't know, they don't even know to ask about what they don't know. And I knew, I didn't know, and I started talking to my parents, of course, it was just foreign language. If my child brought home, hey, we're going to get ice cream, pizza, and everything else and rewards time. But my child may not even be able to read, and I don't know it because I don't have the wherewithal, the support that I need to give that child to find out where they are really academically. So I was shocked and felt compelled to do something because I've been serving all these families all these years. One of the things that we did in the after-school program and out of school time was ask for report cards. So we could see how the scholar was doing and how to address those needs. Little not knowing that there's something beyond that that we needed to be looking at to truly find out where that scholar was performing. So I was all in and understanding this knowledge and getting it to my families also. Mine, I've at this point raised three kids and got them through college and didn't know about this grade versus report card. So that's how I got started in it and started working with families, asking questions. And what was so compelling is not only did they not know, but they were angry that they did not know. And finding out that their scholars could not read on grade level was so far behind academically. So it was an eye-opener. And then from that point on, it's like, okay, what do we do? We gotta do something. What do we do at this point?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. So literally, people are kids are making A's and B's, but then their parents are finding out, wait a second, they're a year or two behind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Do you remember the lady when we were so we Loretta was really wonderful? She got a group of her parents together to help us pilot the initial kind of course content that we put together that we now deliver, you know, online and then also in person. And I I can't remember this woman's name, but I remember exactly where she was sitting. And, you know, we helped her navigate the portal to pull up the star report card to show whether her child was on grade level in reading or math. She was really interested in math because she knew where they were in reading for some reason. And she was like, Oh, my kid's gonna be above grade level in math. And turns out he was not. He was at Meats grade level, which is really good, but she was furious despite that, because exactly what you said. Um, and actually she she mentioned, you know, I even went to school with their teacher. Like, how dare they not tell me that they're not where I thought they were? Um, so yeah, literally angry.
SPEAKER_03To learn more about Fort Worth Education Partnership, check out our website, FortworthEP.org. And we are on Instagram at Fort WorthEP. This is kind of for both of y'all, but like what is what is go the Go Beyond Grades Initiative doing practically to help with this problem? Like what are some of the things y'all are doing? Both you generally, but also like what are y'all doing at A B Christian Learning?
SPEAKER_00So primarily for us, it's awareness. Uh, because parents care about their children. I don't care what economic level they're at, what part of town they live on, they care about their children and they want the best for their children. So if we can make you aware that this challenge exists, we know parents are gonna do something about it. Uh they're gonna find out what I can do, and then they're gonna seek the knowledge and information they need to correct the problem. So primarily it was awareness. So what we did initially, we started, we got found out the school that the parents' child went to, and we showed them the percent of students at that school reading on grade level, and asked them, where's your child? Top or bottom. And that piqued their curiosity. They wanted to look up their schools and find out what was going on, what grade level they were.
SPEAKER_03On the Fort Worth Education Partnership website.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, yes, find my school to so it was it was a big awareness campaign before we could even talk about what needs to happen next. Right.
SPEAKER_02Taking it like beyond the awareness, and that's the fun part that I get to work with you on. We we f we we learned a lot through the awareness campaign, and we realized, okay, once they know, like we need actual things for them to do. So we've boiled it down to kind of three basic things that we're teaching parents with, you know, providing them resources, tools, and literally teaching them how to access these things. So, one, every district in the county has a parent portal. So that's the first thing every parent should know how to do is how do you get on there and navigate to key academic information, report card grades, whether my kid is on grade level or not. So the start report card, map scores. Um, the second thing is identifying whether or not they are on grade level in those key subjects. And then once you've got access to that key information, how do you talk about it with teachers? And so giving them specific questions that they should be asking dependent upon what their child's situation is. Um, and so just kind of for the broader public, we have two strategies right now that we're using. One is we've got two free online courses that teach these things. One is a condensed version, the other's a little bit longer, goes into some other things. And so that's just kind of generally aware or there for them to use if they want. And then we work with partners like Loretta and AB Christian Learning Center to really kind of meet them and their organization and their programming where they're at. So, for example, I know we're we haven't done it yet, but we're we're in the works. It's a month away. Um, and I'll let you talk about what Freedom School is. But for freedom school registration, Loretta's a genius. She has actually found a way for us to give every single parent that enroll their child in freedom school the GBG education kind of core content. And so before they even enroll, they have to submit a report card, star report card, andor a map report for their child. So that gives us a really great opportunity to actually teach them how do you find that, where do we access it. Um, and then we'll move even further and once they've got that info to tell them what they can do with it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, what is tell tell us what is Freedom School first?
SPEAKER_00So Freedom School is our summer learning program. Okay. It's a six-week summer program or focused primarily on reading, but we're now incorporated math because we're just as desperately behind in math as we are in reading. Uh, six weeks we have the scholars in all day. They come in at eight o'clock in the morning. We uh we feed them breakfast, uh, go into reading activities and then afternoon enrichment activities. We do field trips, very rich, culturally enriching, and introducing them to those things that they've not been introduced to. It is free to uh our scholars that families pay nothing. We target those schools that are Title I schools that are failing because we know those scholars are going to be behind. And one of the things that we do as a part of registration, they have to submit a report card. Now we're incorporating the map scores and the the uh test scores so that we can work with those parents individually at some time during the summer and let them understand how where their scholars really is and how they can improve that and what they can do. And that goes back to the go beyond grades curriculum and what can happen.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I love hearing that because that's a real practical change that kind of came out of this is absolutely is including those test scores as well. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to the you you kind of talked about the process here where that go beyond grades is trying to help in a practical way. And first is helping parents learn how to access the information, which sounds like a simple thing. But we know one thing we have learned is this is not simple. Uh there's an online place where parents can, you know, you can go to Texasassessment.gov or the website that the state runs or through your district, school district family portal, parent portal. But um this is not easy access. In fact, we we got some legislation, we helped get some legislation passed in the last session to make it to try to make it easier for parents to access the information because I went through this as an exercise as a parent with one of my own kids trying to find out that you know, trying to access this website and find out where they were when they were in high school. And uh it took me all day, multiple phone calls, they're asking for access codes and these things that I didn't know. I had to call the school, I had to call the school district. I mean, that it was it was an amazing process, and I actually never did get the information I needed to log on. So I just wanted to highlight like that first step, helping parents learn how to access the information is a huge thing because there's all kinds of barriers in place.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. So y'all have spent all this time developing ways to show parents how to do this, like that's part of that course.
SPEAKER_02Lots of technical assistance, right? Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03And every school district has their own version. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about some wins or or positive effects that we've seen so far from this work. Um, out of big picture, we've seen some changes in the polling numbers about what parents believe. So the we talked about at the beginning that when we first did the poll before we started, 96% of parents said that they believe that their child is at grade level. When we did the poll a year later, so I think that was in the spring, it said that it was down to 84% of parents believe their child is at grade level. We know the percentage at grade level is in the 40s, so we're we're still not there, but we went down 12 points in what in what parents believe. So the the parents like connection to the reality has improved. We also actually saw in a year the percentage of kids at grade level go up a couple of points. Um so that's that's what we want is that gap to close both from parents' perceptions coming down and the reality you know coming up. So we made a 14-point swing in that gap in one year. So that's sort of at the big picture of what we've seen, which we're really excited about. Um but I I'd be curious to know if y'all are seeing any kind of on the ground level kind of positive outcomes from this work so far.
SPEAKER_00I I think on the from A B Christian Learning Center uh point of view, one of the best and biggest changes we've had is a change in policies and procedures and registration and admitting uh scholars into our program. So we now require not only the report card, which we did in the past, but now we require those additional scores. And we take the time to talk to parents about those. And if they don't know how to get uh get those scores, we've got instructions from Go Beyond Grade. We have sheets that we sit down with them, we help them navigate that process. If they don't have a parent portal, a lot won't. We show them how to create that parent portal. And once we get them started in that process, then it's easier for them down the road. So we've we've revamped our policies and procedures for admitting into our program together.
SPEAKER_03That's great. That's a real life.
SPEAKER_00So no one is coming through without accessing and getting that information to us, and we're not going to do it for them. We let them do it, we help them get it accomplished.
SPEAKER_03That's great. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is exactly what the kind of thing that you're hoping, I think, people would do.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Yeah. I mean, Loretta and A B Christian Learning Center is like the perfect use case, right? And now we can share that with other organizations that are really invested in making sure that their families have, you know, the full picture in terms of information. Um, and so that example is really helpful to share because they might not know how they can incorporate that into their everyday, you know, programming or registration processes. Um, I think the other thing that's been really exciting to see, you know, and originally, and we still are very much so trying to partner with nonprofit or local community organizations to do this, because you guys have really trusted relationships with your families. You know your family's the best. Um, but in doing that, we've seen other kind of groups come out of the woodwork and be really interested in this. And so it seems like an obvious one, but um, family engagement specialists from the districts around the county are really, really interested in partnering with us on this because they have the exact same goals and they're actually on the campus doing this. And so, you know, it it's it's nice to see that the schools obviously have an interest, nonprofit organizations have an interest. Eventually, maybe we can think through how you know local organizations like private companies in in town have an interest.
SPEAKER_03Um Yeah. Yeah, we've we're talking about Loretta and AB Christian Learning, but you have partnerships with multiple other nonprofit organizations, and you're doing different, you're tailoring, I guess, your approach differently with each of those. Yeah. To learn more about Freedom School, check out abchrist.org.
SPEAKER_01And to learn more about the go beyond grades curriculum, check out go beyondgrades.org slash tarent slash free dash courses.
SPEAKER_03So we've been doing this go beyond grades for a year. I guess we're coming up on two years, really, in the work from the very beginning. Um, so just getting started in a way. But what are you what are you feeling good about or optimistic about going forward in this?
SPEAKER_00Well, I feel good about parents being being informed. Yeah. Because I 100% believe when parents know they do better and they will engage more and they do will do what they need to do to improve their students' academic progress. So I'm super excited. I think in the short term, more parents will come involved. In the long term, we'll see those grades go up. We'll see reading scores go up. We'll see math scores go up. And it it the picture won't be as dismal as it is now. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, it's exciting, just like Loretta said, you know, we're starting very small right now, but the more parents, the more organizations, the more campuses we get involved, eventually it'll be a snowball effect, at least I hope. And so, you know, we'll bring down the perception closer to reality. And then all the other things happening in the community, including, you know, the work that you do through freedom schools and everything else that everybody else is doing, will hopefully help us improve those, you know, proficiency levels until we can squish the gap.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate what what y'all are doing with this as far as it's it's a it's a faith and trust in parents. You know, we talk a lot about education and schools and school systems and all those things that are so important, but it's also you know, highlighting the importance of parents and having some faith in parents. And you've said this a couple of times that if parents know better, they do better. I think is how you said it. And it makes me think of the founder of Learning Heroes, says something like, Parents are problem solvers, but they can't solve a problem they don't know they have. And but that when parents know, parents are gonna do anything they can, you know, to help their child. And and and you said, which I appreciate, all parents. I mean, there's I guess there's some very rare exceptions, but all parents are gonna do that, regardless of their circumstances. They're gonna do the best they can with their kids. And um, you know, so informed parents are better parents and and uh informed parents make better students. And so yeah, I really appreciate y'all's work with with parents, the parent piece of this, really important.
SPEAKER_02I I want to say one thing too about teachers, especially you know, having been teachers, when the parents would reach out to me and engage with me or you know, their kid in the classroom through even coming to something, it it really made the relationship a lot more different. Like I know not intentionally or out of mouse or anything, I just I kind of treated that student different. And so I'm really excited when we reach more and more parents through this initiative, kind of what effect that'll have on the teachers, you know, hopefully super positive because they'll feel like they've got partners in this with them and they're not so much in it alone.
SPEAKER_03And hopefully this gives parents a little more confidence. You're giving the parents the resources to have the confidence to go to the teacher and meet with the teacher. Yeah, that's great. So, yeah, thank y'all for what you're doing on this. I really appreciate it. Um, appreciate uh Alyssa, I appreciate what you're doing on kind of leading the whole Go Beyond Grades initiative. And then Loretta, it wouldn't work without partners who are actually doing the work with parents. And so we really are grateful to you for what you're doing for your parents. Yeah, yeah. Thank you all, and thanks for being on this podcast today. Appreciate it very much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_03Appreciate that. This is a Fort Worth Education Partnership production. To watch Paying Attention, subscribe to our YouTube channel. You can also listen to Paying Attention wherever you get your podcast.