Jim Griffin is a founder of Momentum Strategy & Research, a Colorado organization strengthening the nation’s charter community through collaborative research. Mr. Griffin leads the strategy side of the organization leading policy and system development efforts in areas such as public sector accountability systems, performance measures for atypical students and schools, and charter school facilities challenges. Prior to MSR, Mr. Griffin was the founding leader of the Colorado League of Charter Schools. He spent nearly 19 years in that position shaping Colorado’s charter. Over those years he also played a key role in launching a host of groundbreaking efforts and organizations, both locally and nationally – ranging from public school accountability, to legal advocacy, facilities financing, group purchasing, and food service.
AAPF18 Sessions:
Alternatives Across America
Momentum Strategy & Research has recently updated its Alternative School and Performance Database and will summarize the state of alternative schools and programs across the 50 states and DC. Attendees will learn about the number, type, variety, and distribution of alternative schools across the country, including student enrollment and general profiles. Momentum will also preview findings on national performance trends for measures such as cohort graduation rates, proficiency outcomes on state standardized assessments and the relationship found between state education policies and performance outcomes. Attendees will leave with an understanding of how their states’ policies can impact alternative school performance outcomes as well as the ability to set informed targets for alternative school accountability. In addition, Momentum will announce a new partnership with the National Charter Schools Institute, including a recently awarded federal dissemination grant, and discuss how this partnership will increasing opportunities for school and authorizer involvement in shaping alternative accountability research, policy, and practice.
The A-Game
Momentum Strategy & Research and the National Charter School Institute (the A-TEAM) announce their newly awarded Federal CSP funded project, A-GAME (Advancing Great Authorizing and Modeling Excellence), which is focused on helping charter school authorizers implement evidence based methods of accountability for the alternative schools in their portfolio. Attendees will learn about the goals of the 3-year project and how schools (charter or non-charter alike), school districts, charter authorizers, and others can become involved and benefit from the project’s work.
Past AAPF Sessions:
Opportunity Measures – Validating Unique Student Outcomes and School Success
Together, Momentum Strategy & Research and a consortium of Colorado alternative education campuses are leading the way on a project demonstrating how the types of unique student outcomes central to alternative schools can be validated and used for accountability purposes. Using an external validation model developed by Momentum, each participating school submits unique mission specific measures for external review, including ultimate rating by a panel of reviewers. Reviewers assess the outcomes of the measures on a rubric, providing immediately useable information to the schools about the strength of their outcomes. Documentation of the process and the combined outcomes of all participating schools will be used to show how the evaluation of unique measures can be part of a robust and meaningful accountability system. Attendees will hear a detailed account from a participating alternative school about the measures they are using in the Opportunity Measure Pilot Project and how the review process has helped validate data on measures that speak to their unique mission and the plan to incorporate this data into how the school is held accountable.
Can an Alternative Accountability Framework be Customized, Rigorous, and Mutually Agreed Upon? Learn what’s possible when schools, districts, and charter authorizers are committed to rigorous, customized accountability, and state policy gives them the latitude to make it happen. Over the last few years Momentum has worked with a number of alternative schools and their district and/or charter authorizer to develop a framework of accountability that is arrived at with a culture of collaboration and consensus combined with the best available data to inform and support the parties’ objectives. This session will identify key steps in the process of developing trust and collaboration between alternative schools and the organizations that are responsible for holding them accountable, and will also show some of the outcomes from that work. This will be a panel discussion including leadership from both an alternative school and a charter school authorizer—each sharing their thoughts and experiences working through this process.
