Definition of Success

Every DC learner from birth through 12th grade receives strong literacy and math instruction from well-prepared educators using high-quality curricula. Students facing the greatest barriers to opportunity, defined as those who are economically disadvantaged, experiencing homelessness, and/or in the foster care system, receive targeted, intensive support to accelerate their progress. 

Strategic Initiatives: 

• Support delivery of high-quality literacy instruction: Set clear expectations for literacy instruction from birth through 12th grade and ensure educators have the training, curricula, and support to meet them.
  Align OSSE’s literacy investments, including the Comprehensive State Literacy Development Grant, with these expectations so that resources reinforce a consistent approach across LEAs and child development facilities.

• Support delivery of high-quality math instruction: Set clear expectations for math instruction from birth through 12th grade and ensure educators have the training, curricula, and support to meet them.
  Expand access to evidence-based approaches to math acceleration, with attention to closing gaps for students who are furthest behind. 

• Ensure quality early learning for birth through five: Raise the quality and consistency of early learning across all settings, including child development facilities, community-based programs, and public school pre-K, by setting shared expectations and improving how children’s learning information follows them into elementary school.

• Support the use of accessible and timely data to improve student learning: Help LEAs and child development facilities use timely student learning data to identify what’s working, adjust instruction, and select effective curricula and tools.

• Align distribution of funds to agency priorities and outcomes: Streamline grant management operations and other funding structures to increase staff capacity and better align grants and grantees’ use of funds with agency priorities and intended outcomes.

• Support the effective use of technology to enhance instruction: Help LEAs, child development facilities/community-based organizations (CBOs), and educators identify and use technology tools that improve literacy and math instruction, and ensure students build the skills to use technology responsibly as part of their learning.

Outcome Measures – How we’ll measure progress 

• Percent of early learning classrooms meeting or exceeding the target on each domain in the standardized assessment.
• Percent of students in grades 3–8 and 9–12 performing on or above grade level on English Language Arts and math statewide standardized assessments.
• Percent of schools in any federally designated school improvement status that demonstrate sufficient improvement to exit their designation status during the school improvement cycle.