Texas School With High At-Risk Population Finds Education Success With Brainchild Achiever!

DALLAS--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Forty-five percent of the students at Barbara Jordan Elementary School in Ector County ISD are considered at-risk. Teachers have to contend with more than 25 percent turn-over each year and yet, Barbara Jordan Elementary School is one of the best schools in Texas.

“Our school faced the same challenges that many schools face today. We knew it was not for lack of effort or dedication that these students were not improving”

Principal Janet Brown credits the success at her school to good old-fashioned hard work, a cadre of dedicated teachers and a computer program from Brainchild (www.Brainchild.com) that uses data to inform and individualize instruction.

In the 2008/09 school year, Barbara Jordan Elementary finally entered the top 26 percent of all schools categorized as “Exemplary” by the state of Texas’ tough ranking system. Schools are ranked according to TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) performance and drop-out rate. The 2009/2010 rankings will be released on July 30.

For four years, teachers at Jordan Elementary aimed for the coveted Exemplary status but the scores for at-risk students held them back. “Our school faced the same challenges that many schools face today. We knew it was not for lack of effort or dedication that these students were not improving,” said Mrs. Brown. “We needed to apply a very prescriptive approach to helping our at-risk students improve.”

Teachers took a new tack in 2009 and began using Achiever! to determine individual areas of deficiency and then give students specific exercises designed to fill in knowledge gaps. The program was developed by Brainchild whose learning programs have helped improve student assessment results across the country. Brainchild’s programs allow teachers to be very prescriptive in how they diagnose and teach specific skills, which is part of a growing trend of Response to Intervention (RTI) where increasing tiers of intervention are applied to teaching students who are further and further behind their peers. RTI was originally conceived as a strategy for special education but it is gaining momentum as a teaching tool for all students.

A scientific approach to using data to inform instruction helps make school more enjoyable and effective for students and teachers but finding the right resource that fits a school’s needs can be a challenge. When the right combination clicks and students start responding, the results are rewarding. “Achiever! has become an invaluable tool at Jordan Elementary that teachers, students and parents appreciate,” said Mrs. Brown. “Needless to say, Achiever! has been selected for another year of service on our campus.”

Read more about Jordan Elementary School at www.brainchild.com/Pdfs/EctorISDcase.pdf.