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REPORT FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT

Office of Superintendent of Schools NO ACTION REQUIRED

Board Meeting of September 17, 1998

SUBJECT: PROJECT CLEAR: CLARIFYING LEARNING TO ENHANCE

ACHIEVEMENT RESULTS

Background

Board policy 610.000 requires a well-balanced, challenging, districtwide

curriculum that encompasses and goes beyond state requirements. The State of
Texas has developed the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), which
form the foundation for our objectives. The TEKS must be implemented in every
Texas school district beginning in school year 1998-99. The changes in the
TEKS required major revision of our curriculum objectives. However, even with.a
well-written, well-developed set of curriculum objectives, objectives are open to
interpretation. In order to clarify district expectations for student learning, a new
tool is needed.

Project CLEAR

Project CLEAR-Clarifying Learning to Enhance Achievement Results-was

developed to be an instructional planning tool for teachers. It clarifies in detail
what is to be taught and assessed. It establishes uniform standards across the
district by subject and grade. It thus clarifies the TEKS and the HISD Scope and
Sequence. This enables teachers to focus their planning time and professional
conversations on how best to teach the knowledge and skills so that all students
master the objectives.

Project CLEAR not only provides detailed information on what is to be taught, it

also indicates how it is to be assessed. It lists prerequisite knowledge for each
objective and indicates how one objective is linked to other objectives to
reinforce learning and build concepts. Instructional considerations are provided
to support teachers in their planning, but teachers determine the instructional
activities and strategies best suited to enabling their students to reach the
desired objectives.

Today's students need both traditional knowledge and skills and the knowledge
and skills that will prepare them for a rapidly changing, technological world.
Project CLEAR ensures that the curriculum includes these components.
Teachers and administrators have praised these new materials for their clarity
and ease of use.

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Content Areas

Project CLEAR is being developed in four academic content areas over a three-
year period. This school year, Project CLEAR materials are available for English
and Spanish Language Arts Writing (K-8), mathematics (K-8), and science (6-8).
This painstaking work requires over eight hours of development time per
objective to ensure that concepts develop across grade levels, that TAAS and
StanfordjAprenda objectives are included, and that the content specified can be
taught within the time span of the school year. To our knowledge, no other
school district has curriculum documents developed to this level of specificity.

Implementation

In July, lead teachers from each school were involved in five full days of staff
development held at Revere Middle School. These teachers explored the
materials in depth. In turn, they will be presenting modules to their co-workers
with support from their district offices, as needed. Language Arts Writing
presentations are divided into four modules; mathematics has three modules;
and science has two modules. Each school will determine how best to present
the modules. Many are using grade-level meetings or vertical-team meetings. A
reporting form will keep administrative-district staff members aware of school-
level plans and implementation of the specific modules.

Principals had an overview of the materials in June and will have additional staff
development in September and throughout the school year. The district-office
staff has had two full days of inservice and will assist lead teachers. Other
central-office departments including Special Education, Reading, and
Technology have also attended inservice sessions.

During school year 1998-99, Project CLEAR materials will be revised through
input from teachers and administrators in focus-group meetings and from on-line
and written comments sent to the Curriculum Department. Project CLEAR
documents will be posted on-line, and a Web site will be established on the

Intranet.

1998-99 Development

During school year 1998-99, Project CLEAR materials will be developed for high-
school Language Arts Writing and for the TEKS strand of "Viewing and
Representing." This new strand is of great importance in an age where so much
information comes to us through the media. We need districtwide understanding
of what must specifically be taught.

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Science for grades K-5 will be developed to provide clear direction for
elementary science instruction districtwide. Social studies will concentrate on
content specifications for each objective K-9. This level of specificity will require
consensus-building throughout the district.

Eventually, all core curriculum courses will be clarified through Project CLEAR.
When Project CLEAR is completed, every teacher, parent, and student will know
exactly what learning is expected in our district. We have taken a very real step
forward in ensuring equity of access to a high quality, challenging curriculum that
will prepare students for success.

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Houston Independent School District

Districtwide Improvement Plan, 1998-99

Executive Summary
Introduction

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest school system in Texas and the sev
largest school system in America. HISD's annual budget is more than one billion dollars. We have
students and 290 schools spread out over more than 300 square miles. We operate a fleet of 1,400
buses and transport 45,000 students to and from school every day. We have more than 30,000
employees, and we manage 23 million square feet of space at our various campuses.

Our student population is 52 percent Hispanic, 34 percent African-American, 11 percent white, an

percent Asian and other minorities. Houston is a diverse, international city, and 60 different 1
spoken in HISD, 14 at Piney Point Elementary School alone. Because we are a large urban school d
we have more special-education and limited-English-proficiency students than other districts in
In addition, 65 percent of our students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches and are thus c
economically disadvantaged. But our economically disadvantaged students are not academically
disadvantaged. On the TAAS test they strongly outscore similar students in Fort Bend, Spring Bra
Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio, sometimes by nearly 13 percentage points.

We have done a lot to achieve the goals of a focus on teaching and learning, decentralization,
performance rather than compliance, and a core curriculum for all students.

We have decentralized the district, forming 13 administrative sub-districts to better serv

individual communities.

. Parents can now decide where they want to send their children to school.

. We ended exemptions from the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills

We ended "social promotion" and require students to earn advancement to higher grade level

. We have created project CLEAR (Clarifying Learning to Enhance Achievement Results) to help
teachers know what should be taught, plan how to teach it, and determine how well students have
learned it.

. We have created a new program to get disruptive students out of the classroom.

We have moved to hire private companies to repair and maintain our buildings and manage au
food-service operations.

We are streamlining by decentralizing our facilities" maintenance operations and eliminati

hundreds of positions, including many high-level management jobs.

. We have established 31 parent centers where parents can meet, get information about
educational activities, and interact with teachers.

We have created tax reinvestment zones so we could build two new high schools to help solv
our student overcrowding problems on the east and west sides of town.

Another of HISD's initiatives to make
New Beginning," a five-point blueprint
school competition, decentralization,
involvement. These efforts are helping
district's progress, reward employees
efforts, give schools greater control
the education of Houston's children.
the district a leaner, more efficient, even better school
for HISD's future based on accountability, best efforts,
and expanded parental and community
HISD to increase efficiency and student achievement, trac
for excellence and creativity, assist schools in their imp
over matters that affect them, and enlist parents and the

At the classroom level, HISD is leading the nation in the campaign to teach children to read as
possible. The district is determined that Houston's children learn to read on grade level by the
so they can read to learn for the rest of their lives.

The Reading Initiative and the companion Mathematics Initiative are major components of HISD's q
academic excellence. Our students are learning better than ever, and in many of our schools they