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Systems Design
The Greater Austin Reading Coalition | United Way for Greater Austin
Context:
GARC, or The Greater Austin Reading Coalition, was formed under United Way for Greater Austin with the goal of having every child in the Greater Austin Area read on grade level by the time they enter the 4th grade.
This is a major marker for Texas children, as the State of Texas projects future prison capacities using 4th grade reading scores. GARC was funded under a grant that promotes early childhood literacy and was designed to be as inclusive as possible, through incorporating the diverse viewpoints and input from various community-led organizations serving at-risk, underserved, underrepresented, and marginalized communities.
Research Question:
How Might We... Create a Community Culture of Reading in Austin and Ensure That All Children Are Able to Enter the 4th Grade Reading on Grade-Level?
Framework Used:
Results-Based Accountability by Mark Friedman
RBA is a framework that is being used throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe to make measurable change in people’s lives, communities and organizations. It is based on the book by Mark Friedman, entitled, Trying Hard is Not Good Enough.
Design Process
Initial Planning
Research Method:
Before including our stakeholders and community organizations in this process, my team had to conduct an internal analysis via an internal spreadsheet, listing all the organizations in this sphere that we currently work with, in grades K-4.
The RBA framework is divided in seven steps, which we began to list out on an excel file to determine ideas, and then later whittle down with our initial stakeholder group.
Below is the RBA framework, later ideated by our coalition partners (then about 30 in number), that became our Vision, Mission, and Model for Implementation.
Further Questions: [to extrapolate themes]
What is the population level condition we want?
What would this look like if we could see or experience it?
How can we measure those conditions?
(a) How are we doing on those measures?
(b) Why do we see disparities and unacceptable passing rates/ what is the story behind the data?
5. Who are the partners that have a role to play for best impact?
6. What best practice ideas would work in terms of low-cost and no-cost ideas?
7. What do we propose to do?
Tools Used:
Google Jamboard; Invision; Zoom; PowerPoint; Microsoft Excel; SurveyMonkey; Word Docs;
Inclusion Strategies:
This was probably the most important aspect of building our Greater Austin Reading Coalition, in my opinion. The communities most underrepresented, at-risk at falling behind in school and dropping out are marginalized, low-income, and minority populations.
So often, these communities are underrepresented in the solution spaces which politicians or policy makers which to solve. Having representatives from the communities most at-risk of falling behind in the education space was a must for this Human-Centered Design approach.
Our coalition was exceptional in that we sought out community business owners and organizations who were from the African American, Asian, Latino/LatinX communities, and even communities not in Austin proper, but still considered Austin Area-- since these groups had been essentially pushed out of Austin Central and into the outskirts due to the high-cost of housing within the city. The caveat was that these communities were still enrolling their children into the Austin public school styems.
Ideation Phase
Model Formation & Creation of our "Four Pillars"
Our core stakeholder group was responsible for fully completing the seven questions of the RBA framework, in particular the first three questions asked of envisioning what our Austin area would look like if our goals were successful. Our stakeholders were particularly impactful in the creation of our GARC Values (which were voted on democratically) and the organization of our four Working Groups.
Recruiting more Stakeholders, or "Partners," as we referred to them, was Step 5; and completing the final two Steps 6 & 7 in the RBA Framework became the focus of our next Workshop session.
In order to address our key question of, "How Might We... Create a Community Culture of Reading and Ensure that All Austin Area Children Read on Grade Level by the Time They Enter the 4th Grade?" ... we had to narrow down our focus into areas which our key stakeholders were experts at.
Many of our stakeholders held domain expertise and involvement in four distinct areas, which were crucial to impacting child literacy rates and helping answer our main question. Those domains became our future "Four Pillars" and are as follows:
Parent Engagement [i.e. in-school resources who serve as liaisons between the parents and classrooms].
Community Culture [i.e. public libraries, independent bookstores, local Universities, etc.]
Out-Of-School Time Services [i.e. after school activities or summer camps, the Parks & Rec Department, YMCA, etc.]
High-Intensity Tutoring Services [companies who are embedded within the school system].
Our RBA Steps 3 & 4 were later detailed in each separate Working Group, as they were responsible for the projects to be implemented and funded Quarterly in our first year.
The Creation of GARC's "Four Pillars" & each of our corresponding Working Groups was based upon a generative version of the Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory Model, in which many communities and schools have developed a framework to help boost reading scores around.
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory views "child development as a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment, from immediate family and school settings to broad cultural values, laws, and customs." [1]
‘…development takes place through the process of progressively more complex reciprocal interactions between an active, evolving biopsychological human organism and the persons, objects, and symbols in its immediate external environment.’ (Bronfenbrenner, 1995).
Further Ideation from Research-Based Inspiration
This image serves as the adapted model which GARC took and is more specific to our community needs. It also incorporates the RBA framework in identifying which best practice ideas would work in terms of low-cost or no-cost ideas (steps 6 & 7). Those "best practice ideas" were, once again, our "Four Pillars," under which our community partners were subject domain experts in.
Implementation
The Formation of GARC's Four Working Groups
Narrowing Down our Vision [Step 2]
Jamboard sessions were held to visually outline what our partners wished to see happen in our Greater Austin Community, in order to achieve our goal [Step 1]. Creating our GARC Values came next.
Division of Roles & Responsibilities [Step 5]
After identifying more community partners to invite into our work, such as the Andy Roddick Foundation and AISD's Families as Partners Program [FAP], we divided them according to which Working Group Pillar they fell under.
Implementing Ideas [Steps 6 & 7]
After creating various templates for meetings to be held within Working Groups autonomously, I began to supervise and co-facilitate two of the groups, so that eventually they might become self-supporting.
Project Ideas [Step 7] were agreed upon for which to implement first each Quarter, then effectively measure [Steps 3 & 4a].
Measurement & Evaluations [Steps 3 & 4] during the COVID-19 Pandemic
While this seemed like a rather backwards approach, doing RBA Steps 3 & 4 last, it was necessary considering the formation of The Greater Austin Reading Coalition was during the COVID-19 pandemic, and reading scores had yet to be assessed and were projected to be much lower than what they would normally be.
This was an exceptional time, and data had not yet been gathered to determine our baseline, considering the extenuating circumstances in our schools. Our next step was to determine a metrics evaluation and establish a data collection process for each of our partners to contribute to. This data reporting would be collected annually and our Working Group projects would be part of this, as well.
Unexpected Outcomes & Wins
GARC's Partnership with Austin ISD's Families as Partners Program
One of the unexpected partnerships that resulted from this coalition was the support GARC received from AISD's Parent Community under the Families as Partners Program. FAP was created to embed and incentivize AISD parents to serve as liaisons between the district and parent needs, in relation to serving their children and meeting their needs.
FAP is known as being inclusive, diverse, primarily comprised on minority parents, and divided into Parent Support Specialists and Parent Champions who are incentivized via stipends to contribute feedback and support to their school's community needs.
Through this partnership, GARC was able contribute monthly literacy-focused presentations in Spanish and invite one of our Partners at a time to present via Zoom.
Next Steps
Further Strategies for Improvement
Sustaining Motivation
One of the biggest hurdles our Partners faced became finding the capacity to come together and collaborate on new projects through GARC, and it not seeming like double work for them.
Additional Working Groups' Project Funding
Under United Way, GARC was able to provide mini grants to our Working Groups and select Partner Orgs, in order to implement projects that would meet our goal, strategies and needs.
However, we were aware that having more funding opportunities for our Partners to be more effective in their project implementations was a high-need.
Learning from our Peers
Of the competitive analysis which I conducted; I was most impressed with the Philadelphia Read by 4th Campaign.
I made it a point to schedule meetings with their Director and Project Coordinator, in order to learn more about their work and how they got started, as well as learn what challenges they were currently facing. Why reinvent the wheel when their campaign was showing measurable success?