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The G.R.A.S.P.Dissemination Project |
Best Practices
Drucker described Best Practices as, “change that creates a new dimension of performance.” The application of best practices is a search for innovative models that enables the organization to become more responsive to the environment, competition, and adapt to change. They follow a sequence of introduction, adaptation, adoption, and diffusion.
Best practices began in the private sector motivated by competition and the profit motive. Application to the public sector, and particularly school systems, has lagged from a lack of objective measures that establish a direct benefit supporting the school’s mission through improved organizational performance and higher student achievement: the product of the education system. Recently, however, metrics have begun to emerge to measure the effects of best practices and benchmarking that correlate strongly to higher student achievement. CORE@TCA’s experience has shown promise that their model not only elevates student achievement but also education program quality and worthy of emulation.
The GRASP Project employs the model methods intended to identify performance strengths and weaknesses through best practices assessments drawn from a variety of sources in the education, business, and non-profit sectors. Functional areas for best practices review include Performance, Governance, Education Service Delivery, Human Resources, Business Services, Facilities, and Administrative and Instructional Technology. Food Services and Transportation have been added if the charter school operates these systems. The responses and results are then integrated into the Strategic Planning process expressed as an Action Plan with recommendations in the form of goals and objectives (benchmarks) for implementation, assessment, and evaluation designed to improve school performance. CORE @ TCA has employed this methodology, showing extraordinary results by implementing more efficient operating systems processes translated into a more effective and accountable school.
Preliminary studies have shown a direct correlation between best practices applications and student achievement that is remarkable. This is attributable to the fact as the school system’s efficiency rises from process improvements will liberate the Governance Leadership to do what it does best: creating and enabling a robust learning environment that is conducive to higher student achievement. The following graph shows the results from three charter schools that employed the model as measured by API and Best Practices Exemplars:
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The higher the school’s API score corresponds to the degree best practices are present in the school system. An Action Plan that is structured around best practices implementation will push out to the exemplar, quality, ring and student achievement byproduct.
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