Fort Worth ISD Trustees Must Set Comprehensive and Ambitious Goals for Student Outcomes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 3, 2024

Improving student outcomes for all Fort Worth ISD students requires the district’s elected board of trustees to set informed and ambitious goals.

Fort Worth, Texas – Leadership ISD, an organization dedicated to improving outcomes for all public school students, is calling on Fort Worth ISD stakeholders to advocate for the Fort Worth ISD Board of Trustees to set comprehensive and ambitious student outcomes goals.

Fort Worth ISD’s current student outcomes goals and goal progress measures (GPMs) expire at the end of the current school year. The Texas Education Agency requires Independent School Districts (ISDs) in Texas to establish five-year student outcome goals in at least three areas: early childhood (EC), literacy and math proficiency, and college, career, and military readiness (CCMR). Additional goals and comprehensive GPMs provide for better student outcomes, better-informed stakeholders, and the best mechanism for holding the district accountable for reporting on and achieving the goals and GPMs.

Of the goals-setting process, Leadership ISD’s executive director, Michera Brooks, said, “The Fort Worth ISD administration has embarked on a process to identify priority areas for the district’s upcoming strategic plan. We encourage all Fort Worth ISD trustees to use this information, along with feedback from constituents, to build comprehensive and ambitious goals that will enable our elected trustees to hold the administration accountable. This will offer a transparent and measurable roadmap towards giving Fort Worth ISD students and families the improved outcomes they deserve.”

Fort Worth ISD parents, students, community members, and other stakeholders can help improve student outcomes by emailing FWISD trustees to advocate for the following:

1. A clear timeline and transparent process for setting student outcome goals, GPMs, and constraints that involve trustees engaging with their constituencies and setting targets that can be used to hold the administration accountable.

2. Updating required student outcome goals for reading, math, and CCMR with ambitious targets

3. Adding two additional student outcome goals:

1. Middle grades achievement, including GPMs around math pathways

2. Overall achievement/growth in all subjects

4. Adopting goals that have goal progress measures (not performance targets) that:

1. Include multiple grade levels and metrics, benchmarking progress toward the goal

2. CCMR GPMs should reflect metrics that help FWISD drawdown as much outcomes-based funding as possible 

5. Crafting and adopting superintendent constraints and constraint progress measures (CPMs) that reflect community values.

6. Frequently and consistently monitoring goals, GPMs, constraints, and CPMs at board meetings to ensure that a primary focus on achieving the targets and thereby improving student outcomes

7. Adopting a strategic plan that is informed by community feedback and serves as a road map for meeting and achieving these goals, GPMs, and CPMs.

Contact information for each Fort Worth ISD trustee is available at fwisd.org.

About Leadership ISD: Leadership ISD empowers community leaders to advance educational equity by advocating for high-functioning school boards that always center student outcomes. School boards are a powerful lever for strengthening student outcomes and living wage attainment because trustees set policies, practices, and resource allocations that impact the educational experiences of thousands of students. Learn more at leadershipisd.org or follow @LeadershipISD on X (Twitter).