Leslie Talbot presented on accountability measures for schools serving opportunity youth. She discussed: 1) Her background in education consulting and working with minority-led charter schools and non-profits serving high-risk students. 2) The challenges these schools face in serving populations experiencing emergent conditions and being the sole service provider in their communities. 3) The policy environment these schools operate in and lack of recognition from reform networks, meaning additional support is needed to implement new measures. 4) Potential augmented measures must be mission-aligned, population-aligned, consider return on investment, and allow for phased outcomes given the needs of opportunity youth. Only with clear prerequisites and understanding of schools and students can

1. Ignite Presentation: Leslie Talbot, Founder & Principal,
Talbot Consulting
Presented at: Active Ingredients Expert Convening
SUNY Charter Schools Institute

2. Who Am I?
in <1
Minute
My Titles
• Management consultant, single, black
female, Auntie Leslie, daughter, sister,
friend, cool older cousin, Trustee
Passions
• Education, youth development, collective
impact, my family, friends and community
Career
• Spans nearly 30 years
• (wow I’m getting old!)
2

3. Who Am I? in <1 Minute
My Vitals
Daddy’s girl from Detroit, avid cyclist, experimental chef,
Auntie Leslie to various children, love a good story and an
amazing glass of red wine!
My Background: Fundamental Insights into
Accountability Measure Challenges
Research, qualitative evaluations, legislative advocacy,
school talent recruitment and development, program and
school systems design and restructuring, project
management
3

4. Our Work –
Launched
Talbot
Consulting
in 2006
to Help:
Design and open new
schools
Improve existing schools
Programs/schools expand
and replicate
Nonprofits move into the
school space
4

5. BUILDING CONTEXT for
ACCOUNTABILITY:
If we have intimate knowledge of our clients and who
they serve, increases our understanding of their
accountability challenges 5

6. Our Client Schools Serving OY
6
 Hail largely from underrepresented groups
 Serve high poverty, minority students, and young
people off-track to graduate in four years
(opportunity youth)
 Minority-led single or two-site charters
 Minority-led small/mid-size nonprofits

7. Our Client
Schools
Serving OY
Typically serve high-risk students AND their families
Constituents experience ongoing emergent
conditions
Often lone service provider with capacity to grow
Engaged in collective impact long before it was
fashionable
Laser-focused on future: postsecondary readiness,
AND life-long productivity and independence
Must simultaneously accelerate learning while
developing basic skills
Help stabilize families and communities; become true
community schools 7

8. ADDITIONAL CONTEXT for
ACCOUNTABILITY:
Knowing the policy conditions under which our client schools
must operate increases our understanding of their
accountability challenges
8

9. Policy
Conditions
in which
Our Client
Schools
Serving OY
Operate
9
Serve the neediest, marginalized, often isolated
isolated populations
Rarely recognized by EdReform network
Misunderstood, often ignored by funders and
researchers
Embedded in communities they serve, but must
compete with outsiders for resources to do so
EdReform has been “done to” their stakeholders

10. Capacity-
Building
Needed to
Implement
Augmented
Measures
10
Need
interpreters/storytellers to
increase exposure
Need guidance from shared
experience partners to
quantify achievements
Need support and resources
to build capacity from within

11. Prerequisites
for
Establishing
Augmented
Measures
11
Student population must be
clearly defined; exact match
needed for comparison
measures
Key design elements must be
mission-aligned, population-
aligned and converted into
value-added (quantified)
Return on investment must be
carefully considered
Before Add’l Measures Can be
Established for Schools Serving
Opportunity Youth:

12. Prerequisites for Augmented Measures
12
Understand that expected outcomes will occur in
phases
(OY face ongoing emergent conditions)
Cohort students by entrance date, credit
accumulated, and grade-level performance upon
enrollment
(2 or more years cohorting only part of story and
always applicable)
Thoroughly understand the model and know
stakeholder groups intimately: consider credit-
recovery versus youth dev models
Before Add’l
Measures
Can be
Established
for Schools
Serving
Opportunity
Youth:

13. All Things
Considered:
Now armed with:
An increased
understanding of
internal and external
conditions in which
schools serving OY
operate
AND
Clear knowledge and
consensus regarding
the prerequisites
needed
ONLY THEN can we
Create fair,
appropriate and
achievable
measures…
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14. Augmented Measures for Consideration
14
Academic and
nonacademic
engagement
(model-aligned)
Attendance
measured by
increase over
previous schooling

15. Augmented Measures for Consideration
15
Academic growth
(computer adaptive
with performance
targets)
Nonacademic growth
(life skills navigation,
reduced agitation)

16. Augmented Measures for Consideration
16
Dual enrollment
rate
(postsecondary
readiness)
ACCUPLACER,
HSE, ASVAB
(grad exam
substitute)
for severely OA-UC
Return on
Investment
(postsecondary
outcomes)

17. Augmented
Measures
for
Consideration
17
Recidivism, pregnancy and parenting rates
(comparison measure)
CTE credentialing rate (postsecondary
readiness & comparison measure)
Personalized Learning Measures
PLP, IDP, PSP, or ILP
success rate

18. What Success Looks Like
Increased attendance
Increased reenrollment for eligible students
Increased reengagement
Higher grad rate
Greater knowledge and skills gained

19. What Success Looks Like
Sustained academic & nonacademic growth
Greater more sustained postsecondary outcomes
Stronger charter renewals
Schools become a neighborhood anchors
Young people acquire skills and direction to stabilize
families and become leaders their communities

20. AS WE EMBARK UPON THE TASK AHEAD LET’S:
- Acknowledge what each of us brings
- Know that our time is not wasted, and
- Realize that which is extraordinary, typically is gained through struggle