Comparison of Austin ISD Plan and GCISD plan

Comparison of AISD District Improvement Plan and GCISD District Improvement Plan

EDLD 5342 Week One

At first, I was using the information directly accessed from the link provided in my class notes.  That information did not appear to have cohesion to the process of developing a plan for a major school district.  I did more research and found that I needed to link into the actual plan to understand what AISD wanted to do.  Once I did that, I had access to the Framework, the Implementation Guide and the Scorecard.  These made sense and allowed me to do a better job of comparing the two district plans.

Before I get too much further into this comparison, it should be noted that GCISD is currently transitioning from an older plan that was developed approximately five years ago under the leadership of a previous Superintendent.  The district has completed the development of a new plan, called LEAD 2021.  This plan is still in the development stages, but most of the planning is completed.  The only part that is not completed is the financial resource part, which is developing concurrent with the financial reporting coming from the legislature.  I will be referencing LEAD 2021 in this comparison.

Let me address the similarities in the two plans.  Both district plans include hiring highly qualified staff to meet the needs of the students.  The AISD plan addresses the alignment of resources to help the district meet their goals while the GCISD plan is developing their financial goal.  I would venture to conclude that these will address using resources to meet the goals of the district.  AISD strategic plan includes the development of a well-rounded educational plan to help student compete in a today’s economy.  GCISD provides different language in their goal, using “good citizenship”, but I believe these two plans address the developing students who are able to contribute and compete in the global society in which we live.  Both plans used a large stakeholder base to develop the plan.  These stakeholders included parents, community members, and staff members.  Neither of these plans included financial resources specifically tied to the plan.  In the material that I originally accessed from our lecture, Appendix A from AISD did include specific mention of the funding resources.  While this did not reference how much from each source contributed to the budget of the district, at least there was a point of reference for the funding.  Lastly, neither plan provides goals that are using the SMART format (specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and timely).  They both include portions of that format, but the one area that is probably most notable is the lack of measurability.  Both plans include statements such as “increase” or “more”, etc.  While these do indicate direction, they do not provide measurable indicators.

There are differences to the two plans as well.  The AISD plan is older and uses language that is not included in the GCISD plan.  This language addresses accountability measures such as TAKS and other references that are moving out of the education language.  The Austin plan uses much more data than the GCISD plan.  This could be due to the ages of the plans and that GCISD is just beginning their planning.  The Austin plan addresses more of the accountability issues while the GCISD plan seems to be more global and less about accountability and ratings for the different campuses.   The GCISD plan also incorporates more references to technology, communication, facilities, and instructional strategies. The Appendix A of AISD does provide a resource list connected to funding of different parts of the plan.  In talking with the GCISD financial officer, Elaine Cogburn, GCISD does not have any such reference.  In fact, Ms. Cogburn indicated that this is part of the plan for LEAD 2021 that is in the development stages.

In conclusion, both of the plans have specific strategies they are pursuing to help them meet the needs of the districts.  Both plans have used a strong cross section of their stakeholders to develop the plans.  Because both of these plans were developed at different times, the differences are evident in the language used, the financial resources utilized and the items that are being measured in the plans.  I believe it will be interesting to compare the two once LEAD 2021 is fully implemented in GCISD.