Creating Performance Goals and Measures for Your Charter School1
Creating Performance Goals and Measures for Your Charter School1
This document is designed to provide guidance and assistance in developing sound goals and measures – both educational and organizational – for inclusion in your charter agreement with [Authorizing Agency]. The following guidance focuses especially on providing deeper guidance for developing strong educational goals and measures – i.e., those that will comprise the Academic and Student Non-Academic Performance indicators of your charter agreement. This task demands particular attention because educational performance indicators are often more challenging to state in meaningful, objective terms than are non-educational measures, such as those focusing on Organizational and Management Performance (the third category of performance indicators required for your charter agreement). However, the principles for developing all of these types of goals and measures are very similar; thus, to the extent applicable, you should follow the guidance in these pages for developing your non-educational goals and measures as well. I. General Criteria for Goals Goals should be SMART: • • • • • Specific and Tied to Standards Measurable Ambitious and Attainable Reflective of Your Mission Time-Specific with Target Date
1. Specific A well-defined goal must be specific, clearly and concisely stated, and easily understood. Academic goals should be tied to academic standards that specify what students should
This document was first developed by Margaret Lin as a guidance tool for the Charter Schools Office of Ball State University (IN) to offer to the schools it oversees. It has been adapted for distribution at the Annual Conference of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, Nov. 13-14, 2003, San Diego, CA. Many of the concepts, definitions and principles in these pages are adapted from the following sources: Measuring Up: How Chicago’s Charter Schools Make Their Missions Count, by Margaret Lin
This document is designed to provide guidance and assistance in developing sound goals and measures – both educational and organizational – for inclusion in your charter agreement with [Authorizing Agency]. The following guidance focuses especially on providing deeper guidance for developing strong educational goals and measures – i.e., those that will comprise the Academic and Student Non-Academic Performance indicators of your charter agreement. This task demands particular attention because educational performance indicators are often more challenging to state in meaningful, objective terms than are non-educational measures, such as those focusing on Organizational and Management Performance (the third category of performance indicators required for your charter agreement). However, the principles for developing all of these types of goals and measures are very similar; thus, to the extent applicable, you should follow the guidance in these pages for developing your non-educational goals and measures as well. I. General Criteria for Goals Goals should be SMART: • • • • • Specific and Tied to Standards Measurable Ambitious and Attainable Reflective of Your Mission Time-Specific with Target Date
1. Specific A well-defined goal must be specific, clearly and concisely stated, and easily understood. Academic goals should be tied to academic standards that specify what students should
This document was first developed by Margaret Lin as a guidance tool for the Charter Schools Office of Ball State University (IN) to offer to the schools it oversees. It has been adapted for distribution at the Annual Conference of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, Nov. 13-14, 2003, San Diego, CA. Many of the concepts, definitions and principles in these pages are adapted from the following sources: Measuring Up: How Chicago’s Charter Schools Make Their Missions Count, by Margaret Lin