• Waiting for state or federal governments to enact improvements would risk losing yet another generation of children. That loss was too costly to our families and our region.

• Only through a common regional agenda and the collaborative efforts of all Central Texas educational stakeholders could we hope to see the dramatic system-wide advancements that would drive student success.

• Initiating these dramatic improvements first requires accurate, objective data on student achievement and a commitment to identify and share effective educational practices.

• The entire Central Texas community needs to be committed to a common agenda and accountable for education outcomes if all children are to reach their full potential.

The United Way for Greater Austin and E3 Alliance formed Early Matters Greater Austin to facilitate the business community’s engagement in raising awareness and helping lead a strategic community-wide effort to set policies and priorities for early childhood education. Early Matters Greater Austin supports family friendly policies in businesses, fosters innovation in the child care system, and advances local and statewide support and advocacy for high quality early learning. Learn more at https://www.earlymattersgreateraustin.org/

High quality early learning for all children can transform the economic trajectory of our region. After a precipitous drop in school readiness of children across our region, E3 Alliance gathered a coalition of health, mental health, and education partners who worked together to define five community strategies for increasing kindergarten readiness as the measure for child experiences 0-5. Based on these strategies, partners are working together to help assure every child in Central Texas enters kindergarten prepared for success.

The Austin College Attainment Network (ACAN) is comprised of 10 core community-based organizations and five core Institutions of Higher Education in Central Texas. ACAN is the largest and most established collaboration of IHE and service providers in Texas, and is the model for similar work started years later both at the state level, Texas College Access Network, and in other regions of the state. ACAN members are committed to equitable student outcomes at scale, data-informed decision making to drive and sustain change within institutions, and continuous improvement and accountability. Since members work one-on-one with underserved students, they are best suited to share genuine knowledge and set specific aims toward postsecondary success. Since 2016, ACAN has implemented and managed a common FERPA-compliant, student data-sharing process — the first of its kind in the nation. This strategy allows partners to use benchmark data to identify common performance targets and to coordinate interventions, with the goal of improving postsecondary completion. As the backbone organization for education change in Central Texas and facilitator for ACAN, E3 Alliance provides objective data and longitudinal research, facilitates collaboration, and supports ACAN member direct-service programming, while setting high-level goals for the region.

A deliberative dialogue is a regionwide, multicommunity discussion around topics of public concern in education with the goal of finding the most promising course of action forward. These discussions also inform the work at E3 Alliance with the voice and input from the community. In 2019, E3 Alliance launched a new regional deliberative dialogues “Pathways to Prosperity: What is needed for a successful career?” These community conversations focused on engaging a diverse range of community members across Central Texas to explore what college means to our region, and to address the underlying factors that are limiting student success. Learn more about these dialogues here.

With the support of the Greater Texas Foundation, E3 Alliance expanded our research agenda to better understand career and math pathways, and how secondary course-taking best prepares all students for postsecondary success. Thirteen school districts and five higher education institutions in our region support the commitment to increase the percentage of students entering more rigorous math pathways. More than 10,000 students have benefited from intense professional development provided to district and campus leadership and staff, and 39 schools have launched an intensive, multi-year effort to improve equity in STEM outcomes. Pathways of Promise partners work together to implement equitable acceleration policies with the ultimate goal of improving college success.

Based on findings from E3 Alliance’s groundbreaking Absence Reasons Study, we know that almost half of the student absences in our region are due to acute illness. Spikes in incidents of school absences directly matched the spikes in county flu reports. To combat this situation, E3 Alliance led a broad coalition starting in the fall of 2014 to undertake the largest in-school, flu immunization campaign in the state of Texas. By the fall of 2017, practitioners administered 39,117 immunizations at no cost to families or school districts in 386 Central Texas schools, which represented 18 school districts including Ft. Bend, New Braunfels, and Northeast Independent School Districts as well as districts across Central Texas. To continue to provide this crucial and no-cost service to our Central Texas districts and their families, E3 worked again with Health Heroes, Inc., the clinic provider for fall 2019, for the 2020 flu season.

Click here for recording and presentation of the 2018 Fight the Flu Kick-off Event at Dell Medical School

Together with the Charles A. Dana Center, E3 Alliance supports CTXMAT, a coalition of 21 Central Texas school district and higher education partners who are working together to better align mathematics course taking to help more students succeed in math into and through college. The work includes:

• Alignment of secondary and postsecondary courses and the counseling, admissions criteria, course catalogs, and advising to support courses that best align with student career aspirations
• Alignment of teaching and learning pedagogy and non-cognitive skills to help more students advance and succeed in math
• Changing local and state policies to help more students succeed in math and demonstrate college readiness

Read this comprehensive February 2020 report Emerging Solutions – It Takes a Village: Central Texas Mathematics Alignment Taskforce to learn about the progress.

Prior to 2010, E3 Alliance research indicated that almost half of Central Texas children were entering kindergarten unprepared, setting them up to fall behind, and in many cases, drop out as their education journey unfolded. With their success at risk, and the economic cost to our community in jeopardy, E3 Alliance led the creation of Ready, Set, K!, the first student-centered, multi-competency standard for school readiness in Texas. Ready, Set, K! provides training and an online tool to help teachers better determine whether their students are on track for school success. Results have shown that Ready, Set, K! is highly predictive of later success: children rated “kindergarten ready” with this assessment are nearly four times more likely to pass the 3rd grade STAAR Reading and Math assessments in third grade than compared to their peers who are not rated kindergarten ready. The tool empowers teachers to gather more accurate student data through authentic assessment, group children for differentiated instruction, and align their teaching with the pre-K guidelines. Ready, Set, K! has helped close the school readiness gap, while shaping legislation and guiding budget decision to support young learners.

In partnership with Attendance Works, E3 Alliance launched an Attendance Peer Learning Network of nine schools. Participating schools receive the opportunity to increase student attendance – and consequently, academic outcomes – through the use of disaggregated data, peer-to-peer learning, coaching, and technical assistance using evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies and continuous improvement tools. Teams chose one student outcome (e.g., reading, math, high school graduation, or college readiness) to focus on based on local needs and drivers. All school teams in the Attendance Peer Learning Network used a common strategy (attendance) to improve student outcomes. Schools are chosen through an application process.

E3 Alliance serves as the data partner for the regional My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) initiative. E3 provides in-depth data analysis and community facilitation to support the Greater Austin Area My Brother’s Keeper effort to eliminate equity gaps for our young men of color. In addition, E3 designed and supports the MBK Scholars College Challenge to help many more low-income young men of color access and succeed in higher education. Four area high schools have been linked with service providers to improve college success in 2018-19, and the initiative will expand to more schools starting in 2019-20. E3 facilitates a cross-pollination of learning and direct-service collaboration with the MBK scholars and staff and Education Outreach Specialists from Workforce Solutions, who are tasked with connecting students to career pathways out of high school.

In 2011, E3 Alliance launched a Missing School Matters campaign to promote a culture of student attendance in our region. The campaign focused on a “triple bottom line:” 1) students need to be in the classroom to learn, 2) teachers need consistency of attendance to effectively teach, and 3) school districts need state funding (which in Texas is based on attendance) to provide precious resources and services to all students. This concerted effort helped school districts to see $37.5 million dollars returned to the region in state reimbursement due to decreased student absences despite rapidly increasing student enrollment.

Fast forward to the year 2020 and a school year like no other in our history. The pandemic made it clear that educators must look to a new future that redefines what it means to attend school. A new attendance campaign launched in 2021 called Attend. Commit. Engage or ACE. A partnership between schools and families, ACE allows students to:

Attend by being present for remote or on-campus learning with a feeling of wellness, safety, and belonging

Commit by showing dedication to learning with a feeling of connection to what is being taught

Engage by displaying academic progress with a feeling of confidence and accomplishment

ACE encompasses resources for schools and families housed online at ace.e3alliance.org. The ACE Task Force is comprised of educators and practitioners committed to improving attendance in the Central Texas region through this fortified partnership between schools and families.