How United Way of Central Iowa used ends-to-means thinking and Clear Impact Scorecard to help students succeed at all grade levels.

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The Story Begins

In 2008, the Des Moines Independent School District faced its lowest High School Graduation Rate in 11 years: a dismal 65.10%. At the same time, a series of national research reports revealed disturbing trends in the numbers of high school dropouts nationwide. United Way of Central Iowa (UWCI) knew something needed to be done.

UWCI decided to take the lead in coordinating a community-wide improvement strategy. Launching this strategy began with setting the community’s “Goals for 2020”: a common agenda to align community efforts and improve wellbeing. One of these goals was to “reduce by half the number of dropouts in Polk, Dallas and Warren counties.”

After realizing they needed a system to track and improve progress, UWCI sought out Clear Impact Scorecard to align community efforts and streamline performance reporting.

Through implementation of the Results-Based Accountability “ends-to-means” thinking process and the Clear Impact Scorecard software to measure and improve educational program performance, UWCI and partners were able to increase Des Moines’ 4-year high school graduation rate from 65.10% to 81.68% – just under a 17% increase.

Using Ends-to-Means Thinking to Uncover Community Needs

The improvement in Des Moines’ high school graduation rate can largely be attributed to a shift in the way the community started thinking about education.

Before 2009, UWCI was funding a lot of education programs, but none of the programs were really focused on the results that mattered: e.g. improving high school graduation. Many programs were not tracking performance at all, but were instead tracking how well they were doing against their own mission statement.

All of this changed with the setting of the community’s Goals for 2020. In so doing, UWCI helped shift the community’s focus to high school graduation, how to collaboratively improve it through effective programming, and how to track progress through disciplined performance reporting.

Using Results-Based Accountability, or “ends-to-means thinking”, how do you get someone to graduate from high school? This is what staff and service providers at UWCI started discussing – where it led them was a surprise for all.

UWCI had their result or “end” in mind: all students graduate from high school. They also possessed the data to measure achievement of this goal: high school graduation rate. Using the Results-Based Accountability thinking process, UWCI began to dig deeper to figure out the root causes of low graduation rates. Next came the development of a set of strategies to improve.

While this may seem like an obvious approach, many nonprofits and government agencies still take an outdated approach to program management that resembles a “logic model.” In contrast to ends-to means thinking, logic models start with a program and work on developing causal relationships to a desired outcome. Rather than questioning root causes and then developing appropriate strategies, logic models tend to simply produce justifications for the existence of a program.

On the other hand, Results-Based Accountability starts with the end in mind and works backwards to figuring out the means to get there (programs and strategies). One of the most important steps in this process is figuring out the “story behind the curve,” or identifying contributing and limiting factors associated with a metric (like high school graduation rate). This was the pivotal step for UWCI – it helped reveal critical knowledge needed to engage in a robust improvement strategy. Part of UWCI’s “story behind the curve” research involved interviewing teens who dropped out or who were at risk of dropping out of school.

One of the things that UWCI discovered during these interviews was the fact that many teens had to work to support their families. Some of them even had their own families to support. This realization contrasted starkly to what the organization had originally thought: that kids viewed school as boring or a waste of time. So, the community’s thought process changed from: “how do we make school less boring for kids” to “how do we help kids earn credit if they can’t go to school Monday through Friday 7:30AM to 3:00PM? Are there other ways?”

This was a monumental breakthrough for UWCI and the community. And the amazing thing about it all? All they had to do was talk to the kids! But without an ends-to-means approach, this information may have never been uncovered. Next, the work on developing effective strategies could really begin.

What works to “Turn the Curve” on High School Graduation Rate?

One method that showed promise was to establish an “academic support lab” where kids could come in on their own time and earn credit. According to the Des Moines Public School, the academic support labs are non-traditional classrooms that provide “engaging academic interventions for students who are in need of credit recovery, personal support, and personalized learning plans. Each lab has an endorsed English, Social Studies, Math, and Science teacher who provides content expertise and differentiated instruction. Students are assigned to one teacher who personally tracks their credits, progress, personal goals, interest, and style of learning.”

UWCI created a pilot academic lab in one high school that experienced some success, so they opened up one in another high school the following year. In 2013, they expanded the program to include kids who were under-credited or who would otherwise struggle to graduate. At the same time, UWCI conducted outreach to teens who were dropping out of school or who didn’t show up, to try and reengage them in school. Through this, they encouraged teens to consider the academic support lab.

In addition to the need for alternative classrooms, UWCI’s research revealed a need for taking a “cradle to career” approach to educational success. Helping high school students earn credit is important, but preventative measures are equally important. This involves ensuring that children are kindergarten ready, successful in the early grades, transitioning between grades on time, reading proficiently by third grade, and retaining summer learning.

Now, UWCI invests in many cradle-to-career strategies to help kids graduate, including: school readiness, early grade success, middle grade success, and high school success.

But…the story doesn’t end here. The community has now set their sights on increasing the average 5-year high school graduation rate from 91% to 95.0%, an aspiration supported by the continued use of disciplined, ends-to-means thinking and Results-Based Accountability.

Using Clear Impact Scorecard to Support it All

In 2009 UWCI decided to purchase Clear Impact Scorecard software to track progress and achievement of the community’s Goals for 2020, including high school graduation.

Teresa Taylor-Wolf, Data and Research Director at UWCI, says,

“Since we had been using Results-Based Accountability, it made so much sense for us to use Clear Impact Scorecard when the community set these broad goals. We were collecting performance measures and outcomes on pieces of paper. We really didn’t have anything or anyone collecting data that would show a trend-line on how well we were doing. Like-programs were not measuring the same thing. Everyone was measuring data based on how well they were meeting their mission, not how well they were trying to impact a goal or implement a strategy. We had probably 4 million in after school programming going out, but everybody was tracking different things.”

Now, UWCI uses Clear Impact Scorecard to help them effectively manage and aggregate 67 education performance measures across all of their funded programs. Using the Scorecard has allowed UWCI to more easily distribute data entry to partner organizations. Instead of spending all their time with more complicated data entry and reporting requirements, central coordinators are now able to use the data to make effective decisions.

UWCI Clear Impact Scorecard

UWCI Clear Impact Scorecard

“Clear Impact Scorecard helped us tremendously. We wouldn’t be where we’re at right now without it,” says Taylor-Wolf.

Clear Impact Scorecard has also dramatically reduced the amount of time it takes for UWCI to create custom reporting templates. Now, the collaboration of organizations led by UWCI has a central data system that all grantees can access from any computer to enter their monthly data updates. They can also use the Scorecard to collaborate on next steps and actions. This has allowed them to spend more time planning efficient strategies that actually create impact.

Most recently, UWCI has begun to use Clear Impact Scorecard when scoring applicants for potential investments. Every program is required to use the Scorecard from the moment they get any funding from UWCI. Volunteer cabinet members review every application and they look both at the numbers and the accompanying narrative that the Scorecard provides a place for. The “story behind the curve” function is extremely important to this process. It allows UWCI’s volunteers to understand the data so that they can make more informed decisions when scoring applicants
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When asked what her favorite part about the Scorecard is, Taylor-Wolf answered:

“It makes my job easier. Seriously. When we set our community goals, I was in a meeting with the President of our board and all our board members. She said ‘we’re going to get updates on how well all of our programs are doing every quarter.’ I looked around the room and thought to myself – How in the world am I’m going to do that? Within a week, I was in a meeting with Adam

[Clear Impact CEO], and it just clicked for me. I knew Clear Impact Scorecard was exactly what we needed to answer that question.”

Lessons Learned

So what can we learn from this story other than the importance of being results-based and disciplined in our measurement of progress? Well, for one thing, we can see that any community improvement strategy must actually engage the members of that community and focus on meeting them where they are. We can see that sometimes what we think is going on in our communities might not be the case at all. We can see the inherent logic in starting with the results we want to see before we even talk about programming.

Whether your community is facing a similar issue or not…I encourage you to get out there and talk to the people you serve! You never know what you might learn – it could be the turning point.

About UWCI:

United Way of Central Iowa (UWCI) serves 3 counties in Central Iowa: Polk, Dallas, and Warren counties. They seek to improve lives by “uniting the caring power of the community” and by funding a variety of internally and externally managed programs focused on health, income stability, and education. Find out more at www.unitedwaydm.org

Resources:

UWCI Scorecard: UWCI publicly embeds their entire education Scorecard on their website here: http://app.resultsscorecard.com/Scorecard/Embed/2873

Clear Impact Scorecard: For more information on Clear Impact Scorecard and to sign up for a demo (recommended) or free 30-day trial, please visit www.clearimpact.com/scorecard/

Results-Based Accountability: If you are interested in learning more about Results Based Accountability, please visit https://clearimpact.com/results-based-accountability/

Consulting: If you are interested in tackling a similar challenge in your community, or are looking for performance management training and tools, please visit https://clearimpact.com/services/