Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Background
Project CLEAR
Today's students need both traditional knowledge and skills and the knowledge
and skills that will prepare them for a rapidly changing, technological world.
Project CLEAR ensures that the curriculum includes these components.
Teachers and administrators have praised these new materials for their clarity
and ease of use.
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Content Areas
Project CLEAR is being developed in four academic content areas over a three-
year period. This school year, Project CLEAR materials are available for English
and Spanish Language Arts Writing (K-8), mathematics (K-8), and science (6-8).
This painstaking work requires over eight hours of development time per
objective to ensure that concepts develop across grade levels, that TAAS and
StanfordjAprenda objectives are included, and that the content specified can be
taught within the time span of the school year. To our knowledge, no other
school district has curriculum documents developed to this level of specificity.
Implementation
In July, lead teachers from each school were involved in five full days of staff
development held at Revere Middle School. These teachers explored the
materials in depth. In turn, they will be presenting modules to their co-workers
with support from their district offices, as needed. Language Arts Writing
presentations are divided into four modules; mathematics has three modules;
and science has two modules. Each school will determine how best to present
the modules. Many are using grade-level meetings or vertical-team meetings. A
reporting form will keep administrative-district staff members aware of school-
level plans and implementation of the specific modules.
Principals had an overview of the materials in June and will have additional staff
development in September and throughout the school year. The district-office
staff has had two full days of inservice and will assist lead teachers. Other
central-office departments including Special Education, Reading, and
Technology have also attended inservice sessions.
During school year 1998-99, Project CLEAR materials will be revised through
input from teachers and administrators in focus-group meetings and from on-line
and written comments sent to the Curriculum Department. Project CLEAR
documents will be posted on-line, and a Web site will be established on the
Intranet.
1998-99 Development
During school year 1998-99, Project CLEAR materials will be developed for high-
school Language Arts Writing and for the TEKS strand of "Viewing and
Representing." This new strand is of great importance in an age where so much
information comes to us through the media. We need districtwide understanding
of what must specifically be taught.
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Science for grades K-5 will be developed to provide clear direction for
elementary science instruction districtwide. Social studies will concentrate on
content specifications for each objective K-9. This level of specificity will require
consensus-building throughout the district.
Eventually, all core curriculum courses will be clarified through Project CLEAR.
When Project CLEAR is completed, every teacher, parent, and student will know
exactly what learning is expected in our district. We have taken a very real step
forward in ensuring equity of access to a high quality, challenging curriculum that
will prepare students for success.
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Executive Summary
Introduction
The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest school system in Texas and the sev
largest school system in America. HISD's annual budget is more than one billion dollars. We have
students and 290 schools spread out over more than 300 square miles. We operate a fleet of 1,400
buses and transport 45,000 students to and from school every day. We have more than 30,000
employees, and we manage 23 million square feet of space at our various campuses.
We have done a lot to achieve the goals of a focus on teaching and learning, decentralization,
performance rather than compliance, and a core curriculum for all students.
. Parents can now decide where they want to send their children to school.
We ended "social promotion" and require students to earn advancement to higher grade level
. We have created project CLEAR (Clarifying Learning to Enhance Achievement Results) to help
teachers know what should be taught, plan how to teach it, and determine how well students have
learned it.
. We have created a new program to get disruptive students out of the classroom.
We have moved to hire private companies to repair and maintain our buildings and manage au
food-service operations.
. We have established 31 parent centers where parents can meet, get information about
educational activities, and interact with teachers.
We have created tax reinvestment zones so we could build two new high schools to help solv
our student overcrowding problems on the east and west sides of town.
Another of HISD's initiatives to make the district a leaner, more efficient, even better school
New Beginning," a five-point blueprint for HISD's future based on accountability, best efforts,
school competition, decentralization, and expanded parental and community
involvement. These efforts are helping HISD to increase efficiency and student achievement, trac
district's progress, reward employees for excellence and creativity, assist schools in their imp
efforts, give schools greater control over matters that affect them, and enlist parents and the
the education of Houston's children.
At the classroom level, HISD is leading the nation in the campaign to teach children to read as
possible. The district is determined that Houston's children learn to read on grade level by the
so they can read to learn for the rest of their lives.
The Reading Initiative and the companion Mathematics Initiative are major components of HISD's q
academic excellence. Our students are learning better than ever, and in many of our schools they