AVID: Advancement Via Individual Determination

A Forum — December 9, 2005

Background

• A staggering 32% of 9th-grade students in American public schools drop out or fall behind before their class graduates, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
• Among those who do graduate from high school, 59% go on immediately to a two-year or four-year college, and 40% are still enrolled in their sophomore year, according to the National Center.
• Graduates of AVID, an in-school academic support program that prepares under-achieving average students in grades 4-12 for college eligibility and success, do better. The AVID Center says that more than 77% of a sample of AVID graduates reported going on to a four-year college and another 18% reported going on to a two-year college. More than 70% of the AVID graduates reported completing their sophomore year.

Overview

Robert Gira, Vice President for National Programs at the AVID Center, said that San Diego teacher Mary Catherine Swanson started Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) in one high school classroom in 1980 as a way to help students who were struggling academically and came from disadvantaged backgrounds. Through coaching, mentoring, and tutoring, AVID taught the skills and study habits needed for college.

Twenty-five years later, AVID serves as a data-driven, in-school support system for 115,000 students in over 2,200 middle and high schools in 36 states, Canada and Department of Defense schools in 16 countries. It also includes a component for the upper elementary grades, starting at Grade 4.

The mission of AVID is to ensure that all students, particularly those who participate in the AVID program, succeed in a rigorous curriculum, complete a rigorous college preparatory path that includes participation and leadership in extracurricular activities, increase their enrollment in four-year colleges, and become educated and responsible leaders in a democratic society.

Gira said AVID targets students in “the forgotten middle,” who are identified by teachers as neither trouble-makers nor academic stars, who perform academically below their college-going potential (as shown by test scores and a grade point average of 2.0 to 3.5 in less challenging courses), and who demonstrate determination to access college by signing and implementing a contract between the school, the student and, in most cases, the student’s parents. Generally, each recruit or applicant must also meet at least one of these criteria: be the first in their family to go to college, is a member of an historically underserved ethnic, racial or linguistic group, come from a low-income family, or face special challenges, such as homelessness or a difficult family situation.

AVID students are required to enroll in rigorous courses along with a daily AVID class that meets during the regular school day. Rigorous courses include either algebra or a foreign language in middle school and at least one Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, honors, dual enrollment, or other advanced course each year in high school. In upper elementary grades, the daily curriculum includes AVID methodologies for note-taking, test-taking, and study skills.

The typical AVID class meets as an elective and emphasizes reading, writing, critical thinking, study skills, test-taking skills, organization, goal-setting, choosing a college, and preparing for college entrance exams and applications. Students spend a majority of class time in a structured tutorial, in which a teacher supervises discussions with approximately seven students guided by tutors. Tutors are typically paid college students, but sometimes include older adults or volunteers. The tutorials are not homework sessions, but are opportunities for students to learn to ask and answer high-level questions about core subjects. Tutorials also provide opportunities for students to anticipate and negotiate obstacles within the curricular options required for college-bound students.

Administrators, teachers, tutors, and other personnel in a school with an AVID program undergo extensive professional development at AVID’s national and regional institutes as well as in their own workshops at the school and district level. Voluntary participation by non-AVID teachers who will have AVID students in other academic classes is an important element in spreading the benefits of a mature AVID program school-wide, even when as little as 10% of the students in a high school are in the AVID program, Gira said.

Ron Ottinger, National Associate Director at the AVID Center, said AVID focuses relentlessly on collecting and analyzing outcome data, which extends from college-prep course completion rates and grade point averages to postsecondary education enrollment, at every school with an AVID program. The AVID Center awards full certification only to the schools in which data from annual reviews shows they are implementing the program according to national standards. District officials, principals and teachers also use the data to spotlight areas of the program that need shoring up, Ottinger said.

The first independent, random-assignment research into AVID, which will take five years, is under way in British Columbia, Ottinger said. Other independent and in-house studies based on less rigorous methodology have already provided strong quantitative and qualitative evidence of success.  (For information on this research, please see AYPF’s publication: More Things that Do Make a Difference for Youth: A Compendium of Evaluation of Youth Programs and Practices, Volume II.)

Tamara Ballou, AVID resource teacher and district director of AVID for the Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia, said those implementing the program value its four kinds of professional development: AVID’s five-day summer institutes, its two-day in-school workshops, district-sponsored training, and frequent planning meetings of the faculty members on each school’s interdisciplinary AVID site team. Staff development is tailored to the differentiated needs of teachers, tutors, or administrators. Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and other honors-level teachers learn how to apply findings from AVID research in their classes, tutors learn how to conduct structured tutorials, and administrators learn what financial, scheduling, and professional development support is needed, she said. “This is not a school within a school program” conducted only by AVID teachers exclusively for AVID students, Ballou stressed, “As many teachers as are willing can learn how to lift up these kids, and the kids can learn how to be successful in school.” 

A school cannot have an AVID program without the administrative and financial support of its district. Ballou said the primary added costs are tutors and professional development. Gira said one source of supplemental funding is the No Child Left Behind Act, including Title I allocations, Title I and II professional development, Title V Innovative Programs, Gear Up, Comprehensive School Reforms, Smaller Learning Communities, and Advanced Placement Initiatives.

Questioners from schools, districts, advocacy groups and federal agencies asked the panelists about the details of the program, ranging from the time it takes a typical program to mature (four years) to how low-income family members can be convinced to attend workshops on college requirements and financial aid (require it in the school’s AVID contract with the student and family). While responding to all questions, the presenters also pointed out that answers to many of the questions, and to others, appear on the center’s web site, www.avidonline.org.

Presenters

Robert Gira is the AVID Center’s Vice-President for National Programs.  Beginning his 12th year with the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program, Rob is responsible for overseeing AVID Center’s National Programs and Divisions, as well as National Initiatives.  He has led a variety of curriculum projects for the AVID Center and developed the program’s system-wide data collection format.  As a staff developer, he has provided instruction at AVID Summer Institutes for administrators as well as for AVID National Demonstration Schools, and has conducted tutor trainings throughout the U.S.  Before joining AVID in 1994, he was an administrator at two high schools in San Diego County, Rancho Buena Vista High School and Vista High School.  As principal at Vista High School from 1990 to 1994, he participated in the school's selection as a California Distinguished School and helped with reform efforts such as shared governance, integrated instruction, and restructuring.  He taught English in the Vista Unified School District for ten years.

Ron Ottinger, National Associate Director of the AVID Center, previously served as the Chair of its Board of Directors.  Currently, his responsibilities include strategic planning leadership and facilitation, staff annual work plan development, legislative strategy and leadership, foundation and individual donor fundraising, human resources directorship, intellectual property legal issues, point staff for partnership with the College Board since 2001, point staff for development of partnership work with senior staff of the College Board, and direct supervision of the program expansion, business, finance, communications, and technology departments.  Ron has just completed 12 years a member of the San Diego Board of Education serving as President for seven terms, the longest in board history.  He is a graduate of Amherst College. 

Tamara Ballou is the AVID Resource Teacher and AVID District Director, Fairfax  County Public Schools.   She has been responsible since the fall of 2002 for managing, coordinating, and supporting the district’s AVID program, which operates in 13 middle and high schools in the nation’s 10th largest school district in Fairfax, VA. Prior to that, Ballou taught for just under a quarter of a century in the Falls Church City Public Schools, where she was best known as the family life and sex education teacher and coordinator. When she taught sixth grade, she and the sixth-grade team received the first Agnes Meyer Washington Post Outstanding Teacher Award.

 

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