Freshman On-Track (FOT) was the first, but even that was too long-term. (You can’t afford to wait until the end of freshman year to see whether students are off track, because if they are, the damage has already been done.) So the school leaders started watching attendance and grades—measures you could examine and influence on a weekly basis. The theory of change was: If we can boost attendance and grades, we can improve a student’s On-Track standing, and that will boost her chances of graduating. The short-term measures were well-chosen: The plan worked brilliantly, as we saw.
