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2017 EDUCATION MAGAZINE
LINCOLN DAILY NEWS MARCH 1, 2017 Page 43
expanded to 200 Chicago schools. The MacArthur
Foundation funded the Alliance for Achievement, an
ADI initiative to build strong school communities
focused on student learning.
The Laboratory for Student Success at Temple
University adopted Alliance for Achievement and
made it part of a comprehensive school reform
program implemented in schools in 13 states. Through
this adoption, ADI moved into the universe of school
improvement.
In 1991, ADI began publishing the School Community
Journal, still the premier, international, peer-reviewed
journal on school community.
In 1999, ADI opened an office in East St. Louis,
Illinois, to serve the state’s region with the highest
concentration of poverty. ADI maintains that office
today and also administers the Lincoln Parents’ Center
here in town, assisting families with children from
birth to age five in Logan County.
In 2007, in partnership with the Woods Foundation,
ADI created Liftoff, a youth development program.
Liftoff guides and supports students from eighth grade
through college graduation.
From 1997 to 2006, ADI served as the Parent
Information Resource Center (PIRC) for Illinois, with
funding from the U.S. Department of Education. This
support allowed ADI to exercise national leadership
in the realm of parent and family engagement in
support of student school learning. During this time,
ADI created its first generation of tools to more easily
and effectively bring together schools with parents;
the next generation of these tools are now used within
ADI’s School Community Network and are used
across the country and put actionable research into the
hands of parents and educators.
In 2005, ADI was awarded one of five national grants
from the U.S. Department of Education to establish
content centers to assist state education agencies.
ADI’s Center on Innovation & Improvement (CII)
published seminal work on state systems of support,
restructuring, and school turnaround. Three of CII’s
publications earned awards from the American
Educational Research Association. CII staff provided
on-site consultation and training for state education
agencies in 43 states.
In 2012, ADI formed the Indistar Network of 26 states
that adopted ADI’s web-based Indistar system for
school improvement, a system that has now guided
school improvement by school-based teams in more
than 11,000 schools across the nation. Indistar makes
the research consensus of effective school practice
actionable, with research briefs and videos of effective
practices to stimulate thought and high expectations
of professional practice, as well as facilitating input of
‘critical friends’ from the district and state.
The platform is unique in education and harnesses
performance management methodology to the unique
needs of schools and families.
In 2012, ADI was a partner in three successful grant
applications to create new content centers funded by
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