Logic model and evaluation plan
ESSA Tier 4 — Demonstrates a Rationale. What we built, why we think it works, how we plan to find out, and what we refuse to claim.
ESSA Evidence Tier 4: Demonstrates a Rationale
What this document is, and what it is not
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, an intervention qualifies for Tier 4 — Demonstrates a Rationale when two conditions are met:
- It has a well-specified logic model informed by research or an evaluation suggesting how it
is likely to improve student outcomes, and
- There is an effort to study its effects, either underway or planned.
This document sets out both.
It does not claim effectiveness. The Parent App has no efficacy study, no randomised trial and
no quasi-experimental evidence, because it has not yet been used at scale. We will not imply otherwise, and no material we produce will state or suggest that the product raises test scores, grades or proficiency rates.
For comparison, and stated plainly: i-Ready's Alabama study reached Tier 3 — Promising on 15,264 students across four districts. We are at Tier 4. We say so in the room.
1. The problem
Parents do not know when their child is behind.
| Finding | Source |
|---|---|
| Around 90% of parents believe their child is performing at or above grade level in reading and maths | Learning Heroes / Gallup parent survey, March 2023 |
| Around 38% of students are proficient on the national assessment | NAEP |
| In third-grade reading, 44% scored proficient or above | NAEP |
That is a gap of roughly fifty percentage points between belief and measurement. It is not a failure of parental attention. It is a reporting failure: report cards blend effort, behaviour and completion with mastery, so a conscientious child can hold a B while missing foundational skills, and nothing in the process tells the parent.
And when a parent is told, they are told a number, not a skill. A score of 514, a "Level 2", a
percentile. Our own primary research — eight documented parent threads in public forums — found parents repeatedly asking what these numbers mean and being told to read the state standards themselves. The information a parent needs in order to act, which specific skill is missing, is the one thing no report gives them.
Why it compounds. Skills in early literacy and numeracy are hierarchical. A gap identified in
third grade represents roughly one year of missing skill; the same gap in fifth grade represents three, plus the confidence cost. Third grade is the widely recognised inflection point, when children move from learning to read to reading to learn (Hernandez, Double Jeopardy, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2011).
2. Logic model
Inputs
- Grade-level standards published by the state (Alabama, South Carolina, Florida)
- Item banks written and independently reviewed against those standards — 3,415 items across
108 grade/state/subject banks
- A parent-held account; no school system integration and no student data transfer
- Two educators: 20+ years' classroom teaching and a doctorate in education; a second former teacher
Activities
- Diagnose. The child completes an adaptive check against their own state's standards for
their grade, in short parts.
- Name the gap. The parent receives the specific unmastered standard in plain language —
not a score, not a domain — together with what went wrong in the child's reasoning.
- Sequence. Gaps are ordered by prerequisite relationship, so the skill that unlocks others
is addressed first.
- Prompt a short, specific action. One skill, roughly fifteen minutes, with the parent told
exactly what to do and say.
- Re-check. Progress checks re-test only the skills previously missed, spaced over time.
Outputs
- A named list of unmastered standards per child, per subject
- A weekly plan the parent controls
- A printable summary the parent may choose to share with the teacher
- Re-check results showing movement per skill
Short-term outcomes (what we expect to observe first)
- Parents can name specific skills their child has not mastered
- Parents report increased confidence in how to help at home
- Home practice time is directed at prerequisite-blocking skills rather than whole subjects
- Parents arrive at conferences with specific questions
Longer-term outcomes (what we hypothesise, and will test)
- Increased proportion of identified gaps closed on re-check
- Earlier identification of gaps relative to the school's own assessment cycle
- Sustained parent engagement across a school year
3. The research base for each link
We do not claim this research validates our product. It establishes that the mechanism we rely on is reasonable.
| Link in the model | Research basis |
|---|---|
| Frequent low-stakes assessment used to inform next steps improves learning | Black & Wiliam, Inside the Black Box (1998), and the broader formative assessment literature |
| Feedback works when it is specific and tells the learner what to do next; vague feedback does not | Hattie & Timperley, The Power of Feedback, Review of Educational Research (2007) |
| Mastering prerequisite skills before moving on improves later attainment | Bloom, mastery learning (1968; 1984) |
| Practice distributed over time, and retrieval practice, outperform massed study | Dunlosky et al., Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques, Psychological Science in the Public Interest (2013) |
| Parental involvement specifically in learning at home is associated with attainment | Jeynes, meta-analyses of parental involvement (2005; 2007). Associative, not causal — stated as such. |
| Early reading gaps compound | Hernandez, Double Jeopardy (2011) |
| Parents systematically overestimate their child's standing | Learning Heroes / Gallup (2023); NAEP |
The honest limitation: each of these supports a component. None of them is a study of this
product. The combination is a rationale, which is precisely what Tier 4 is.
4. Evaluation plan
This is the part that makes the free year worth more than the revenue it forgoes.
The Parent App is free to every family in Alabama, South Carolina and Florida for the whole 2026–27 school year. That period is the first evaluation.
What will be collected
Per child, with parent consent, held in the parent's own account:
| Measure | Why |
|---|---|
| Diagnostic results by standard, at first use | Baseline |
| Gaps identified, by standard and subject | The intervention target |
| Practice sessions completed, and on which skill | Dosage and fidelity |
| Progress-check results on previously missed standards | Pre/post on the specific skill |
| Gaps closed, and time to close | Primary outcome |
| Retention across the school year | Whether it is usable in real family life |
What will be reported
- Per district, for the districts hosting the free year, in spring 2027
- Aggregate, as a public summary, with no identifiable child data
Design honesty
A single-group pre/post design with no control group cannot establish causation. Children grow over a school year regardless. This evaluation will therefore be described as what it is: descriptive, first-year, hypothesis-generating.
The intended path:
| Stage | Design | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Now | Logic model + planned evaluation | 4 — Demonstrates a Rationale |
| 2027 | Year-one descriptive results, multi-district | Supports a Tier 3 application |
| 2028+ | Matched comparison with a district partner | Tier 3, potentially Tier 2 |
Research permissions
Anything meeting a district's definition of research will go through that district's own approval process before it begins. Seminole County requires a research-permission packet through the Superintendent's Office; Charleston routes through the Office of Accountability. We ask first.
5. What we will not say
Binding on every page, email, reel and conversation:
- No claim that the product raises test scores, grades or proficiency. We have no evidence for
it and will not imply it.
- No comparison claims against i-Ready, IXL, Renaissance or any other product. They have
evidence we do not.
- No "research-backed" or "evidence-based" as a bare label. We say "Tier 4 — demonstrates a
rationale", and we explain what that means.
- No testimonial describing a result the product has not yet produced.
- No percentages, effect sizes or outcome figures until they come from our own data or a cited
source that is named in full.
6. The answer when a district asks "what's your evidence?"
"None yet, and I won't pretend otherwise. i-Ready has Tier 3 in Alabama off fifteen thousand
students. I have a Tier 4 rationale and a logic model, which is where everything starts. That is
exactly why I'm giving it to your families free for a year — I'd rather earn the evidence in your
district than buy a vendor-funded study. And in the spring I'll show you what your families
actually did with it, including the parts that didn't work."
Sources
- Learning Heroes / Gallup parent survey, March 2023 — https://bealearninghero.org/research/
- National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/
- Hernandez, D., Double Jeopardy, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2011
- Black, P. & Wiliam, D., Inside the Black Box, 1998
- Hattie, J. & Timperley, H., The Power of Feedback, Review of Educational Research, 2007
- Bloom, B., mastery learning, 1968; 1984
- Dunlosky, J. et al., Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques,
Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2013
- Jeynes, W., meta-analyses of parental involvement, 2005; 2007
- i-Ready Alabama State Impact Research (ESSA Tier 3), April 2025 —
https://www.curriculumassociates.com/research-and-efficacy/state-impact-research-alabama
Verification note. The Learning Heroes/Gallup and NAEP figures and the i-Ready tier were
checked on 19 September 2026. The methodological citations are named canonical works and should be read and cited in full before any of them appears in print.