✦AI-Powered Dialogue Assessment

CLARO

Cognitive Learning Assessment through Reasoning Observation

"The alchemy of thought and dialogue"

✦ Try the Demo See the Dashboard ✎ Try ThinkBridge

See How It Works Request a Pilot

🎓K-8 Students

🌐Bilingual EN/ES

📚Research-Backed

Chispa, the CLARO mascot, blazing with joy as student thinking deepens

We assess what students produce.
We never assess how they think.

65%

of 8th graders below proficient

NAEP 2024

$14B

spent on K-12 assessment annually

National spending

measure the reasoning process

The missing metric

The gap CLARO closes

"Current assessments see the answer. They are blind to the thinking."

CLARO makes thinking visible

Three integrated systems working together to reveal the depth of student cognition

ThinkBridge

An AI dialogue engine that asks questions pulling reasoning out of students, not answers out of textbooks.

DialogIQ

A rubric-based assessment engine scoring cognitive depth in real time.

Chispa

A visual guide that glows brighter as thinking deepens. Students see a companion, not a score.

CLARO grows with your students — from first words to original thinking

Most tools solve one grade band. CLARO is designed as a complete developmental arc: building the language to think, then the capacity to think, then the ability to make others think.

Coming · Phase 2

Grades K–2

Language Sparks

Building the raw material of thought

Before a student can reason, they need language precise enough to carry a thought. Language Sparks is CLARO's K–2 mode — a warm, playful dialogue where Chispa acts not as a questioner, but as a vocabulary partner.

When a student says "she was sad," Chispa asks: "Is she the same kind of sad as when you drop your ice cream? Or a different kind?" The student reaches for lonely. Chispa celebrates: "Lonely! You found exactly the right word."

DialogIQ tracks vocabulary breadth, sentence complexity, and descriptive precision — and surfaces a readiness indicator the moment a student is approaching Think Mode. No other K–2 tool tells you when a child is ready for Socratic dialogue.

Available Now

Grades 3–8

Think Mode

Learning to think through dialogue

The current heart of CLARO. Chispa uses four Socratic moves — Probe, Mirror, Challenge, Name — to pull reasoning out of students, not answers out of textbooks.

DialogIQ scores cognitive depth in real time. The teacher dashboard shows not just what a student said, but how deeply they thought, and how that depth has grown across every session.

🔥 Chispa Trainers are visible in your dashboard with a flame icon next to their names. You can assign them to mentor specific students directly through the platform, or follow platform suggestions generated from DialogIQ rubric data. You decide. The platform supports your judgment, it does not replace it.

Coming · Phase 2

Grades 3–8

Interview Mode

Becoming the questioner

Interview Mode is where CLARO's design goal is achieved. The student is no longer the thinker — they become the questioner, facilitating a peer's thinking the way Chispa facilitated theirs.

Chispa coaches in real time: "That's a yes/no question. It won't pull thinking out. Try: 'What part surprised you?'"

Over time, Chispa's coaching fades. When a student asks three quality questions in a row without any prompting, Chispa says:

"You don't need me anymore. Those were your questions."

— Chispa, Interview Mode

🏛️

Why this arc matters for districts

A student who enters kindergarten and exits 8th grade through CLARO has spent nine years building language, deepening reasoning, and learning to produce thinking in others. That is not a feature. That is a curriculum philosophy — and it is the only one of its kind backed by a real-time AI assessment engine.

🔥Student Identity Architecture

The Chispa Arc: From Learner to Leader

CLARO does not just build thinking skills. It builds a thinking identity. Every student moves through five stages, each one a transformation in who they are, not just what they can do.

🌱

Stage 1

Learner

The student enters CLARO and begins developing thinking skills through structured DialogIQ conversations. The platform meets them where their thinking actually is.

🔮

Stage 2

Practitioner

The student reaches interview mastery. They have internalized a thinking process, not just completed tasks. This is a threshold moment, not a level.

🔥

Stage 3

Chispa Trainer

The student becomes a certified peer coach. Their teacher sees a flame icon next to their name in the dashboard and can assign them to mentor specific classmates. The student now carries the thinking culture forward to others.

🏅

Stage 4

DialogIQ Certification

The student has reached the fade point: deep thinking no longer requires the platform to sustain it. CLARO celebrates this with the DialogIQ Training Certification, issued in the student's name. This is a real credential, designed to feel significant to a child.

🏛️

Stage 5

Thought Architect Coach

The arc closes here. A Thought Architect Coach does not simply think deeply or model the process for others. They design the conditions in which other students begin to think deeply. They architect the thinking culture of a classroom.

🏅

The DialogIQ Training Certification

When a student reaches the fade point, CLARO marks that moment with a real credential issued in their name. Not a participation award. A recognition of demonstrated capacity. Students who earn it have done something real.

Learn about the Certification

Chispa in curious state, ready to engage with student thinking

waiting

"Take your time. I'm here."

pulling

"What made you think that?"

blazing

"That was YOUR idea. That's real thinking."

Meet the Mascot

Meet Chispa

Spanish for "spark"

Asks questions that pull reasoning to the surface
Shows confusion when answers contradict
Glows brighter as thinking deepens
Celebrates the student's ideas, not correct answers
Teaches students how to question their own thinking

See Chispa in Action

Value across every dimension

Built on the 360° ROI Framework (doctoral research, r = .60–.71)

Financial

Replaces redundant tools, targets intervention spend. Data-driven resource allocation reduces assessment administration cost.

Achievement

Measures thinking, not just scores. Leading indicator of genuine learning that catches Ghost Learning before it compounds.

Equity

Bilingual (EN/ES) from launch. Measures thinking, not cultural fluency. Chispa scaffolds without judging. Removes bias of product-based scoring.

Operational

No extra test windows. Integrates into existing instruction. Real-time data with actionable insights, not just scores.

"CLARO doesn't just use the framework. It proves it."

Built on 25 years of research and practice

Grounded in peer-reviewed research, not hype.

Dr. Aubrey Escobar

DBA, M.Ed. | Founder, CLARO

25 years in classrooms and districts. Doctoral research establishing the 360° ROI Framework (r = .60–.71). Founder of the Fulcra Institute for educational research.

Fulcra Institute

Research think tank backing CLARO

The Proof Architecture

TCD

The Connected District

Systems thinking for educational leadership in the digital age.

TAA

The AI Alchemist

Transforming educational practice through intelligent assessment.

TLG

The Leadership Gap

Bridging research and practice in K-12 educational leadership.

Ready to see how your students think?

Join the growing community of educators using CLARO to make thinking visible and learning real.

Request a Pilot Contact for Districts

For districts: [email protected]