more than test scores

8/6/2019 More Than Test Scores

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c o n t i n u o u si m p r o v e m e n t :l i t t a k e s m o r e t h a n t e s t s c o r e sAnalyzing state

assessment results isonly the beginning ofeffective data-driven

decision making.

There is no question that the pns-suge of No Child Left Behindin 2001 has impacted schoolsill at least two ways: First and foremost,NCLB has made the use of data to im-prove student achievement imperative;and second, NCLB has increased theneed for continuous improvement pro-cesses with in schools.S u m m a t iv e d a t a ju s t t h e b e g in n in g

Schools in our country hear that datamakes the difference in improving stu-dent achievement. Not all schools, how-ever, have felt the positive impact fromwhat they believe is data-d riven decisionmaking . The most common reason: Mostschool districts in this country believethey are being data-driven when theyhave analyzed the dickens out of theirstate assessment results.

Some school districts fed they arebeing data-driven w hen they analyze thedickens out of their state assessment re-

sults a m i use some formative assessmentsto help students prepare for the statewidetest. Unfortunately, this is only the be-ginnin g of data-driven decision m aking.

Most states' assessment scores canspeak volumes for what is going on intheir schools and districts, and with stu-dent learning. Fol lowing assessmentscores of the same grou ps of students (orthe same students) over time can indicatethe presence or absence ot a continuumof learning that makes sense for the stu-dents . It can give information aboutstudLMit learning as well as the degree towhich standards are being implementedat each grade level (provided the stateassessment truly measures the state stan-dards).

Loo king at state assessment results bygrade level over time can give infornia-tion about the impact of the programs

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being imp lemented. Disaggregating stateassessment results ctn tell m if ou r schoolsare m eeting clie needs of the students theschools are Littempting to serve.

Test score analyses are important . Infact, in a perfect world, schools woulduse both formative and summat ive as-sessments to ensure that all students arel earning. If only summative assessmentdata are studied, however, solutions forimproving the scores can come out half-baked.

Forex.iniple. wheTi 1 started workingwitli Lemon Middle School, thestaH'haddeterm ined that their students' scores inEngl i sh/ language ar t s and mat hema t -ics were lower than the previous years'scores. Since the math scores were thelowest, they decided to "focus" on maththat year.G a l l a n t e f f o r t s

In their focus, they set up several strat-egies: rem ediat ion for the students notmeeting proficiency standards, an after-school program to assist students withthe i r math homework, and a requiredmath summer school program for anystudent not passing the state math assess-ment at the proficient or advanced levels.

Un fortun ately, th eir gal lant effortsdid not lead to the test score improve-ments they had hoped for. Both math andEnglish/langua ge arts scores went dow n.They were devastated. As the staff and 1reviewed their data and their solutions,we talked abo ut establishing a continuousimprovement plan. We set out to gather abit more data to see if we could figure outhow to work sm arter, not harder, and getbetter results.

We had the student achievement data.We deterniirK'tl that other types of data,including demograpliic, perceptional andschool process data, needed to be gath-ered and analysed. What those data areand what we found in the data analysisat Lemon Middle School are discussedbelow.D e m o g r a p h ic d a t a

Demographi c s can tell schools allabout who they have as s tudents , whothey have as teachers, and how teachersare aligned to the students. Demograph-

ics beg in to tell us about schotil processesand how the school is preparing to meetthe needs of students. Dem ographics areimportant for setting tlie context of theschool , and they are critical for under-standing all other num bers.

Lemon Middle School 's demograph-ics showed that while they had a fairlydiverse student population 60 percentCaucasian, 30 percent Hispanic/Latinoand 10percent African American-their

A c l e a r a n d s h a r e d v i s i o n a n dl e a d e r s h i p p l a y m a j o r p a r t s i nd a t a - d r i v e n d e c i s i o n m a k i n g .Iff t h e r e i s n o f o c u s o r u n i ff ie df fr o n t in a s c h o o l , t h e r e i s a ls on o c o n t i n u u m off i e a r n i n g t h a tm a k e s s e n s e ffors t u d e n t s ,a n d n o s t r u c t u r e to i n c r e a s es t u d e n t a c h i e v e m e n t .teaching staff was 100 percent Caucasianand SO percent female.After a recent teacher "buy out" dueto budget decreases, the current teachingstaff had an average of six years of teach -ing experience. The math teachers werethe least experienced, with only threeyears of teaching experience on average.The principal , a male, was in his thirdyear at this school. The attendance ratewas 94 percent for students and 91 per-cent for teachers. The district, in its con-cern about the inexperience of the te.ich-ers and the low test scores, assigned mostof the specialists in the district to "watchover andhelp" Lemon teachers.P e r c e p t i o n a l d a t a

Perceptional data can tell us abouthow students, staffand parents are feelingabout the learning environment and giveinsight into what changes can be made toimprove the l earning envi ronment and,ultimately, student learning .

Lemon Middle School students, staffand parents completed quest ionnairesabiHit the l earning envi ronment . Whatthe questionnaires told them was studentsdid not feel teachers thought they cotilddo the work, that quality work was notexpected of them, and that teachers didnot care about them as people teach-ers only wanted students to get better testscores.

In their open-ended responses, sev-eral students wrote that all they l ikedabout the school was being outside, tlieirfriends and sports. W hat they wished wasdifferent was that school would not be soboring , that they could learn cool thingsin coo l ways, and that they would not gemath and test scores shoved down theirthroats all the t ime.

The teacher questionnaire gave evenmore defini t ive information. Teachersfelt that th ere w as no vision for the schoolThere might have been a vision a coupleof years ago, but that was before most othe current staffwas hired. Teachers didno t feel they had the support they neededto improve student learning, and they didnot collaborate with each other to ensurea continuum of learning that m ade sensefor the students.

In their open-ended responses, staftold about the inconsistencies in teaching throughout the organization, the facthat staffagreements were never enforcedand that the district was always sendingpeople in to "watch us. not help us."C om m i tm e n t f ro m s t a f f

The most often-stated responses tothe ques t ion, "What would it take toimprove student learning for all studentat this school?" included this: AH startneeds to coinnii t to doing work in thesame way. including teachin g to the standards, assessing and using the results toeffect iniprt)vement. Teachers who arenot willing to put in the t ime and energyshould not be allowed tt) keep their jobsor they should have their pay d ocked.

Parents basically reiterated what thestudents told staff. Parents did not feethat the staffwas truly committed to students' learning. Teachers did not seem tobe mak ing progress with what they weredoin g. Staff expected way too much help

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from th e parents. Parents did not knowhow to help their children learn. Addi-cionally. each parent worked one or twojobs . When could they help their di i l -dren learn?S c h o o l p r oc e s s e s

School processes are the curriculum,instruction iind assessment strategies usedto teach the content that students are ex-pected to learn. It is impo rtant to und er-stand what teachers are doing to get theresults they are getting.

Lemon Middle School staff"reviewedwhat they were doing to teach each oftheir subject areas. Most teachers wereusing the curriculum and instruct ionalmaterials adopted by the district. Whatthey could not tell each other was howmuch of the time they were teaching tothe standards. In fact, they were not re-ally sure what it would look like if theywere teaching to the standards.

Their current processes for helpingstudents were to '"remediate" any student

wh o did not score proficient o r advancedon the state assessment. A lot of the r em e-diation w as simply re-teach ing w hat hadbeen taught before without determiningwhat the students really needed.A n a l yz in g t h e d a t a

These data student learning, de-mographics, perceptions and school pro -cesses, separately and c om bin ed - telischool personnel what is going on in theschool right now. give clues as to whatneeds to be done to improve, how toimprov e to get different results and evenwhat is possible with respect to improve-ment.

Reviewing al l the data gave LemonMiddle School s ta ff some commonthinking about what they needed to doto get different results. It also empoweredthem to get different results. Staff knewthey needed a vision and co mm itmen tfrom every teacher to help every studentlearn. They knew they needed to becomemore famil iar with and to implement

content standards, and to learn howmake learning more active and fun. Thalso needed and wanted accountabilprocesses and leadership to keep all staff on the same page.

Because of the inexperience of tstaff and principal, the district providthe dollars to help Lemon Middle Schhire an outside facilitator to establishclear and .shared vision and a stru ctu re continuous improvement. The structinchided time to analyze their data astudent work, and to develop strategfor imp rovem ent u sing the results of thanalyses. Students' test scores in the flowing year were greatly improved .T h e n e e d fo r a c on t i n u o u s i m p r ov e m e n tpr oce s s

True data-driven decision makingonly p artly about data. A clear and shavision and leadership play major partsdata-driven decision making. If theis no focus or unified front in a schothere is also no continuum of learni

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A c u s l o d i a n I n j u r e d t i is r i g h t k n e e w h i le l i f t i n g a 5 5 - g a l l o nd r u m an d w a l k i n g d o w n a f l i g h t of s t a i n . S u b s e q u e n t l y , th ec l a i m a n t r e q u i r e d six s u r g e r i e s and a c o t a l k n e e r e p l a c e m e n t .B e c a m e of a s u r g i c a l i n f e c t i o n , t h e c l a i m w o u l d h a v e b e e nd e v a s t a t i n g b u t w i t h S E L F, b o t h th e c u s t o d i a n and the d i s t r i c tc o u l d c o n t i n u e w i t h b u s i n e s s as u s u a l .S e l l - I n s u r a n c e is r e c o g n i z e d a s a v i a b l e a l t e r n a t i v e to c o m m e r c i a li n s u r a n c e . S i nc e 1 9 8 9 . S E L F 's E x c e ss W o r k e r s ' C o m p e n s a t i o nP r o g r a m has p r o v i d e d m a n y C a l i f o r n i a s e l f - i n s u r e d s c t i c o l i andj P A s w i t h r e l i a b l e e x c e s s c o v e r a g e .F o r d i s t r i c t i c o n s i d e r i n g s e l f - in s u r a n c e , S E LF can s u p p l e m e n ty o u r p r o g r a m at one of our s e l f - i n s u r e d r e t e n t i o n ( S I R ) l e v e l s :$ 3 5 0 , 0 0 0 $ 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 $ 1 m i l l i o nB e n e f i t s of S e l f - I n s u r a n c e A c t u a r i a l l y d e t e r m i n e d r a t e s C o n i r o l o v e r c l a i m s p r o c e s s L o w e r a d m i n i s t r a t i v e e x p e n s e sSchools Excess L i a b i l i t y F u n d

C o n t a c t us t o d a y to f i n d ou t virhym o s t C a l i f o r n i a s c h o o l d i s t r i c t j c h o o s eS E L F for e x c e s s i n s u r a n c e c o v e r a g e -T o l l F r e e ( 8 6 6 ) 4 5 J - 5 J 0 O ,w w w . s e l f j p 3 . o r g18 Leadership


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tluit nuikes sense for students, and nostructure to increase student achieve-ment .

It takes strong leadership to inspirea shared vision and to ensure its imple-mentation. It also takes a strong leaderto ensure the analysis and use of data.A continuou s improvem ent process canensure that all professional developmentis focused on implementing the vision;[bat partners, such as parents, und erstandtheir roles in implementing the visionand h elping students learn: and thiit thereis continuous cv.ikuition to know howto improve on an ongoing basis to reachschool goals.Inspiring a shared vision

Schools and school districts ,ire underintense pressure to improve. With bothlimited resources and limited time to de-velop processes that allow them to movesteadily upward, schools must use data toensure that their improvement is effec-tive and continuo us.

It is vitally important that administra-tors at school and district levels leadthe way in using data to inform decisionni; iking. Leaders must chal lenge pro-cesses throug h tbe study of school results,inspire a shared vision, enable ocbers toact through planning and professionaldevelopment , model the way throughconsistent actions, encourage the beartby reminding teachers of the purpose oi 'school and why they got into teachingin the first place, and celebrate successes(Kouzcs&Posncr, 20(12).

True da ta-dr iven dec is ion makinggives schools information about theircurrent situation and clues about whatwould help them improve, as well as tbeleadership to see it through.Refe rencesBeriihardt . V.L. (2003). Usii ia Dora tohnproi'e Stiidctit Learning in Bleii icutary

Schools. L a r c h m o n t , N Y : E y e o n E d u -cat ion, Inc .

Benibardt, V.L. (2(104). t 'Vm.i.' Dam t o I tn-

provf Sludent Learning in Middle SchoolsLarchmont, NY: Eye on EducationInc.

Bernh ardt, V.L. (2004). Usii is; Data Mprove Student Learning in H(i,'/f SchoolsLarchmont, NY: Eye on EducationInc.

Bernhardt , V.L. (2005). l!si, i


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more than test scores

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