How is AYP Determined in MN?

Here is a quick summary of how AYP is determined (written by my colleague Wendy for a school here in Minnesota):

1. A school must meet target proficiency rates to make AYP:

• Students generate a proficiency rate. There are four achievement levels- D (Did not meet), P (Partially met), M (Met), E (Exceeded). For each "M" or "E", a student generates one point. For each "P", a student generates 1/2 point. Students with a "D" do not generate any points. Each year the points are added and divided by the total number of students to get proficiency rates. So for example, if 10 students scored "M" and 10 students scored "E" and 10 students scored "P", and 10 students scored "D", they would generate a total of 25 points. These 25 points would be divided by 40 (total number of students) to get the rate 62.5.
• There are proficiency rate targets for each cell (like English Learner, Special Ed, Free/reduced Lunch). These are adjusted based on the number of students in each cell- if there are fewer students, MDE provides a wider margin.
• There are four chances to meet the proficiency rate targets. The first way is to meet the annual state proficiency rate target for each group (adjusted based on group size).
• The second way is to meet the Safe Harbor proficiency rate target using the test data from the year before. Each year, each subgroup generates a proficiency rate. Therefore, each subgroup also generates a nonproficiency rate. Take ten percent of the nonproficiency rate and add it to the proficiency rate, to get the Safe Harbor target. For example, if you had a proficiency rate of 40 the year before, then the nonproficiency rate would be 60. Ten percent of 60 is 6. Add 6 to 40 and you get the new Safe Harbor proficiency rate target.
• The third way is to meet the Safe Harbor proficiency rate target using the data from the last two years. So if a school doesn't make the Safe Harbor proficiency rate targets for all the cells using the test data from the year before, MDE goes back two years to see if that will help.
• The fourth way is to meet the Safe Harbor proficiency rate target using the data from the last three years. So if a school doesn't make the Safe Harbor proficiency rate target using the test data from the last two years, MDE goes back three years.

2. A school must meet test participation rate targets to make AYP (at least 95% if students must take the test).

3. A school must meet attendance rate targets (90% based on the rates from the year before, this year based on 2009-10).

So you can see it is important to ensure that students who have passed in the past continue to pass, those who partially passed move onto passing, and those who did not pass, move on to partially pass. If a school's Safe Harbor target were 40 and the school had 100 students enrolled before Oct 1 who took the test), one way to make Safe Harbor would be if 20 students passed and forty scored partially proficient. In this case, the students who passed would generate 20 points, and those who partially passed would generate 20 points. This would be 40 points divided by 100.

FAPE

Free Appropriate Public Education

I had a very good friend the other day tell me about a situation with his son. With two weeks to go in the quarter they were informed that their son had 4 F's and a D. Immediately he contacted his son's teachers. All but one were very responsive and good to work with. The math teacher apparently started blaming the parents and the student. She called his son lazy and accused his mom of doing his homework for him.

Obviously this did not sit well with my friend. As it turns out, this teacher was not aware that his son had an IEP that dictated that the school was to work with the student on organization skills and on adapting homework assignments. This teacher was totally unaware and instead started blaming the student and parents when in fact, BY LAW, she is supposed to be aware of the IEP and make the necessary accommodations.

This particular parent is very knowledgeable and a strong advocate for his son. I'm sure the math teacher will re-assess her stance after the Director of Special Education and her principal review appropriate special education procedures with her.

Apparently a couple of the other teachers were also not aware of the IEP situation either, but because they were responsive and "customer oriented." As a result the parents were forgiving and working with those teachers on the best interest of the child which is exactly what FAPE is all about!

History Teachers

I had one of my more challenging training sessions last weekend. I was training a group of history teachers in Florida. My focus was on the importance of using reading strategies to better understand history content. Sometimes history teachers really know their content well but were not really trained in how to teach students how to read. They assume that the kids already know how to read.

I usually show a video of a fourth grader using the Big 5 reading strategies: Predict, Summarize, Context Clues, Main Idea, and Author's Purpose. Usually teachers love the video. This was the first time a group of teachers really reacted negatively. I felt like leaving.

The main complaint was that they thought the student using the strategies during her reading would distract her. I did explain that the school did later stop having students use context clues in the middle of a paragraph for that very same reason. Then when I had the teachers "try it" they mostly changed their mind and saw the value. Even the teacher that was the most critical changed her mind after actually doing it herself.

I think the lesson for me is to really get people to experience the Big 5 first themselves to really appreciate how much this type of interactive reading experience improves comprehension before sharing it as a strategy. Lesson learned!

Stages of Instructional Leadership

What level is your instructional leadership?

I. All staff understands what students must know and be able to do in order to meet the grade-level standard of their students (score proficient on the state test).

II. Staff assesses weekly to understand student progress toward meeting the grade-level standard.

III. Staff analyzes the results of the weekly assessments in order to pinpoint student needs and gather feedback on best practices.

IV. Staff collaboratively problem solves to meet the student needs and shares best practices.

1. Ask your teachers what students need to know and be able to do in reading and in math to meet the grade-level standard.

The teachers should be very specific. For example in reading, all teachers should identify that students must be able to predict, summarize, use context clues to understand new words, identify the main idea, and identify the author’s purpose and point of view, as well as be able to answer literal, inferential, and evaluative questions about what they read. In math, teachers should be able to identify at least five specific concepts and skills within specific sub-strand areas like number sense.

2. Ask your teachers to provide you with all assessments that will be used to measure progress toward mastering the concepts and skills for at least the next month.

The teachers should provide assessments that match the grade-level benchmarks of their students for at least the next month. They should also provide a pacing guide to be certain that all benchmarks and progress toward them will be measured before April. The assessments will help the administrator monitor the extent to which the grade-level benchmarks are taught. With the assessment for the week in hand and an understanding of what it is measuring, the administrator can visit the classroom early in the week and later in the week to see how students are doing. The teachers can analyze the assessments when planning instruction for the week in order to make certain that students are successful.

3. Ask your teachers for an analysis of the results of the weekly assessments.

The teachers should provide an analysis of their specific student needs as well as of their best practices based on the results of the weekly assessment. They should be able to explain which student is having difficulty with which specific concept and skill and why, as well as what practices they are finding work working to meet student needs.

4. Ask yourself whether your teachers have weekly meeting time to share the specific student needs and collaboratively problem solve to meet them as well as share the best practices that they are finding are working to meet student needs.

The teachers and all staff that support the students must have time to work together as a team, collaboratively problem solving to meet the unique needs of the students in your school.  The solutions may involve using the instructional support staff more effectively to help differentiate instruction, abandoning practices that are not working to meet student needs, and building on those that are working.

Teacher Observations

I've been doing some teacher observations. Here's the most common problem areas I see:

1. The objective is not clear nor meaningful. As simple as this sounds this is the most common problem I see with lessons. The teacher is not crystal clear what concept or skill he/she is teaching. I saw a lesson recently where the objective was something like: "SWBAT (Student Will Be Able To) understand Andrew Carnegie." Obviously, this was a history lesson where the teacher spend the whole lesson in lecture or Q and A describing the key events of Andrew Carnegie's life where the goal seemed to be to just impart his own knowledge into the heads of his students. If the objective had been: "SWBAT apply the lessons Andrew Carnegie learned about supply/demand when growing businesses to the struggles that local businesses are having today;" then the lesson would look much different.

Questions to think about when coming up with your objective:
Is the objective clear and meaningful? Does it tie to state standards/benchmarks? Is it meaningful? Is it worded in a way where you can come up with a way to model the concept and assess mastery?

2. An overuse of the Q and A teaching technique. So many lessons I observe involve the teacher asking lots of questions of the students and then calling on one student at a time. This is probably better than lecturing for the whole hour, but if you were to really analyze the interactions of a typical Q and A lesson, it might involve something like 50 questions that the teacher poses where only a handful of students actually answer the questions. Assuming you had 25 student in the classroom, every time you ask a question and only call on one student, you can assume that 24 students either didn't know the answer or checked out mentally. Now maybe they didn't, but you almost have to make that assumption. Things to think about might be: How can I ask a question in a way where all students can respond (thumbs up/thumbs down, answering in unision, just this row, having them use mini white boards, etc...)? Perhaps I should be modeling more myself first before asking students. Perhaps I should have students modeling their thinking for each other rather than just doing Q and A. Perhaps I should try to move them into small groups or pairs as a way to gradually release opportunities for demonstrating mastery more quickly as well.

3. Lastly, the other most frequent problem I see is the total lack of differentiation that occurs in most lessons. This problem is related to the other problems already stated. If the objective isn't clear to begin with then it is hard to assess quickly who gets it and who doesn't. If the teacher is spending the whole lesson in large group Q and A, the teacher never really finds out which students need more help either. The key is to more quickly model the clear concept being taught, modeling it, and then finding out what students are getting it and which one's aren't so that 10 to 15 minutes into the lesson you can begin to differentiate - help those that need it more and let those that have achieved mastery move on to more challenging work.

Using MCA III Practice Tests

1. In math - use practice tests that are developed specifically to match the MCA III test specifications.
2. Test students now to find out what concepts they still need to work on.

Instructional Designs has created new tests to match the MCA III standards. 

In math, there are four different math tests for each grade level:

Number and Operations
Algebra
Data and Statistics
Geometry and Measurement

In reading, there are four different reading tests for each grade level:
• Vocabulary and Comprehension- Fiction
• Vocabulary and Comprehension- Nonfiction
• Vocabulary and Literature (Literary Elements)- Poetry
• Vocabulary and Literature (Literary Elements)- Fiction

Administer the test one sub strand at a time and use the answer keys to score and analyze the results. Share the results with the students as soon as possible after they take the test analyze the answers together. This will help you and your students become more familiar with the concepts and skills tested. Have students with a correct answer explain how they figured it out, and discuss why the other answer choices are not correct.

Remember that as students read each passage or poem, they may take notes and highlight in their test book. Be aware however, for grade 3, that any stray markings into the answer area may result in scoring errors.
These tests include two kinds of questions: multiple-choice and open-ended. Although the MCAII Reading currently contains only multiple-choice, it is important to continue to provide open-ended questions that require students to justify their responses with evidence from the text. Students should practice carefully filling in answer bubbles.

PLCs: Why They Break Down

We all know what PLCs are.

In1993 people started using the label the professional community of learners, in which the teachers in a school and its administrators continuously seek and share learning and then act on what they learn. The goal of their actions is to enhance their effectiveness as professionals so that students benefit. This arrangement has also been termed communities of continuous inquiry and improvement.

 

More commonly referred to as Professional Learning Communities.

As an organizational arrangement, the professional learning community is seen as a powerful staff development approach and a potent strategy for school change and improvement.

However, even the leading guru on PLCs in the United States, Richard Dufour has said:

The idea of improving schools by developing professional learning communities is currently in vogue. People use this term to describe every imaginable combination of individuals with an interest in education—a grade-level teaching team, a school committee, a high school department, an entire school district, a state department of education, a national professional organization, and so on. In fact, the term has been used so ubiquitously that it is in danger of losing all meaning.

But duFour has always described the purpose of PLCs as to answer three key questions:

• What do we want each student to learn?

• How will we know when each student has learned it?

• How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?

We love them because...

Teachers get time to collaborate and discuss.

They are the “in vogue” way of doing onsite professional development (don’t have to pay for subs).

They make our school improvement plans look better.

In general, and theoretically…..they provide us opportunities to

a.       look at data

b.       to learn new ideas or strategies

c.       have shared planning time

d.       learn together

Here is where it breaks down...

The biggest problems are that the Purpose of the PLC is not clearly understood and the staff are not on board.

·         The PLCs did not emerge from a collective understanding of why we need to have a PLC.

·         PLCs are a top down “catch all” phrase for school improvement efforts and all kinds of activities are thrown under this name.

Sometimes the staff aren’t on board because:

·         The rationale for the PLCs has not been explained well and/or is not understood

·         A focus on student achievement sometimes gets framed as  a “teach to the test” mentality that is hard to overcome

Or there are school culture reasons:

·         They see a PLC as something extra or “on top of” what they already do

·         Teachers are tied to a certain style of teaching or grading that works for them

·         Many meetings designed to look at student data fall victim to the "culture of nice" -- teachers chat amiably and don't confront ineffective practices or push one another to higher levels of performance.