A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Section V
Sustaining Schoolwide Programs
through Accountability and Continuous Improvement

The ultimate goal of any schoolwide program is better results. After the planning and implementation work is done, schoolwide reforms need to demonstrate their successes and identify areas for improvement. Measuring progress, being accountable for results, and making changes based on reliable data are vital aspects of continuous schoolwide improvement. In this sense, experienced school leaders say, schoolwide programs do not have a clear beginning or end—they are works in progress, continuously striving and adjusting to meet ever-higher goals.

When properly implemented, efforts to monitor the progress of school improvement are fully supported by all of the school's partners. School staff members become self-critical and analytic about their practices, and they invite all stakeholders to share their observations and to suggest improvements.

Continuous, data-driven accountability involves school teams in the following activities:

• Combining information from multiple measurements on all groups of students

• Organizing the data to clarify strengths and weaknesses of students and of the entire school

• Disaggregating information on students to determine whether certain subgroups are experiencing common problems

• Modifying improvements already in place whenever new needs and opportunities are identified

• Keeping alert to the implications for the quality of education supported by all components of the school

• Ensuring that colleagues analyze and modify programs based on continuing assessments and analyses

During the early stages of school change, most people will likely need to juggle several jobs at once: their regular teaching or administrative responsibilities and the new task of aligning administration, instruction, and professional development with higher standards. Given this challenge, it isn't surprising that many schools falter on the road to reform. One way of reducing the reform failure rate is to establish continuous progress monitoring as the school's accountability strategy.

Continuous progress monitoring is an ongoing, multiple measurement strategy. To generate useful information, assessment should occur often—at least four times a year—and should draw on several measurement strategies. Qualitative methods, such as personal interviews and focus groups, combined with standardized tests and surveys, provide in-depth information about the results of reforms. No single survey or all-purpose data collection tool meets the school's total information needs. Furthermore, although multiple measures are vital to tracking the progress of school change, data systems should not be counted on to monitor everything. When making changes, good teachers wisely rely on both their intuition and on hard data. Periodically, however, teachers' perspectives should be validated by outside assessments.

think about this. . .

Diagnosing Student Performance by Skill Area

Cabello Elementary School in Union City, California, created an assessment and reporting system with seven performance levels ranging from "pre-readiness" to "independent." The levels are benchmarked as goals for different grades, but students in a particular grade may perform at any level along the continuum. A student progress report identifies the standards and measurable indicators of achievement for each performance level in reading, writing, and mathematics. For each standard, the report card shows whether the student is "accomplished," "progressing," or "emerging," according to specified definitions. At the end of the report, separate tables summarize the student's progress in subject areas and in social and study skills.

A data management system measures student progress on the seven performance levels. Data sources include authentic assessments, teacher observations recorded on checklists and in anecdotes, student work folders, and portfolios of student work that show evidence of progress on the indicators. After each grading period, administrators feed the student data into a schoolwide database that supports data reporting and analysis for the entire student population, for disaggregated populations, and at grade or classroom levels. Database fields include: (1) student name, teacher (current and previous year), gender, birth date, primary language, ethnicity, grade, and date of entry; (2) targeted academic programs in which the student participates and special issues that affect his or her education, such as attendance problems or aggressive social behavior; (3) interventions, such as after-school tutoring, reading support, cross-age tutoring, or language academies; and (4) assessment data, including report card performance levels and achievement on district performance tests. The database also includes progress indicators linked to report card levels. Teachers review the data to identify students who need additional education services.

Another feature of continuous monitoring is that data sources are aligned with program and instructional objectives. The staff within the school are in the best position to select tools for assessing implementation, so they can select measurement instruments that are fully aligned with one another and with the curriculum the school is using in each grade. Assessments can be conducted as frequently as they are needed, depending on student and program needs and on teachers' decisions about when assessments would provide the most useful information. Keep in mind that some groups of students—those at greatest risk—will need more frequent and closer monitoring than others; and that newly implemented programs will require more scrutiny than those that are known to be effective.

Data sources are aligned with program and instructional objectives. Many schools have begun to link aligned instructional benchmarks to the broader objectives measured periodically by their state's assessment programs. Through aligned assessments, schools can examine results for several purposes—to track absolute progress, to compare against benchmark goals, and to find patterns that reveal progress or weaknesses over time. In addition, at least once a year for selected grades, district or state assessments generally provide supplementary data to confirm or challenge evidence from the school's assessments.

Ongoing analyses of data can determine timely program adjustments. With accessible, aligned information, school site educators can examine instructional variations that might cause differences in academic achievement and ask: What needs to be done at various levels (within classrooms or schoolwide) to head off the problems identified in the data? Continuing analyses point out important information about curriculum scope and sequence—for example, which grade levels and ages are performing well, and which are losing ground? With this information, the faculty and staff can make the necessary adjustments in a timely manner.

Continuous progress monitoring puts accountability in the hands of faculty and staff. There are few surprises in continuous progress monitoring because the school is in control of its own assessment. Teachers and school leaders score many of their own tests, often collaboratively, so they learn the results immediately. As teams scrutinize the data, they look for information about different aspects of the school. With the data analyses they conduct, teachers and other members of a school's continuous improvement committee might ask:

• Are there grades with an especially strong or weak academic showing? How well are the fifth grades preparing students to make the transition to middle schools? Is the preschool program preparing children for entry into kindergarten as expected? Are more of our students ready to succeed in algebra classes?

• How are students with special needs doing? Are non-English or limited-English speakers improving their use of English-language test materials?

• Are there individuals or groups who are falling through the cracks? Is enough attention being given to the students most at risk? Are students who are performing in the mid-ranges encouraged to aspire to higher standards? Should we further challenge students who are already academically "proficient" to reach to the next level of achievement?

Using the priorities and strategies developed with this information at hand, schools can set improvement targets and assign goals.

Continuous progress monitoring also involves reporting the results of progress assessments to the school's key stakeholder groups. Teachers and other professionals can keep abreast of progress by poring over technical data in its raw format; for parents and the general community, however, the school should circulate a non-technical, regular publication that reports progress toward achieving the school's goals. This way, even through difficult times of transition, people can read how problems have been identified and solutions are being sought. In schoolwide programs, the school's accountability to the community fits well with school profiles and with other reporting mechanisms the planning team used during the initial comprehensive needs assessment.

Continuous progress monitoring, then, links back to comprehensive schoolwide planning. Properly implemented, progress monitoring demonstrates an ingrained commitment to full accountability by all of the school's partners. School insiders are self-critical and analytic about their practice. They welcome the views of their "critical friends," including central office administrators, community partners, and visitors. As people come and go through the school, their commitment to improvement is evident because they invite everyone in the school to share their observations and to speak out when they have suggestions. The checklist, Tool #12: Building Blocks of Continuous Improvement and Accountability for Schoolwide Programs, is useful for gauging how well the momentum begun during schoolwide planning is being sustained.

Researchers have learned that assessment is central to school improvement, in part because data are essential to informing and refocusing practice on the right outcomes. Experts at the National Center for Restructuring Education explain:

It is the action around assessment—the discussions, meetings, revisions, arguments, and opportunities to continually create new directions for teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment—that ultimately have consequence. The "things" of assessment are essentially useful as dynamic supports for reflection and action, rather than as static products with value in and of themselves (Darling-Hammond, Ancess, & Falk, 1995, p. 18).

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[Section IV - High-Quality Technical Assistance and Support for Schoolwide Planning]

[Conclusion]