Anne Bubnic's List: Data/Student Achievement

Data warehousing has become an essential district tool. Historically available only to large corporations due to price and complexity, data warehousing is now an affordable and manageable option for gathering, manipulating and incorporating district data. While the inclusion of a data warehouse can be a boon for districts, the process of its development and support needs careful planning and management.

From judging performance to guiding students to shaping instruction to informing learning, coming to grips with informative assessment is one insightful journey.

A Louisiana district scours a year's worth of discipline reports for patterns. It occurred to Bowman that analyzing the reports could provide insight into the root causes of disciplinary problems--tardiness, dress code violations, fighting, vandalism, and more--as well as the effectiveness of how the schools deal with them, and how fairly discipline is enforced. The reports generally contain structured data, including demographic information such as the student's grade and age, and a written narrative that describes the infraction.

Performance assessements go beyond traditional tests and serve as an important teaching tool.

We know that the typical multiple-choice and short-answer tests aren't the only way, or necessarily the best way, to gauge a student's knowledge and abilities. Many states are incorporating performance-based assessments into their standardized tests or adding assessment vehicles such as student portfolios and presentations as additional measures of student understanding.\n\nThese rigorous, multiple forms of assessment require students to apply what they're learning to real world tasks. These include standards-based projects and assignments that require students to apply their knowledge and skills, such as designing a building or investigating the water quality of a nearby pond; clearly defined rubrics (or criteria) to facilitate a fair and consistent evaluation of student work; and opportunities for students to benefit from the feedback of teachers, peers, and outside experts.\n\nWith these formative and summative types of assessment come the ability to give students immediate feedback. They also allow a teacher to immediately intervene, to change course when assessments show that a particular lesson or strategy isn't working for a student, or to offer new challenges for students who've mastered a concept or skill

You must teach vocabulary if you expect students to use it.

May 2008 : THE Journal. The challenge for teachers is to find ways to support in-depth learning and increased student achievement, "...while also employing a variety of measures, including standardized tests." What kinds of new methods would provide the kind of learning environments and learning measurements that truly reflect the learning that is taking place? What new skills are needed if instructors are to meet this challenge?

The HSTW Assessment, administered to seniors, is used by HSTW states, districts and schools to document school improvement efforts. It is comprised of three subject tests (reading, mathematics and science) coupled with a student survey. This assessment provides comprehensive school-level data that disaggregate students' achievement by their perceptions of school and classroom experiences. These results have given schools, districts and states a unique opportunity to determine what is and is not working to increase student achievement. The assessment is administered by all HSTW sites in even-numbered years.

Five Organizing Themes provide the primary structure for studying the practices of Consistently Higher Performing Schools. The themes represent the broad topics that connect the identified practices across different organizational levels. Together, these themes capture the primary instructional activities undertaken by school systems and represent the major content areas in which practices of higher performing school systems differ from their average-performing counterparts.

In a move that could prompt major changes in the way states measure the achievement of English-language learners, the U.S. Department of Education is planning to tell states they must each use a consistent yardstick in determining when a child is fluent in English and when that child no longer needs special ELL services.

Teachers understand the importance of accountability and they embrace it. But an accurate and fair school accountability system remains elusive.Accountability has become a ‘gotcha game’—designed to blame and punish, rather than to build capacity for improvement. Article describes four pillars of a new system of accountability.

“Data-based decisions”—the phrase has become a buzzword in education over the last few years. However, it does make sense that using information to help clarify issues, identify alternative solutions to problems, and target resources more effectively will lead to better decisions. The real question should not be whether to integrate the use of data in decision making, but how.Finding good data and using it effectively is actually a complex process—one that many schools and districts are just beginning to address. One specific type of data-based decision making that shows promise for helping schools dramatically increase student achievement is the use of assessment data to drive instructional improvement

The primary purpose of the pro­active schoolwide discipline plan is to create a positive, safe, supportive, and welcoming environment for all students and staff. Once this environment is established, teachers and educators are in a stronger position to provide instruction.

Making data part of instructional planning can be challenging, especially if teachers are not used to thinking about assessment and data as a regular part of the process. This article offers helpful tips.

<b>The Future of Reading: Digital Versus Print. </B><br>This is the first in a series of articles that looks at how the Internet and other technological and social forces are changing the way people read.

If our end goal is to improve student achievement to meet AYP, then a critical intermediate goal is to determine where each of our students is in relation to the state content standards. While the logic is clear, most schools do not collect evidence of or for learning on an ongoing basis. We don't know what to teach students to take them to proficiency on indicators/objectives without knowing where they currently are on those indicators/objectives.

Analyzing your data is a process you will want to involve your entire staff. There are a number of variables that will help you determine the best strategy for your school including the size of staff, organization of teams, availability of computers with Internet, and the amount of staff meeting time. The critical piece is that you model the importance of data analysis and that you involve (mandate) all staff in the process. The odds of teachers making the instructional changes needed for improved student achievement are much greater when the data and what it tells them about current achievement.