Growth measures for, systemic change: through periodic learning assessments, you can analyze which instructional programs are most effective, make student groupings and reallocate resources to areas of need

School Administrator, Jan, 2007 by Allan Olson

The Beaufort County schools combine results from the MAP growth measures with data acquired through a districtwide survey of professional and administrative staff, as well as food service employees and school bus drivers. The addition of data on process, as revealed in this survey, aligned with data on student growth, allows Beaufort administrators to make more informed decisions about school and district operations to produce greater student growth.

In short, an assessment built on growth measurement not only assures that educators can appropriately challenge all children and raise student learning, it also can provide the foundation for better decision making at a district level, thereby improving how schools are organized and programs delivered.

Answerability

The ability to organize educational institutions around individual student growth has to start with district leadership. School board members, superintendents and principals all play a role in setting policy, adopting programs and organizing the delivery of instructional services to meet the needs of children.

At the policy level, school boards must create a culture that is focused on the values and principles that foster constant improvement in learning. If the core values of the district are to organize and deliver instruction in a way that allows all children to be appropriately challenged, then specific curriculum, programs, schedule changes, teacher effectiveness or school performance can be assessed based on how well it fosters academic growth in students.

School boards, as well as district superintendents, then must own and manage a system of answerability. In the Horry County, S.C., school district, the superintendent and administrative staff would meet at least three times a year to examine student data regarding achievement, growth, growth targets, attendance, attitude and other criteria. (See related article, page 12.) The data are disaggregated across all of the important local factors, such as race, gender, program and status (high-achieving, average or low-achieving students).

Periodic reporting should help the school board to:

* Understand the relationship between student needs and resource allocation by building and program, and likewise, that teacher effort is appropriately focused.

* Have access to the context variables that are important to support effective leadership.

* Support staff development that is responsive to locally derived evidence.

* Support changes in school calendars and school schedules to assure the use of time maximizes learning.

Periodic reports not only keep a board current regarding school and district performance, they also inform how the district is ranked compared with like districts or with national averages. NWEA has created a data warehouse of longitudinal growth data. Although data are currently used by NWEA staff researchers and partner research organizations, one day the data will be open to individual school districts. Stripped of all student identifiers, these data then can provide a robust pool for creating virtual comparison groups. Districts can compare the costs and effectiveness of programs, organizational structures and the use of time or structure for grouping of students. In addition, the longitudinal data offer a quick comparison with state and national averages of student growth and achievement.