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Assess School and
Staff Needs
How Have States Implemented AYP?
How Do Districts Support Schools to Meet AYP?
How Do Schools Meet AYP?


School and staff needs should be assessed by principals based on the performance of students on the state content standards and indicators.

Principals need to understand where their school is relative to the AYP target, how their teachers monitor student progress, and how they use the monitoring data to adjust instruction based on student needs.
 
To accomplish these ends, principals
 
  1. need to analyze state assessment data to determine where their students are in relation to the content standard indicators and whether they met the AYP targets in mathematics and reading/language arts;
  2. need to evaluate whether they have in place at their schools the key processes that would enable teachers to collect evidence of learning, monitor student progress on the content standard indicators, and collaboratively examine student performance; and
  3. need to analyze monitoring data to determine where students are in relation to the content standard indicators on a daily basis.
     
The first two steps provide the data to direct your school improvement goals and strategies. The third step — analyzing your monitoring data — gives you the data to direct classroom instruction on a daily basis. In all three areas, principals need to model for and train staff to regularly collect, analyze and use data to inform instruction.




Analyzing state assessment data
The state assessment data for your school is the critical data to determine whether you've met your AYP target. Strengths and weaknesses in performance by the whole school, subgroups, or individuals begin to emerge with careful study of your data. Analyzing your data is a process in which 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 involve all staff in the process. The odds of teachers making the instructional changes needed for improved student achievement are much greater when they are involved in analyzing the data and what it tells them about current achievement.
 
Some typical questions to address in your data analysis process include the following:
  • Did we meet our AYP target?
  • At what proficiency levels are our students performing?
  • Are their disparities among subgroups?
  • Are we making progress?
  • How did our performance compare to our district or state?
  • Which schools similar to ours outscored us?
  • What questions does the data raise for you?
     
Several states have created online guided data analysis to help schools interpret their state assessment data. These web sites are identified in the resources section.
 

Analyze whether key processes are in place
Once schools know the content area in which they need to improve student achievement, school teams must now identify, collect, and analyze additional quantitative and qualitative data to provide a more complete picture of the school's strengths and needs in the instructional program of the low performing area(s). All staff need to be involved in the process.
 
There is no end to the amount of data that can be collected and analyzed abut your instructional program. However there is a limit to the time you have to collect and analyze it. Our premise is that improved student achievement is based on alignment of instruction and assessment with the content standard indicators and knowing where your students are on the indicators is a prerequisite to knowing what to do next. Consequently, we recommend focusing the collection of data on what teachers need to know and do to understand where their students are in relation to the indicators and what processes they need to have in place to do it.
 
There are five processes that need to be in place to hit any instructional target and should serve as the basis for an exploration of your instructional program. To accurately identify the problem, teams need to collect additional data about their instructional program and the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of their staff.
 

Five Key Processes for Hitting Your Target
  1. Understanding the Target
    • Do all staff understand what students are asked to know and do on the state assessments?
    • Do all staff understand how student performance is scored on the state assessments and what a proficient and advanced student response looks like?
       
  2. Teaching the Indicators
    • Do all staff know the standards, expectations, and indicators they are responsible for teaching?
    • Do all staff teach them?
    • Do all staff review them periodically to check for retention?
       
  3. Assessing the Indicators
    • Do all staff know how to assess the content standard indicators?
    • How are they being assessed in your program?
    • What do the results indicate?
       
  4. Monitoring Individual Student Progress
    • Are all staff monitoring progress of individual students on these indicators?
    • How do they use the data to inform instruction?
    • How and with whom do they share the results?
       
  5. Intervening with students not succeeding
    • Do all staff provide interventions for students not demonstrating attainment of an indicator?
    • What are your most common interventions for students not achieving?
    • How successful are the interventions?
       
You may want to collaborate with your school improvement or leadership team to identify strategies for collecting evidence of where your school is on these five processes. Harmony Hills Elementary School, located in Montgomery County, Maryland, created surveys for staff as a way of collecting data from their teachers. Their low performance areas were writing and reading. It may be self-evident that you need to collect separate information on two areas in order to differentiate the needs. The survey findings were used to generate a discussion about what their high impact problems were and what they needed to do to address them. Their survey results for writing and reading follow.
 
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The next two worksheets identify what teachers need to know and do if they are going to effectively monitor student progress, identify where students are on the indicators, diagnose what students still need to learn, and use the data to inform instruction. In all of these surveys, staff are self-reporting where they are. When they report that they don't know or don't do certain things, there is little reason to question the accuracy of their responses. However, when they self-report that they do know or do something, you might want to use other data to verify the information from classroom walk-throughs, data dialogues, and the end products created at team meetings.
 
A major purpose in asking staff to assess these areas is to determine where capacity building and professional development is needed. By having staff focus on these areas, you are also communicating what you value and where you want staff to focus their time and energy.
 
Principals could use the following self-assessments in a number of ways. They might use it with their leadership team or all staff to both get an idea of where they are and to focus staff on the importance of these processes. They might also use it at the end of the year to celebrate growth and identify challenges by identifying where they were at the beginning of the year and then at the end of the year.
 

Where are you in getting the key processes in place to hit your target?
How often do you or your team do the following?
 
 Less oftenQuarterlyMonthlyBi-weeklyWeeklyDaily
Staff      
Teach the indicators      
Provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate proficiency      
Revise instruction based on data      
Diagnose what students know and still need to learn      
Grade level teams      
Reach consensus as a grade level team on what defines proficiency      
Consistently score student work      
Analyze monitoring data on an ongoing basis      
Regularly examine student work      
Diagnose what students know and need to learn      
Identify instructional implications of the data      
Identify staff development needs      
Identify interventions based on data      

 
How would you rate your understanding in the following areas?
 
  1  2  3  4 
Know the intent (knowledge and cognitive domain) of the content standard indicators    
Know what proficiency looks like    
Know how to create opportunities for students to demonstrate proficiency
     • Assessments
     • Assignments / Classwork
     • Projects
     • Oral questions		    
Know how to interpret student performance    
Know how to monitor progress    
Know how to analyze monitoring data    
Know how to examine student work    
Know how to identify implications for instruction based on the data    
Know how to use data to plan interventions    

1 = little understanding; 2 = some understanding; 3 = good understanding; 4 = excellent understanding;
 
These surveys are most useful when used as a stimulus for a discussion about where the staff are, what the results mean, and what the school should do next. These discussions provide an opportunity to both reaffirm expectations and focus as well as to get on the same page with understanding key expectations and challenges.
 

Analyze monitoring data
Analyzing your monitoring data is an ongoing process to inform daily instruction, but should also be invaluable information in a number of additional situations:
 
  • When checking on whether classroom data correlates with state assessment results
  • When designing intervention programs for students based on what evidence of learning data we have
  • When communicating to the student's next year teacher where he/she is in relation to the content standard indicators
  • When comparing teacher assessment of proficient student work in the classroom with the state's assessment of proficient student work on the state test
     
Teachers need modeling, professional development, and ongoing monitoring to become proficient in using data to improve student achievement. Principals will need to make sure they set clear expectations, focus on good use of evidence of learning data, model how staff will be expected to use data on a regular basis to understand where students are, and monitor staff in their use of data.
 

Resources for assessing school and staff needs
Online technical assistance
 
State Web sites that provide support in analyzing state data
 
Maryland
http://mdk12.org/data/worksheets/index.asp
http://mdk12.org/data/worksheets/learn.asp
 
Wisconsin
http://data.dpi.state.wi.us/data/selschool.asp
 
Illinois
http://206.166.105.86/analysis/addquestions.asp
 
New York
http://accelerateu.org/help/dataApps/index.cfm?Group_ID=0&SessionID=1366
 
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Online articles
 
Improving Teaching and Learning with Data-Based Decisions:
Asking the Right Questions and Acting on the Answers by Nancy Protheroe in the Summer 2001 issue of ERS Spectrum.
 


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