Monday, October 23, 2017

Evening meeting of the Board of Ed

coming in a bit late here to the presentation; I'll see if I can pick up what I missed later


Bob Lee: let's get into what happens with students that don't have every advantage
51% in the bottom two categories; 49% in the top two
27-29% of Hispanic students meeting expectations...if we want to see more students going to college; we need to see more work there

Q: what is high needs referring to?
Lee: any student in any of the (ED, ELL, of color) is high needs

If you were looking at the students where about 50% of the students were proficient before
if you look at areas in which students were 90% proficient there's been falling off, but, short version is, don't panic

never had scaled scores before that allowed us to compute averages
very unusual to calculate across grades
calculate on a scaled score method, comparing from one score to another
"knew that our girls were doing better than our boys for awhile...gets larger as you move through the grades"
boys are not graduating from college at the same rate

Sagan: how big is the gap of 18 or 19 points? one semester? one year
Lee: about 20 points
a standard deviation is about a year's worth of learning
West: much larger than a year's worth of learning...I'd say it's more like three years of learning
Sagan: "it's really indicating the gap is still huge"

economically disadvantaged students: gap of about ten points
ELL: students leave the program as they gain language
gap is large
on NAEP, we've seen our ELL students and English

Wulfson: first year on a new test
students have never taken it before
"one data point in time"
"established a year good baseline"
"I'd be wary of jumping to too many conclusions"
concerned about achievement gaps...still have a significant number of students who are already meeting or exceeding expectations
"our public schools can get you over the bar"
"just a question of figuring out what our schools are doing it righ are doing already"


Chandler Elementary: "not going to talk about the reasons we placed them under review"
Wulfson: do a lot of statistically analysis
every so often something pops up that significant outliers
superintendent and principal are aware of that and are cooperating

Stewart: students have been working with the frameworks for awhile
how long til we get the analysis back on the end of the test
Wulfson: expect to release to schools...didn't want to release at the same time
sometime over next months
first time survey, still trying to validate the survey questions

Fernandez: supports that ELL students get?
no ELA for the first year (take ACCESS instead)
all students are able to take extended time on the test
word to work dictionary

Stapel: resources to field:
able to pull down student essays
practice test format for interactive items
exemplars for student work; score point for each individual essay looks like
parents and educators: on website
interactive parent guide, FAQs, resources for superintendents and districts

Trimarchi: resources for students?
Stapel: more applicable as it gets towards high school
Wulfson: would welcome feedback on what would be useful to students
Trimarchi: anything built into educator resources
Fernandez: can attest third grade daughter is asking about her MCAS scores, and will be looking for resources to explain it
any way to tell who is accessing the data?
Stapel: making a concerted effort to do more and more outreach to parents as an agency
Sagan: available in several languages?
Stapel: some of it is

Morton:
recall a systemwide effort on getting students over the bar
Stapel

Morton: really concerned about the results for third graders
cites the "prisons built based on third grade reading scores"
Wulfson: new scoring scale, raising the bar, but consistent with work we've started
"just need to be intensified"

Doherty: anything in results that surprised you? any pattern that you see?
Wulfson: leads into next presentation on accountability results

Moriarty: very important that we're not trying to get certain results (as other states)
third grade ranges from single rates to 40%
want to make sure we're pulling out the right kind of lessons

Peyser: healthy skepticism that we'd even get to this point
what seems like a very smooth implementation
also met high standards of the department over years

Wulfson: school and district accountability system required by state and federal law
working under old system, but due to new test and ESSA, will be coming back for discussions and decisions on development of new accountability system
will be in use a year from now after second testing round
will give you a sense of how we're seeing this now

Curtin:
"we're in a little bit of an interesting year on school and district accountability"
will discuss results in detail from Level 5 schools and districts
Levels 3, 4, 5 encompass lowest 20% of schools
all schools above the 20% switches to a more criterion referenced system (relative to meeting their own targets)
Level 1: meeting targets
Level 2: not (in at least one)
"we're in a period of accountability transition"
"only for last year...works out to a pretty simple question for schools: if the school administered the next generation MCAS"
If yes, reset
If no, remained as in previous years
if school did not test 90% of students (either all or in subgroups) were put in Level 3
any that serve ALSO 9-12 with persistently low graduation rate were put in Level 3 (4 year rate less than 67%, 70% for five years I think he said for four years?)
Level 4 or 5 that did not exit maintained level designation
NO LEVEL for all others: no percentile, no PPI

Sagan: so if they took it before, they were held harmless?
Curtin: no, if they took the new test their designation was "no level" (that's my paraphrase; he was more polite)

no new Level 4 or 5 grade 3-8
no new Level 4 or 5 high schools
will serve as basis of accountability system ahead
next generation: "achievement percentile" compared to others
also transitional student growth percentiles

Curtin: equity concerns about all students being tested across all subgroups
starting to think about a multi-year participation rate (due to small size)
we "have held a belief for many years of all students being tested"
Wulfson: want to be sure there's no incentive to discourage students from taking test

Curtin:
2007 Board of Education declared Randolph an underperforming district
last remaining district in Level 4 from that declaration
"at the Commissioner's discretion, we have released Randolph"
have improved "from both a performance and a governance perspective" have improved
looking for sustainability in improvements for Level 4 and 5; some may be recognized next year
Wulfson: last thing we'd want to do is "ping pong" the standards; have them out and back in


Johnston: Level 5 schools
all schools have completed three years and have renewed three year plans
notes that the Morgan (Holyoke) has been improving in percentiles over time
"I have visited the school this year...they are being very solidly led"
West: what did you mean by above 40% being growth?
just wanted to make sure you weren't saying there was negative growth in 40%
Moriarty: concern with middle school; wondering if some restructuring isn't in order

Parker (New Bedford)
"very small school" (chart basically shows that it bounced up then back down then back up)
have an update tomorrow on level 5 schools
how did the students fall in the growth percentile; fit pretty evenly into the bands of growth
Trimarchi: you'd consider the 39 and 18 to be lower than average growth? Yes ('though 39 is very close)
"the improvements aren't sustaining"

UP Academy Holland:
UP network is under new leadership

Dever: "cautious about saying we see a trend"
"very strong growth, particularly in math"
turnaround now under oversight of BPS
"said all along that Blueprint was leaving a strong foundation"
Moriarty math "vastly outpaced state outcomes"
they're 70...Chandler El got pulled from an 85

 Lawrence: very continued steady growth in Lawrence
"we are again overall showing signs of continued development in Lawrence"
first year that Lawrence High stands on its own (because the district's Level 5 is essentially a freeze)
Lawrence High is 12th percentile; higher than many other turnaround high schools in the state

Southbridge: first year of turnaround
growth results are bouncing around over past years, but increase from last year (which is when it was under receivership)
"while 49% is not satisfactory, we are pleased to see the increase" (that's high school math)

Holyoke:
"Dean is remaining at the current one percentile"
Holyoke High at 12? I think?
district has recognized need for high school work
"building up to implementing a redesign that will go into effect" next year

Wulfson: how will we use system to identify schools that are doing well in reaching high need students?
see high performance in level 1 and 2
"how do we make it a more robust evaluation"
"already identified a wider range of" inputs for accountability
"anticipate a wider range discussion on achievement versus growth"
"a real good discussion to be had on what an appropriate balance is"
"a lot of people arguing with good justification that we should be looking at a higher weighting of growth"

Johnston: both growth and performance improvement this year
more to come particularly in January when we come back to show the accountability system we're thinking about

Moriarty: "it's almost a hands up in despair at these numbers"
"i don't want to make excuses; I want to make changes"
Johnston: "keep in mind, it's a baseline year...don't want to rush to judgment"
Wulfson: "turnaround at the high school level is much more difficult than turnaround at the earlier level"
students who haven't had earlier grades, much more difficult

adjourned til tomorrow
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