Tuesday, October 30, 2018

October Board of Education: accountability

There's a memo here, but there's a PowerPoint presentation here, too, which I'll grab some charts from.
Riley: get an overall impression of how we're at

Turns over to Staples: MCAS is up first
"we've been taking a lot of calls in our office, walking schools and districts through results"
second year of grades 3-8 second gen MCAS; science and grade 10 is legacy test
overall rates taken by mode; paper based is lowering rapidly
MCAS ELA: second year, so starting to see some trends
can't ascribe change as yet
"now the average student for the first time is 'meeting expectations' in grades 3-6"
"cautious optimism...look for the results on NAEP"
7th and 8th grade English "more of a spreading"
"enough to take note of"
not meeting is up, but also more students at the top
"I don't if that's a function of our measurement device or a function of what we've seen in the earlier grades"
Sagan: "only half the kids are meeting expectations...to me is the challenge...we just can't lose track of that"
West: pattern in grades 3-6 and 3-5, "changes are fairly substantial"
"about as large of a single year improvement as genuinely could be generated through good practice"
"pattern is very encouraging"
Moriarty: "you change that third grade, and you see that green bar go up"
mathmatics: spreading in eighth grade, seventh grade "a tiny bit more students at the low end than we did last year"
Legacy 10th grade: last year of this reporting
new assessment will reflect changing asperations
drop off in 8th grade proficiency in science; measuring old standards, and perhaps change practice is reflected in results
subgroups: note change in enrolled student population over last year
spread is not concentrated in younger grades
Sagan "we should note that the people from Hawai'i are coming for the weather, obviously"
scaled scores by group


Accountability: Curtin: high-level summary
"this is the first year of the accountability system...it is a baseline year"
"I have urged everyone not to try to compare any of the results in this accountability system with the previous"
 did not name any new underperforming or chronically underperforming schools; and four were released from underperforming status
"highest level takeaway I can give you is how the new accountability system played out...how schools did against their own targets...68% of schools were shown to be improving or better"
52 schools of recognition
"to be very factual in naming things" :74% of schools not requiring assistance or intervention
14% requiring assistance or intervention
12% insufficient data
Curtin: high, looking for ways of including those with insufficient data (either too small, not tested grades, or too new)
about a third categorized as meeting their targets; half as partly; 14% in need of focused or targeted support; only 2% in need of broad or comprehensive support
Schools in broad/comprehensive: 24 previous Level 4
Schools in focused/targeted support:
131 schools are in lowest 10%: Why?
5 schools are solely because of the graduation rate below 66.7%
27 schools are solely because of subgroup performance
64 schools are solely because of low testing participation: based on two years assessing; "overwhelming were for subgroup participation" though did attempt to mitigate by using two years
(all others are for some combination including overall performance)

McKenna notes low subgroup performance could rank anywhere in overall performance

Districts: 17% meeting targets; 75% partially meeting
"there's a lot more targets to meet"
"take a look at 'have we done that correctly?'"

Two big metrics are how district is doing at meeting targets and how it's doing relative to others
"as you go down, you can look at how you're doing metric by metric"
both overall and with lowest performing groups
can look subgroup by subgroup and can look data point by data point
Moriarty: any districts driven by chronic absenteeism?
Curtin: seeing this year rather than last year
"have talked to a lot of districts...have put a renewed focus on it"

target percentages: partially meeting targets
"might think again about how to label that"
"if a school were to improve on every single indicator, they would get a two on every single indicator, and they'd get a percentage of 50"
if it's 50 or higher, "that means that in general, that means that school improved"
68% of schools and 67% of districts met that

"not going to be an accountability-free year for you"
released a survey to the field yesterday on the accountability release; will come back to Board with that
have to make a decision this year with what to do with grade 10 accountability this year
if changes are needed, may need to talk to US Ed and to the Legislature for changes

McKenna: Commissioner is taking this year to think about this process
NASBE: growth of subgroups as an indicator
"if you're serious about moving bottom 20%, how to focus on that"
paying attention to the arts but not an indicator: "has to be someplace"
Curtin: bringing to the Board the revised district and school report card to accompany accountability report, including access to the arts
"access to the arts and other indicators are certainly on the table moving forward in the accountability system"
West: focus on lowest performing focus, he supports
McKenna: lowest performing kids at Boston Latin don't need same help as lowest performing kids at English High

Stewart: working with field?
Riley: appreciate the question; what I've come to realize...federal government requires us to do the testing...the field has been unhappy with the amount of time it takes to give the assessment
maybe that's through adaptive testing, maybe that's through controversial AI scoring
also interested in survey results, as that will help us determine where we're going

Fernández: does survey include families? "is my voice included in how we're moving in this direction?"
Curtin: not available to general public; released to associations
take these survey results, "I don't consider this the only stakeholder engagement we include"
when we discuss what we want to include, then go wider
"number one goal on school and district report card is to be parent-friendly"
"we think that we can design a school and district report card that's much more parent-friendly...we spent a ton of time there"
Fernández: is there a question on the survey on how families are receiving data?
Curtin: there is not
McKenna: ran into a parent on the AAAC
Curtin: seats are defined in regulation

Johnson: responding with support to results
state has conducted research into interventions since 2010
work that is defined: assistance teams, funding, PD, turnaround planning and support, networks

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