Thursday, December 22, 2011

A Holiday Gift for You

I have been working with a fellow data specialist to create a how-to guide on Creating Student Growth Rosters for Instructional Groups. If you're interested in generating growth/performance reports in the EDW for a specific classroom, intervention group, team, etc., this is the process to follow. Basic knowledge about the use of the Education Data Warehouse and Microsoft Excel are required to complete this process.

The document focuses on the G-602 Student Growth Roster (in the older EDW) which provides three years of MCAS performance data (scaled score) and the most recent student growth percentile (SGP) for each student for both Mathematics and ELA. The report also provides a median SGP for the group, if there are 20 or more students with SGPs in the group.

Please refer to my previous blog post on Examining MCAS Growth Data by Classroom for more thoughts about the opportunity to engage staff in discussions about growth data now as we move toward the new educator evaluation system.

I shared this process with a district colleague earlier in the week, and she sent me an email the next day saying, "I think I love you!!!!...Our secretary was able to get 3 years instructional groups for me with state IDs. The reports are soooooo easy to do and save!!! You saved me tons of time. I am very excited." So I hope there are other readers out there who will have the same reaction.

Happy Holidays to all!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Educator Evaluation Resources Coming from ESE

The December 8 Commissioner's Update included (among many other important bits of information) several resources under development related to the state's new educator evaluation system. The Model System will be released in January, accompanied by a webinar and regional rollout meetings for Race to the Top districts. Later this spring, there will be a set of training materials and other resources available to support districts as they implement this new system.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Updated Profiles Reports: Student Indicators and Graduate Information

The following School and District Profiles reports were recently updated to include the latest available data.





Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS) Pilot

DESE is creating the Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS), a data-driven system designed to identify students kindergarten through high school that are potentially "off-track" for grade-level or developmental age, including those students that are off-track for high school graduation (potential dropouts).

There will be an informational phone conference held on Monday, December 12, and applications are due Friday, December 16. Districts interested in finding out more about participating in the EWIS Data Pilot can read more about the project and fill out an application at http://www.doe.mass.edu/dropout/ (scroll down for the info about the pilot.)