Accountability Resources Available

DESE has posted several documents on their public Web site that may help people understand and explain the new state accountability system:

• School Leader's Guide to the 2012 Accountability Determinations (updated 9/4/12)
• Summary of Changes to Annual Accountability Determinations as a result of Massachusetts' Approved ESEA/NCLB Flexibility Waiver
• District & School Accountability & Assistance Levels & Required Actions
• Methodology for Identifying Level 3 Schools, Level 3 "Focus Schools" & Level 4 Schools
• Glossary of 2012 Accountability Reporting Terms

As most of you know by now, preliminary 2012 accountability data was made available in the security portal last week. It is expected that the official 2012 accountability data (along with overall MCAS data) will be made available publicly next week.

There is certainly a lot to understand in this new accountability system! Please don't hesitate to contact me (laura.tilton@dsacma.org) with any questions.

http://www.doe.mass.edu/apa/accountability/default.html

2012 Accountability Webinars

Representatives from Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will be holding three webinars to assist district and school leaders in interpreting the preliminary 2012 district and school accountability data which was made available in the security portal yesterday.

Webinars will be held on the following dates and times: Tuesday, September 11 at 10:00 a.m.; Wednesday, September 12 at 12:00 p.m.; and Thursday, September 13 at 3:00 p.m.

Topics will include: changes to annual district and school accountability determinations beginning with the 2012-13 school year as a result of Massachusetts' approved ESEA/NCLB Flexibility waiver; the Progress and Performance Index (PPI), school percentiles, and their relationship to district and school level classifications; and how district and school accountability results will be reported.

Please register at the following link: http://www.doe.mass.edu/conference/?ConferenceID=1390.

2012 School Leader's Guide to Accountability

The School Leader's Guide to the 2012 Accountability Determinations is now available publicly on the ESE Web site at http://www.doe.mass.edu/apa/accountability/default.html in either Word or PDF format.

"The primary purpose of this guide is to help district and school leaders understand the key changes to the Massachusetts School and District Accountability and Assistance System resulting from the state receiving flexibility from certain No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requirements. This guide may also be used to aid leaders in communicating these changes to parents/guardians, teachers, staff members, and other stakeholders."

This document provides extensive detail about the NCLB waiver request, the Progress and Performance Index (PPI), the Composite Performance Index (CPI), the Student Growth Percentile (SGP), and the system for classifying schools and districts to "levels" for accountability and assistance purposes.

It's a great beach read!

Emerging Practices in Rapid Achievement Gain Schools

The ESE recently published a study entitled, "Emerging Practices in Rapid Achievement Gain Schools: An Analysis of 2010-2011 Level 4 Schools to Identify Organizational and Instructional Practices that Accelerate Students’ Academic Achievement."

The goal of this study, undertaken by the The Institute for Strategic Leadership and Learning (INSTLL, LLC) was to identify significant common characteristics in school turnaround practices and/or structures between the Level 4 schools making rapid achievement gains in 2010-2011 versus those schools that made little if any gains. The analysis identified three such areas of significance:

• The school has an instruction- and results-oriented principal who has galvanized both individual and collective responsibility for the improved achievement of all students through a variety of deliberate improvement structures, expectations, practices, and continuous feedback.
• The school has created instruction-specific teaming and teacher-specific coaching for pursuing ongoing instructional improvement.
• The school has developed a well-orchestrated system of ongoing data collection and analysis that informs a continuously responsive and adaptive system of tiered instruction directly attentive to students’ specific academic needs.

The report is 22 pages but definitely worth the read (or at least a quick skim!) The presence of effective use of data is embedded in all three of these common characteristics. The recent NCLB waiver presentations discussed options for the use of reserved funds to help districts' lowest performing schools make their targets, and pointed to the Level 4 study as a place to identify high-leverage strategies for use in these efforts.

NCLB Waiver Materials

Additional materials regarding the Massachusetts NCLB flexibility request (as discussed in a recent blog post) are now available on the ESE Web site.

http://www.doe.mass.edu/apa/titlei/default.html?section=GI

Farewell, AYP....hello, PPI!

I had the opportunity to take part in both a webinar and a face-to-face session in the past week to learn more about the changes to the state's accountability system given the the flexibility that has been granted to Massachusetts under the NCLB waiver.

The waiver has given Massachusetts the flexibility to implement a system that unifies both federal and state accountability requirements, rather than separate systems for each. The major changes, as outlined in the presentations, are as follows:

• The NCLB goal of 100% proficiency has been replaced by a new goal: reducing proficiency gaps by half by 2017. This goal is the same for all districts, schools, and groups...but the targets are different since the starting points will be different.
• The NCLB accountability status labels (Corrective Action, Restructuring, etc.) have been eliminated. The "Level" designation will now be used to identify both federal and state accountability status (and corresponding assistance levels) for schools and districts.
• AYP will be replaced with a new performance measure, known as PPI (see below) that incorporates student growth and other indicators.
• There is an enhanced focus on subgroups, including a new "high needs" group (students who fall into one or more of the following categories: special education, low income, or English language learner/former English language learner.) While all subgroups (minimum 30 students) will be reported, only the "All Students" and "High Needs" groups will be used for classification for the majority of districts.
• SES and school choice requirements for federal funds are replaced with options for flexibility to address identified needs.

So what is PPI? It stands for Progress and Performance Index. Each district, school, and measurable subgroup will  have two different types of PPI; an annual PPI as well as a four-year PPI. For elementary and middle schools, the PPI incorporates five elements:

• Progress on CPI gap-closing in ELA
• Progress on CPI gap-closing in math
• Progress on CPI gap-closing in science
• Student Growth in ELA
• Student Growth in Math

PPI measures for high schools will include these five elements, plus graduation rates and annual drop-out rates. In addition, it is possible to improve a PPI rating through decreases in %W/F and increases in %Adv.

This is just the tip of the iceberg! The ESE presenters have indicated materials from the workshops will be available online in the near future. I will post the link here when I have it.

Update 5/9/2012: Materials now available, see blog post here.