8 steps to improvement

Indiana district examines student data and adjusts instruction

By Joan Richardson

The Learning System, October 2005, Vol. 1, No. 2

Copyright, National Staff Development Council, 2005. All rights reserved.

Peggy Hinckley had a clear mandate when she arrived as superintendent of Warren Township schools in Indiana four years ago: improve student learning.

The suburban Indianapolis district of 12,000 students had successfully emerged from court-ordered desegregation. "But we were still teaching the same way we had been teaching when we were teaching all white kids in the 1970s. We had not come to grips with the fact that our children now are mostly minority and mostly living in poverty," she said.

"We had many teachers who wanted their practice to be better. But we had no consistency across the district in what we were teaching. Our grade-level teams were not focused on instruction," she said.

In her search for an answer, Hinckley discovered the story of Brazosport, Texas, the small coastal Texas district that experienced significant improvements in student learning after teachers learned an eight-step process for examining student data and adjusting their instruction. She invited consultant Pat Davenport, who had been integral in Brazosport's changes, to share the story with Warren Township principals. Hinckley offered to fund up to three schools to work with Davenport to implement the same process in the district if they could convince her their staffs were ready for this step.

"Schools come to a stage of readiness at different times. Their need to be there had to be driving them. I believe you have to see a personal need in order to be willing to make necessary changes," said Hinckley.

Teams from two elementary schools and one middle school - all schools deemed low performers on the statewide Indiana assessment - embarked on learning the eight-step process from Davenport in summer 2002.

The eight steps look like this:

Step 1: Disaggregate and analyze student data, including test results.

Step 2: Develop an instructional calendar in the core subjects.

Step 3: Deliver an instructional focus, based on the calendar.

Step 4: Assess student mastery of the standard taught by using common formative and summative assessments written by teachers.

Step 5: Provide additional instruction for students who did not master the standard.

Step 6: Provide enrichment for students who have mastered the standard.

Step 7: Provide ongoing maintenance of standards taught.

Step 8: Monitor the process by using classroom walk-throughs, learning logs, grade-level meetings.

One of Warren Township's first actions was creating an instructional calendar and an instructional focus tied to the state academic standards for math and language arts in each grade level. Teams of teachers typically create such calendars as a way to ensure that every student gets instruction in every standard in an orderly fashion.

Built into the calendar are brief, three-week common assessments written by teachers to gauge students' progress towards mastering each standard. After that, principals meet with every grade-level team to talk about what patterns they see in the results and what support and changes in instruction are necessary.

Results of the common assessments determine which students should obtain enrichment, maintenance, or remediation on the concept during a 30-minute Success Period at the end of each school day. The Success Period allows regular instruction to move forward without neglecting those who need additional support.

Looking at data was a new process for the teachers and the principals. One of the lessons about data is that "the data is not about good, it's not about bad, it's about what we do next," Hinckley said.

"Teachers needed training in what to do with assessment results and how to work together as a team," she said.

Hinckley deliberately started small. "The first year only happens one time so you have to proceed cautiously. Mandating the training across the district was going to be more than we could manage. I was concerned that if we tried to do more than two or three schools, we could not implement very effectively and we would fail. I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to get a handle on all of the bumps if everyone did it at once. But, if (the pilot) schools were successful, the momentum would carry us with the other schools," she said.

Her gamble paid off. One of the pilot schools, Heather Hills Elementary School, experienced a dramatic gain in reading from 27% passing to 54% passing in a single year. "Well, the word of mouth on that was amazing," she said.

Since then, one elementary school earned a Four Star rating from the state for performing in the top 25% of all Indiana schools. Seven of 11 elementary schools experienced double-digit increases in achievement, ranging from 10 to 34 percentage points. At the middle schools, math achievement scores went up five to eight percentage points for 6th graders.

CRITICAL FACTORS FOR SUCCESS

Warren Township's success in moving the needle on student achievement rests on two key components.

The first is that the process that was chosen depends on a deep investment by teachers in learning from and with each other how to improve their practice. The outside consultant provides initial training and visits every six to eight weeks for follow-up process checks to learn what's working, what's not, what needs revising.

Principal Phil Talbert from Hawthorne Elementary School said the whole process is "designed from the bottom up. You could not do this without the work that the teachers do."

In particular, he points to the instructional calendar and the common assessments as devices that required teacher participation and became more valuable each time teachers revised and shared them.

"That really helped turn the page in this district. Every teacher is talking about the standards, everyone is talking about the assessment, everyone knows about the priority. That's where the shift occurred," he said.

The second crucial factor is the quality of leadership at the top.

"There is a focus, a vision in this district. As the Scripture says, 'without a vision, the people will perish.' Well, we are staying with the vision. We are not jumping on something else tomorrow. There is stability and consistency and ongoing support right from the top," said Talbert.

Davenport calls Hinckley "the most instructional superintendent I've ever worked with."

"I go into a lot of districts at the invitation of the superintendent. But changing a whole system involves a lot more than having the superintendent introduce you to the principals and offering to pay the bill.

"Peggy Hinckley has been with me every step of the way. She goes with me to each campus when I do the process checks. At the end of every day, she and I have a debriefing. It's very unusual for a superintendent to do that. She's right there on the front line every step of the way," Davenport said.

In addition, Hinckley reports to the school board about the process every month. When there were bumps in the beginning, Hinckley credits the board with making it clear that this direction had its support. "In the first year, teachers were screaming to the rafters about using the calendar and doing the assessments. We had meetings where we just let them vent. Board members came to those meetings because they wanted to understand their objections. But they made it very clear that this was the direction we were taking," Hinckley said.

"Now, I think if we tried to take the calendars away from teachers, we'd have a revolution!" she said.

Overall, Hinckley believes the eight-step process has put a lot of positive energy into the district. "I assume that nobody is doing the wrong thing on purpose. I assume that it's a lack of training. When teachers have the skills and know how to plan, they will use them and they will move kids farther along," she said.