Doctors exist to make sick people better.  Businesses exist to make money.  Schools exist to make kids learn.  Each world-- medicine, business, education-- functions through a process.  Our process is called school improvement.  Every action of our day aligns to this process.

"Good morning, Mr. Johnson.  What are doing today in math class?"

"Working on fractions because increasing this understandings in the minds of our students will result in higher levels of achievement which will lead our school toward making our school improvement goal that math achievement will rise.  Thanks for asking."

"Good Morning, Coach Ayala."  What are you planning for today's practice?"

"Extra lines and wind sprints.  When our student athletes are stronger and faster, not only are they more successful in the competition, they are more able to learn the fractions in Mr. Johnson's math class.  They are even more likely to be in school in the first place because of their extra curricular involvement.  Therefore, it could be said that extra lines and wind sprints are leading us toward our school improvement goal of increased student achievement in math.  Thanks for asking."

"Superintendent Smith, what are you doing today?"

"I am attending the RtI meeting with our principals and curriculum director because once we learn about RtI, we will have a structure to establish in our district that will facilitate the achievement of our school improvement goals.  Attending today's meeting is part of our professional development.  Being here today and then acting on what we learn is the way to school improvement.  Thanks for asking."

"Sarah, what are you doing at the ESU today?"

"Working on several projects that our panhandle schools need to improve their schools. Every day is about school improvement.  Thanks for asking."

School Improvement Basics

1.  Every thing that happens at school is toward the end of accomplishing the school improvement goal which is one of three things-  improve reading, improve writing, or improve math.

2.  A district has a professional development plan so it can map out the when, what, who, and how the school improvement goal will be accomplished. 

Step 1    Highly functional schools have the dates for staff development on the calendar for the the next year before the current year is even over.  Of course, the school might not know exactly what the staff development will be April 27 at 2:00, but we do know that somehow at that place and time we will be working toward our school improvement goal.

Step 2  If a school already has the structure for staff development in place, the next step is to set objectives for those days that support the achievement of the school improvement goal.

Step 3  Monitoring. 

"What gets measured gets done."  McRel 

"What is not monitored is optional."  Learning Network

We do staff development and wonder why nothing sticks or gets implemented.  Are we doing walk throughs at our schools specifically looking for what the staff development was about, giving timely and meaningful feedback in relationship to the staff development objective, and then collecting data about the current level of understanding and implementation to use in planning the next staff development?

 

I understand that my role in this community is to encourage and model the professional growth opportunities that are possible with this technology. That being said, I have a surface knowledge of school improvement and assessment, and when I come across information that may be valuable to this group I will share. I was doing a little research to find other bloggers posting on topics that will be valuable to this community and came across this post by Konrad Glogowski.

Here are a few of my thoughts related to this post. Given my limited knowledge base of assessment, I may tend to over-simplify what I know is an extremely complex issue. Accountablility is important, but if the process is so complicated that teachers are never able to use the data to impact instruction...What's the point??? Another issue related to K-12 assessment that causes me a little/lot of concern, is the impact transition to higher-ed has on K-12 curriculum and assessment models. The ACT/SAT test, courses, and grades a student accumulates during their high school years is all important to their promotion to post-secondary education. In the traditional "industrial age" model of education the transition from K-12 to higher-ed has been pretty smooth.  The changes underway in many K-12 schools is designed to prepare students for future success, but the courses and grades may not be what those at the post-secondary level are used to looking for. The last issue that I would like to address, is the whole student driven content and assessment. How can the education process be more student directed? This includes the assessment process. The use of web 2.0 tools allow students to be actively involved in self-evaluation, peer-evaluation, share with a world-wide audience, and become a participant in collaborative learning communities.

The Responsive Classroom approach focuses on practical ways of meshing social and academic learning. It is interesting to see how web 2.0 tools have the power to support all of the seven key principles of this 20-plus year old program.