NEEDS ASSESSMENTS

No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress NC ABCs of Accountability Model

Newton focused on the apple

Freud researched anxiety

Piaget studied his children

Darwin played with Galapagos turtles

Principals have fun with NCLB and AYP

2001 No Child Left Behind Act

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), renamed "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) in 2001, established goals of high standards, accountability for all, and the belief that all children can learn, regardless of their background or ability.

NCLB

A Law of Accountability for Public Schools

On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the most sweeping education reform legislation in decades

No Child Left Behind A New Level of Educational Program Evaluation

• All educational programs evaluated on basis of student achievement and school performance measures

• An almost totally “quantitative” evaluation of public schools.

Purpose of NCLB

• To ensure that allall children have fair and equal opportunities to reach reach proficiency proficiency on state academic achievement standards.

• Note emphasis on the word “opportunities.”

NCLB and Program Evaluation• The goal, worth, merit, and value of public schools

shall be determined by student achievement and school performance measures.

• A series of performance targets that states, school districts, and schools must achieve each year to meet the proficiency requirements.

• To “meet” AYP, schools must be making adequate yearly progress towards the 2013/2014 NCLB goal.

NC AYP Proficiency Targets

Year Reading

3 - 8

Math

3 - 8

Reading/LA

Grade 10

Math

Grade 10

2005-2006 76.7% 81.0 % 35.4 % 70.8 %

2006-2007 76.7 % 81.0 % 35.4 % 70.8 %

2007-2008 84.4 % 87.3 % 56.9 % 80.5 %

2008-2009 84.4 % 87.3 % 56.9 % 80.5 %

2009-2010 84.4 % 87.3 % 56.9 % 80.5 %

2010-2011 92.2 % 93.7 % 78.4 % 90.2 %

Target Groups and Subgroups

• AYP focuses on all students and sub-groups of students in schools, school districts, and states, with a goal of closing achievement gaps and increasing proficiency to 100 percent.

• Ten student groups defined in NC public schools.

Ten Student Subgroups in NC1. School as a whole (all students)

2. American Indian

3. Asian

4. Black

5. Hispanic

6. Multi-racial

7. White

8. Economically Disadvantaged (FARMS)

9. Limited English Proficient (LEP)

10. Students with Disabilities (SWD)

Program Evaluation & NCLBAll public school program evaluation (until further notice) must include:

1) PROFICIENCY achievement;

2) school safety; and

3) teacher quality goals and objectives.

Regardless of the type of program evaluation conducted, NCLB requires program evaluation to include these standards and expectations.

AYP and Proficiency

• The ultimate goal of NCLB is to bring all students to PROFICIENCY (Level III or Above) as defined by North Carolina, no later than 2013-14.

• For the purpose of school, district and state accountability, the interim benchmark for progressing toward the goal is Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in raising student achievement.

Collecting, Interpreting, & Reporting Data

How do we locate and interpret student achievement data in public schools?

How do we organize the data into meaningful explanations that our stakeholders can understand?

Extracting Meaning From Data

The good news is that the NC School Report Card provides vast amounts of information for principals and their stakeholders.

The bad news is that the NC School Report

Card provides vast amounts of information for principals and their stakeholders.

NC DPI Report Card Web Site

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ Provides principals with the following:

Overall School Profile

High Student Performance Data

Safe and Orderly School Data

Quality Teachers

NC Reports Cards

School report cards provide information and data which principals can use to evaluate programs and school activities.

Principals must be able to read, interpret understand, and communicate school report card data to their stakeholders.

NC Report Card: School Profile

• School size compared to district & state

• Average course size (number of students)

• Specialized enrollments (AP, IB, Career)

NC Report Card: High Student Performance

• Overall student performance

• Demographic student performance

• Additional student performance data (SAT, AYP, graduation rates, attendance rates, promotion rates)

NC Report Card: Overall School Performance Rating

Honor School of Excellence – 90% of students at grade level & AYP achieved

School of Excellence - 90% of students at grade level

School of Distinction – 80% to 90% of students at grade level

School of Progress – 60% to 80% of students

NC Report Card: Overall School Performance Ratings

No Recognition – 60% to 100% of students at grade level but no increase in achievement percentages from previous year

Priority School – 50% to 60% of students at grade or Less than 50% of students at grade level

Low Performing School – Less than 50% of students at grade level.

NC Report Card: Overall School Performance Ratings

AYP Results

Met AYP or Did Not Meet AYP

Targets met versus targets missed

NC Report Card:Safe, Orderly, & Caring School Data

• Acts of crime and violence

• Number of OSS and Expulsions

• Student Attendance Rates

• Access to Books & Technology

• School Heath Information

NC Report Card:Safe, Orderly, & Caring School Data

Parental Involvement Questions:• Does the School Improvement Plan outline the school's parent

involvement program? • How does the school involve parents in decision-making? • Are school personnel readily accessible to parents? • Is there an organized volunteer program at the school? • Does the school make every effort to communicate with

parents? • Are parents offered workshops and support materials to help

support their child's learning? • Is the community invited to be involved with the school? • How well does parental involvement at their child's school

reflect the diversity of the parents and guardians whose children attend that school?

NC Report Card: High Quality Teachers• Number of Classroom Teachers

• Fully Licensed Teachers

• Number of Classes Taught by "Highly Qualified" Teachers

• Number of Teachers with Advanced Degrees

• National Board Certified Teachers

• Years of Teaching Experience

• Teacher Turnover Rate

• Teacher Working Conditions

NC School Report Card Snapshot Quick and dirty summary of school data sets: Overall School Profile High Student Performance Data Safe and Orderly School Data Quality Teachers

Needs Assessments You will be expected to become very familiar with

the NC Report Card You will need to be able to locate, select, extract,

organize, interpret, and present information from all the data sets found in the NC School Report Card.

Your mid-term exam will ask you to develop a comprehensive needs assessment for your assigned school.

Case Study Needs AssessmentAs a principal, an educational program evaluation of

your school is equivalent to a qualitative case study

assessment.

One of the best-known and most influential books in

effectively managing and developing organizations

was a case study on 62 highly regarded companies:

In Search of Excellence

In Search Of Excellence

Peters and Waterman visited companies

(field-based research), conducted extensive

interviews, and studied documents

(qualitative data collection).

From a massive amount of data, they

extracted eight (8) excellence attributes:

In Search of Excellence Case Study Attributes

1. A bias for action

2. Close to the client (customer)

3. Autonomy & Entrepreneurship

4. Productivity through people

5. Hands-on, value-driven practices

6. Stick to the knitting (meat & potatoes)

7. Simple, lean staff

8. Simultaneous loose-tight coupling properties

Covey’s Highly Effective People

Stephen Covey used this same qualitative

sampling approach to conduct case studies

of highly effective people.

Covey identified seven (7) habits that highly

effectively people practiced.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

1. Being proactive

2. Beginning with the end in mind

3. Putting first things first

4. Thinking win/win

5. Seeking first to understand, then to be

to be understood

6. Synergizing

7. Self-renewal

Meaningful Information

• Both In Search of Excellence and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People gleaned a small number of very important lessons from a huge amount of data.

• The quality of the information’s meaning and its’ usefulness is what matters…not the quantity of information collected.

Developing A Comprehensive Needs Assessment

To Improve Student Achievement

• The No Child Left Behind Act in January, 2001 mandated that public schools receiving federal funds achieve Adequate Yearly Progress.

• Across the United States, principals, faculty and staff have spent numerous hours on the issue of school reform trying to improve student achievement.

• If we are serious about improving student performance, then we must first understand how to conduct comprehensive needs assessments.

Failure of Past Efforts

• There has been too much emphasis on the uniform practice of school effect models and too little attention given to the change process.

• Principals often hurry to complete tasks and sacrifice effective program processes as a result.

• Schools must identify their strengths & weaknesses before implementing improvement programs.

Needs Assessment: PurposeThe purpose of needs assessment is to identify thestrengths and weaknesses of existing programs,practices, procedures, and activities.

The identification of strengths & weaknesses should include student test scores, student demographic data, discipline & attendance rates,teacher quality measurements, and report cardrankings.

Dr. Coleman’s Important TIP for Principals

A Critical Element: Testing Knowledge Base

• If your teachers cannot interpret & understand test scores, then student achievement information will have little to no value for anything.

• Test interpretation skills can be taught in a forty-five minute interactive workshop.

Student Achievement Data NC ABCs criterion-referenced tests give NC ABCs criterion-referenced tests give

administrators, faculty, and students specific administrators, faculty, and students specific information on what skills & content areas information on what skills & content areas students have masteredstudents have mastered

The most effective strategy for principals and faculty members is to analyze test data by dividing into groups to identify curricula strengths and weaknesses

Needs Assessment Process & Timeline After identifying strengths and weaknesses in

the curriculum, the principal and the faculty members should develop an action plan with SMART Goals to target these areas.

No more than three areas should be targeted during any one academic year.

The SMART GOAL Action Plan should be implemented at the beginning of an academic year.

Needs Assessment and SMART GOALS The three areas targeted for improvement in

the Needs Assessment should be written as

SMART Goals:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timebound

SMART Goals & SMART Objectives SMART Goals are typically long-term statements

about moving students from one achievement level to the next.

If, for example, 70% of your students scored Proficient or higher on Reading/Language Arts/English tests at the end of the 2005/2006 school year, and the NC Target AYP Proficiency Standard for 2009 is 85%, then your SMART Goal could read as follows:

SMART Goal Example Specific – “Students in our school will demonstrate

mastery of Reading/Language Arts/English…

Measurable - as evidenced by NC EOC state assessment tests…

Attainable - …by increasing the percentage of students scoring Prof/Advanced

Results-oriented… 15%

Timebound…in the 2008/2009 school year.”

SMART Objectives for SMART Goals

SMART Objectives are typically annual or yearly student achievement statements that support the long-term SMART Goal.

In the previous example, your school could write a SMART Objective for each year (2007, 2008, & 2009) that supported the overall long-term goal of increasing student proficiency percentages in Reading/Language Arts/English by 15% in the 2008/2009 school year. The SMART Objectives could be:

Annual SMART Objectives for Increasing Reading/Language Art/English Test Scores

Specific – “Students in our school will demonstrate mastery of Reading/Language Arts/English…

Measurable - as evidenced by NC EOC state assessment tests…

Attainable - …by increasing the percentage of students scoring Prof/Advanced

Results-oriented & Timebound… 5% in the 2006/2007 school year, 5% in the 2007/2008 school year, and 5% in the 2008/2009 school year.

Elephant Principle of School Improvement

Yearly SMART Objectives allow you to eat the AYP Proficiency Elephant “one bite at a time.”

By breaking up the 15% Goal into three 5 % annual objectives, the SMART Goal becomes a more attainable and realistic goal for all stakeholders.

SMART GOAL Program Evaluation Matrix SPECIFICBased on needs

assessment

Measurable Information needed to address the needs and/or problems you are trying to solve

AttainableData collection,

how you are going to collect (and if you can collect) the information to assess your progress

RealisticPerformance indicators, what you need to be doing to accomplish your objectives and goals

TimeboundWhen you will begin data collection, complete data collection, and report your evaluation

Determines

long-term goals and yearly objectives

Can we measure what we are trying to evaluate

Observations, document review, interviews, test data, and surveys

Can we realistically achieve these goals and objectives?

Must establish and stick a schedule

Survey Data

• Student Surveys

• Teacher Surveys

• Parent Surveys

Needs Assessments & Survey Data

Surveys should be used to measure stakeholders’ perception of how well the school is performing.

Students, parents, teachers, staff, and members of the school community should be surveyed to measure their perceptions of the school’s performance.

Students should be given the opportunity to participate in the survey.

Students often provide valuable perceptions about school climate and discipline practices.

ISS Assessment Survey 1. Please describe the purpose of your school’s ISS Program.

2. Do you have written procedures that detail how students are referred to the program? If yes please explain.

3. Who has the responsibility for determining if in-school suspension is the appropriate course of action?

4. What are the expectations for students who are assigned to ISS?

5. How do students who are referred to ISS keep up with their class work?

6. Do ISS students receive direction and support on how to modify their negative behavior patterns? If yes, please describe these support services.

7. How are parents of ISS students involved in the program?

8. Please describe how ISS students’ academic progress and behaviors are monitored after returning to the regular classroom.

9. How do students with special needs who are referred to ISS continue to receive their FAPE services written in their IEPs?

10. Do you believe the ISS program in your school is effective? Please explain.

Arts Integration Training Workshop Survey

What were your expectations coming into this workshop?

Were your expectations met? In what ways were they or were they not?

On a scale of 1-5 (5 being “most satisfied”), how would you rank this session?

What did you learn or experience that you think will be particularly useful for you working in the classroom?

What did you take away from this workshop that you would like to have more of?

Teacher Survey SA A DK D SD

1. New teachers in my school receive a quality mentoring program.

2. Teachers at my school plan and work together in grade-level, vertical, and other team formats.

3. My school’s goals are clearly communicated to me.

4. I enjoy working at this school.

5. I receive a lot of support from other faculty members in my school.

6. I have the resources, supplies and materials I need to do my job.

7. If I had the chance, I would leave education and find a job in another field.

8. My school is safe for students and teachers.

9. I know I can depend on help from other teachers in my school.

10. I receive high job satisfaction from teaching in my school.

Parent Satisfaction Survey (Sample Items)

My child’s school provides high quality teaching each day.

My child’s teacher cares about him/her. My child’s school does a good job communicating with

parents. The tutorial assistance program at my child’s school is

improving student achievement. My child feels safe at school each day. The administration at my child’s school does a good

job. The principal at my child’s school is open and willing to

talk to parents.

Survey Categories There are seven general categories that most

schools should collect data on: School Climate School Culture School Administration (Principal/A.P.) Discipline Parental/Community Involvement Professional Development Technology

Survey Instrument & Process

Survey items should be aligned to the categories; this simplifies the process of identifying patterns.

Survey items must be simply written and easily understood.

The reader should not have to apply problem solving skills to complete the survey.

The survey should not contain more than 20 items. It should not take the reader more than fifteen minutes

to complete.

Archival Data In Needs Assessments

Previous school report cards issued to schools by state departments of education, school improvement plans, suspension and drop out rates of students

The school’s mission statements, school newsletters, school yearbooks, and any other materials that would provide any insight as to what events/persons direct the school to be as it is today.

The more information collected, the more information that will be learned about the school’s strengths, weaknesses, and improvement needs.

Demographic Data in Needs Assessments

Demographic data includes student population, number of students who qualify for free or reduced meals, racial composition of students, mobility of students, education and occupation of students’ parents and guardians.

The purpose of demographic data is to form a concept of the students’ home environment.

Demographic Data in Needs Assessments

Educators should not have lower expectations for students from lower socioeconomic status environments.

However, they may have to provide learning experiences that these students have not had due to lack of resources.

For example, grants may need to be written or resources allocated so that students will have trade books in their homes during the summer.

Attention Principals: Coleman’s Grant Writing Tip The majority of all federal and state grants

require a narrative explaining the purpose of your request for funds.

Most grants label this narrative as a Needs Statement section.

The data categories listed in the previous slides are what grant funders use to determine who gets the money and how much money is distributed for each site.

Needs Assessment Process

It is necessary to include all stakeholders in the needs assessment process.

It is only good managerial practice to create a core committee to initialize, collect, manage, sort, and publish data.

The core committee or steering committee should be composed of responsible individuals who will be key players in the needs assessment process.

Principal’s Role In Needs Assessment

As the school leader, you must have a strong knowledge base and clearly understand the NC Accountability Model for Public Schools.

Your stakeholders will expect you to be comfortable discussing Report Card Results, NCLB Mandates, AYP Benchmarks, and School Ratings.

One more time, it is always a good idea to be the smartest person in the room.

Needs Assessment Summary A needs assessment is a comprehensive evaluation

plan of a school’s strengths and weaknesses. The concept of needs assessment is to build on the

school’s strengths and improve areas of weakness. Educators are expected to use data from the needs

assessment to write a school improvement plan that has specific SMART Goals and SMART objectives designed by the school stakeholders to improve the school and student achievement.

This process is more important than the data collection.

Program Design, Evaluation, & Needs AssessmentIf we know that a school’s goals are its programs, and we know that programs should be based on worth, value, merit, and solutions to problems, then it makes sense to establish school needs assessments as the critical factor to be used in determining program design, program inputs, program processes, program outputs, program outcomes, and program evaluation.

Is this making sense?

Questions, Comments, Reflections