Education Week - October 22, 2014 - Special Report - S16

S16 |
EDUCATION WEEK OCTOBER 22, 2014
n
Taking Stock of Personalized Learning > www.edweek.org/go/personalized
PROGRESS REPORT: RACE TO THE TOP & PERSONALIZED ED.
By
Sam
Atkeson &
Madeline
Will
l
Green River Regional and Ohio
Valley Educational Cooperatives
Bowling Green, Ky., and Shelbyville, Ky.
Enrollment: 59,000 across 22 local districts
Racial/ethnic profile: No available average for
combined districts
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 61 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $41 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
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Build relationships and collaborations with employees
known as Preschool Pals and private child-care centers
to promote kindergarten readiness through intentional
literacy and math strategies.
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Ensure educators provide opportunities for students
to develop socio-emotional skills and behaviors and
noncognitive skills like critical thinking and problem
solving that will prepare them for life after high school.
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Provide supports and structures, like cognitive coaches
and systemwide collaboration, for professional
learning among educators for a deeper learning and
understanding of standards, assessments, and tasks.
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Support the development of teacher leaders, educators
selected from each school who collaborate and share
their knowledge with other teachers.
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Analyze annually summative-assessment data,
noncognitive data, and a variety of other data to
provide feedback on progress.
Technology-based approaches:
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The grant provided funding for software to be
embedded as support for personalized learning and for
digital-learning devices based on each district's need.
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Each district received some funding to help expand
Wi-Fi outside of school walls.
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Measuring success:
l
Data was unavailable as of press time, but officials
will consider the percentage of students who have
effective teachers; enrollment in AP, dual credit,
and college courses; and the amount of students
meeting benchmarks in reading and math, among
other data points.
Positive Outcomes:
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Provided training program for teachers and smaller
groups of staff members who, in turn, then work with
students to impact school culture and climate.
l Created a greater emphasis on student leadership.
l
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Every school has crafted its own personalized
learning plan.
Challenges:
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A teacher professional development program was not
included in the original plan, but evolved from the first
year.
Future plans:
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Educational co-ops will have support structures in
place after grant ends to support districts.
Craft a plan to make the partnership with the co-ops
and private preschools and child-care centers
sustainable.
l
Schools are seeing improvements on some components
of school climate.
In 2012, the federal Race to the Top district competition awarded 16 school districts, educational cooperatives, and charter school districts with more than $350 million in
total grant funding to support efforts to personalize learning and improve student achievement. A year and a half later, districts are beginning to see the outcomes from those
efforts, ranging from upgraded professional-development programs to technological overhauls. Education Week contacted all the districts, listed here by the size of the grant
awarded, for progress reports on how they have used the grant funding, and what their plans are for the road ahead.
l
Puget Sound
Educational Service District
The grant applies to seven of the districts.
Renton, Wash.
Enrollment: 390,000 across 35 local districts
and over 200 private schools. (The seven grant
districts have a combined enrollment of 147,000.)
Racial/ethnic profile: 33 percent white, 24 percent
Hispanic, 20 percent Asian/Pacific Islander,
14 percent African-American, 3 percent Native
Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander, 1 percent
American Indian/Alaskan Native, 8 percent other
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 35 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $40 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l
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Build a strong, regionwide system to ensure that all
students are kindergarten ready.
l
l Establish a high-functioning P-3 grade system.
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Advance teacher practice and principal leadership,
with a focus on developing personalized learning
environments in the areas of English/language arts,
science, and math for high-needs students.
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Broaden college-level course selection and strengthen
postsecondary success among students.
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Encourage partnerships between schools, communitybased
organizations and families in order to provide 24/7
support for learning both in school and out of school.
Technology-based approaches:
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The service district invested in adaptive digital tools,
with a focus on personalizing stem learning for highneeds,
K-8 schools in the region.
A regional data portal was built to allow for systemic
interventions based on student-achievement data from
benchmark assessments.
l
This student data can be securely transferred among
districts, which helps to address the high mobility rate
of 21 percent within the region.
Measuring success:
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Several factors are evaluated, including performance
on summative state assessments, achievement
gaps in reading and math, kindergarten readiness,
the percentage of 8th graders enrolled in algebra
or a higher-level math class, the five-year high
school graduation rate, college-enrollment rate, and
postsecondary-degree attainment.
Positive outcomes:
l
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Data show increases in kindergarten readiness from
fall 2013 to fall 2014.
State Measurements of Student Progress showed
especially high science performance for 5th graders
in 2013.
Challenges:
l
There is a need to build stronger progress-monitoring
systems in order to use real-time data to make course
corrections as the district learns what projects are
working. In the first round of investment funding, not
all projects had those systems in place to collect data
throughout the year. New projects were funded before
the impact of previous projects could be measured.
The consortia of districts have struggled to implement
multiple new initiatives simultaneously.
Future plans:
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Puget Sound will be actively planning to sustain the
Race to the Top programs after the grant term ends.
Planning for sustainability will happen over the coming
two years, with prioritization given to strategies that are
found to most effectively close opportunity gaps.
l
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Guilford County Schools
The grant applies to middle schools only.
Greensboro, N.C.
Enrollment: 72,400
Racial/ethnic profile: 41 percent African-American,
37 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, 6 percent
Asian, 4 percent multi-racial
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 59 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $35.2 MILLION
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $31 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
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100 percent of middle school classrooms will
implement personalized learning environments as
measured by the district's Personalized Learning
Environment Index, or plei, by the end of the fouryear
grant.
Reduce the achievement gap by 50 percent for each
subgroup compared to white students.
Increase the number of effective and highly effective
teachers and principals in middle schools.
Provide anytime, anywhere access to learning for all
students regardless of socioeconomic background.
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Increase the number of middle school students taking
high-school-level courses.
Technology-based approaches:
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Relaunching a 1-to-1 computing initiative in middle
schools this year in a phased roll-out. All 17,000 middle
school students will receive a tablet. The tablets have
embedded content in them (instructional videos,
textbooks, etc.) that can be used even without an
Internet connection.
l
The grant funded a math and ela formativeassessment
tool that populates a standards map
for each student, which is continuously updated and
shows students' mastery of the concepts.
Measuring success:
l
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The plei will measure progress.
School leaders want to see tablets used on a daily
basis in classrooms and plan to measure that with
walk-throughs.
Positive outcomes:
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District officials say the way they have delivered
professional development through pace (PersonalizedAchievement
Curriculum Environment) was very
effective. In spring 2013, each school created its
own pace team to take ownership of the initiative in
their respective buildings. The teams were made
up of district-level coaches, teachers, support staff,
and administrators. When the leadership of a school
(teachers and administrators) had more control over
the decisionmaking process, it led to a smoother rollout
of the initiative.
Challenges:
l
The tablet rollout last year had to be put on hold
because of concerns about the quality and safety of the
devices. Last year, the tablets were deployed all at once.
This year, it's a phased roll out that has gone much
more smoothly.
Future plans:
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A team will be assembled to figure out what the district
needs for these initiatives to continue in winter 2015.
They need to consider cost, among other factors.
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Personalized learning goals:
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Close the achievement gap across grades K-12 in
reading and math between the subgroups and the
highest performers statewide.
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Bring 90 percent of K-5 students to or above grade level,
and have 70 percent or more of 11th grade students
score 21 or higher on the act college-entrance exam.
Help 100 percent of graduates enter a four-year college
and 85 percent of graduates attain a college degree
within six years, through a summer program for high
school juniors in which they stay on college campuses.
Technology-based approaches:
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Implemented a 2-to-1 computing program for grades
6-12, providing a laptop for every two students.
Devices are not taken home, but are rotated
throughout the building for different classes. Students
work with laptops in small groups, on programs
individualized to each student's level of progress.
l
Put in place adaptive software, allowing students
to work independently and teachers to see students'
strengths and weaknesses.
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The district is rolling out a dashboard for teachers
leveraging data and specific student profiles to make
recommendations on instruction; it will include daily
data updates on whether activities are working.
l
In the elementary schools, students have an
iLearning HotSpot and the Accelerated Reader
Zone as two of their rotating electives, where they
work independently on adaptive math software
and read books independently. They practice the
skills that reinforce and preview what they're
getting in their core classrooms. Some of the
districts' middle schools are also doing this, and
they are out-performing the middle schools with
traditional rotations.
Measuring success:
l
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Use of statewide test scores.
District developed an algorithm that combines studentachievement
measures and qualitative evidence,
including responses from students, supervisors,
colleagues, and parents, to create a career path
for teachers that provides individualized supports,
rewards, and recognition.
l
The district's short-term goal is to have 85 percent
of the teachers who reach a proficient level on that
pathway - meaning they have demonstrated strong
growth and are expected to continue to improve - to
return to the district the following school year.
Positive outcomes:
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District officials see evidence they are delivering more
targeted, individually tailored lessons to students.
Data from last year's Texas state assessments show
that hybrid middle schools (in which 6th and 7th
graders go to the iLearning Hotspot and AR Zone rather
than traditional electives) outperformed traditional
middle schools districtwide in both reading and
math by as many as 10 percentage points in terms of
number of students passing and number of students
with commended performance.
l
IDEA Public Schools
District is a network of state charter schools.
Based in Weslaco, Texas
Enrollment: 19,500
Racial/ethnic profile: 91 percent Hispanic,
4 percent white, 2 percent African American,
1 percent Asian, 1 percent American Indian
or Native Alaskan
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 87 percent

http://www.edweek.org/go/personalized

Education Week - October 22, 2014 - Special Report

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