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June 8, 2005

Possible and Suggested Goals for Performance and Achievement Committee

Student Achievement is the only purpose of a school. All other goals are secondary and must align to student achievement. The work of the Performance and Achievement committee is then the key committee within the Board of Education.

Therefore, it is the responsibility of the Board, Administration, staff and teachers to ensure student achievement is monitored, supported and ensured. The following is a list of suggested goals for the PA committee, derived from discussions with others, published ideas from educational associations and my contributions, as there may be.

  1. Determine recommendations on curricula that will close the achievement gap
  2. Review and improve student achievement to standards.
    1. Ensure students at least meet the standards as determined by State and Federal standards
    2. Ensure compliance with college standards
    3. Ensure students do equal the international standards of top countries using the PISA/TIMSS studies as the baseline
    4. Set standards such that every child will get at least 1-year of education every year, based on the child’s current level
    5. Include significant public contribution to setting standards
    6. Publish new standards as single document for public access
    7. Ensure teachers have the skills and resources to meet the standards
    8. Ensure the teachers are able to and do exercise the skills and use the resources to meet the standards
    9. Evaluate programs to ensure effectiveness in meeting the standards
  3. Review and ensure Assessments of student achievement
    1. Align assessment to standards
    2. Do not align assessments to curriculum.
    3. Ensure assessments are frequent and diagnostic
    4. Ensure assessments are readily available to students and parents to ensure diagnosis can quickly lead to remedies, and teacher, parent, and student involvement in implementing those remedies.
    5. Ensure assessments feed back into curriculum decisions.
    6. Ensure assessment data provides information on the individual student.
    7. Involve significant contingent of public in setting and monitoring assessments process, alignments, etc.
    8. Perform longitudinal analysis by individual student using current data.
    9. Enhance collection of assessment data to assure quality of the data for the purpose of assessment, accountability and student diagnosis.
    10. Ensure assessments can allow year-to-year comparisons, disaggregated
    11. Align textbooks and educational resources with student assessments, and goals high level of student achievement
  4. Establish and enforce accountability based on student results
    1. Board, staff, superintendent, teachers, parents, and students are all accountable for student achievement.
    2. Use assessment data
    3. Accountability must be data driven
    4. Use data to evaluate curriculum effectiveness
    5. One measure of accountability must be based on analysis disaggregated by demographics
    6. Other measures of accountability must be based on analysis disaggregated by classroom, teacher, curriculum, school, etc.
    7. Accountability measures are a function of both proficiency on standards, and also an individual student’s growth.
    8. Use student growth to evaluate teachers, staff, principals, curriculum.
    9. Consequences shall be incurred to responsible parties for both exceeding student achievement expectations and failure to reach expectations. Remedies shall follow
  5. Measure and improve climate in the schools and classroom for students

Posted by Larry Winkler at June 8, 2005 9:42 PM