What is school excellence? Is it the same for everyone?

1. What is school excellence? Is it the same for everyone? Gary Stoner, Ph.D. University of Massachusetts Amherst Presented at the APA Education Leadership Conference, September 2006

2. The purpose of education/schooling as the promotion of healthy development Hi Lo Time/Grade/Age Source: Deno, S. L. (2002). Problem solving as “best practice”. In A. Thomas, & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology IV (pp. 37-56). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

3. Some concerns about AYP: • Accuracy of classification vis-à-vis instructional effectiveness • Potential misconceptions • Appears to ignore disparities in prevalence rates of risk and protective factors • Limited single-level monitoring (school building, year to year)

4. Accuracy of classification AYP Determination Met AYP Did not meet AYP Instructional effectiveness True negative False positive (error) Does not need improvement False negative (error) True positive Needs improvement Hebbler, S. (2004). Some threats to validity in AYP models under NCLB. Office of Research and Statistics, Mississippi DOE.

5. Potential misconceptions • AYP measures the progress of students (Actually, the AYP forumula does not track the same group of students over time). • Making AYP means that students in the school are progressing at a rate you would expect and desire (Actually, AYP does not measure individual progress; neither does AYP consider a school’s initial starting point--so school progress also is a tenuous inference) Source: American Federation of Teachers position statement

6. Risk and protective factors • Child (difficult temperament/social competence) • Family (father absence/supportive relationship with other adult) • School (inadequate behavior mgmt./positive school climate) • Community/cultural (SES disadvantage/strong cultural identity and ethnic pride) Source: Walker, H. M., & Shinn, M.R. (2002). Structuring school-based interventions to achieve integrated primary, secondary,and tertiary prevention goals. In Shinn, M. R., Walker, H. M., & Stoner, G. (Eds.), Interventions for academic and behavior problems II: Preventive and remedial approaches (pp 1-25). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

7. Single-level monitoring • AYP is a snapshot of annual school wide averages relative to pre-set achievement goals • That is, the question that can be answered is: How does the 2006 class of 4th graders in Superior Elementary School, compare with the 4th Graders of 2005 and 2004 at Superior Elementary School, relative to the State Standards?

8. From Fuchs, L.S., & Fuchs, D. (2004). Determining Adequate Yearly Progress from Kindergarten through Grade 6 with CBM. Assessment for effective intervention, 29, 25-37.

9. How could AYP be improved? • Establish multiple indicators of instructional excellence (allocated and engaged time; use of evidence-based curricula and instructional strategies) • Establish accuracy (and error rates) of AYP classifications • Incorporate multi-level monitoring (e.g., CBM model)

10. Is school excellence the same for everyone? • If by everyone, we mean each student, then the answer appears too be… • No; in the AYP formulation excellence is not about individual students, and individual rates of progress in learning and achievement over time • Further, the absence of consideration of starting points, individual student progress, and explicit teaching-learning relations mitigates against school excellence being the same for all