No Child Left Behind: A Challenge for Special Education

1. No Child Left Behind: A Challenge for Special Education Meeting the Challenge Through Collaborative Leadership and Systemic Change Judith Moening North East I.S.D., San Antonio, Texas

2. NCLB: A Challenge to the Traditional Model of Special Education • Traditional model of special education • Serving students with disabilities at their functional level • Pulling students with disabilities out of general education to provide instruction • No Child Left Behind • Requires assessment of all on grade level standards • Requires all students to demonstrate progress along a single standard

3. No Child Left Behind • Meeting the Intent of NCLB requires school districts to: • To align instruction with assessment for all students • To align leadership at all levels of a school system from central office to the classroom

4. What did North East do? • Reflect • Examined data and our practices about teaching and testing students with disabilities • Compared ourselves to state on key statistics • Revise • Abandoned practice of teaching and assessing special education students below grade level • Created the Data Coaching framework as a way to collaboratively guide and support individual campuses • Retool • Utilized Data Coaching for ongoing review of campus progress and adjustment of campus practices along the way

5. Sources of Support • Leadership for Equity and Excellence – book study with campus administrators • Presentation by authors at district wide administrative meetings – • Jim Scheurich and Linda Skrla • Data Wise Project – Harvard Graduate School of Education • Provided framework for Data Coaching process

6. Equity Consciousness Four central beliefs: Repeated at all leadership meetings • 1) All children are capable of high levels of academic success; • 2) Academic success equitably includes all student groups; • 3) Adults in schools are primarily responsible; • 4) Traditional school practices result in inequity and must be changed. Scheurich, Skrla & McKenzie

7. Percentage of Special Education Students Served in SPED Setting for More Than 50% of School Day

8. Choose Focus Identify Patterns In Data Dig Deeper Access Action Plan Agree On Problem Implement Action Plan Ask Why Develop Action Plan Examine Current Practices Improvement Cycle Adapted from Data Wise, Boudett, City, and Murnane, 2005

9. The Power of Data Coaching is in the Questions! • What do these data seem to tell us? • What do they not tell us? • What else would we need to know? • What good news is there here for us to celebrate? • What needs for School Improvement might arise from these data?

10. Central Office Data Coaching Teams • Division of Instruction led by Chief Instructional Officer for district • Mixed teams of Curriculum, Special Education, Title I, ELL, Educational Technology central office support staff • Each team worked with 10-12 schools • Identified a Tier of Schools most at risk of failure • Larger group of data coaches • Additional meetings to brainstorm interventions • Additional professional development provided • Additional support offered as needed

11. Working on the Work – Four Data Coaching Assignments • Assignment 1 – Campus Power Point to explain data to the campus • Assignment 2 – Put a face to the data by considering student groups and individual students • Assignment 3 – Fine tune intervention plans • Assignment 4 – Celebrate success and refine plans for the next year

12. Data Coaching Assignment 1 • Principal as Instructional Leader of the CampusPresentation of a Campus Focus on Student Data and Achievement

13. Content of Assignment 1 • Principal power point presentation for faculty at back to school meeting • Present data for the campus • Trends, strengths/areas of concerns • Summarize beliefs about teaching and learning • Lay out a plan for the campus • Prior to campus presentation principal shared with data coaching team and fine tuned the presentation

14. Data Coaching Assignment 2 • Putting “a face on the data” so that students are known as members of student groups and as individuals in need of support • Completed prior to Thanksgiving • Focuses campus attention on individual students in need of additional intervention and identified campus trends and patterns

15. DATA COACHING ROUND II: PLANNING FOR RESULTS Fall, 2007 • 1. What are Your Top Three Campus Goals      • 2. Where Are We Now? (based on review of data) - Principals along with their leadership teams will analyze the data and summarize issues and findings in the following areas: • TAKS objectives by content area which are issues for the campus      • Student performance by individual teacher and/or teams of teachers      • Student performance by student populations • AEIS subgroups    and  AYP subgroups   • 3. What is Your Plan? (Review Campus Improvement Plans Based On Analysis of Issues and Findings Seen in the Data) How does the existing CIP address the issues/findings?     

16. DATA COACHING ROUND II: PLANNING FOR RESULTS Fall, 2007 4. What is the plan for focused walk-throughs in classrooms and monitoring of the campus plan?      5. How is the campus addressing classroom teachers’ fidelity to the district’s scope and sequence?      6.How are walk-throughs being used to increase teacher efficacy and to build capacity on the campus?       7. What is the effectiveness of the current master schedule in addressing issues/findings?      8. How is the campus addressing allotted time for instruction vs. actual focused time for instruction?     

17. Data Coaching Assignment 3January or February • Review of campus intervention plans for all student groups – Mid course corrections • Includes a summary review of current data on all student groups • Assessment plan for ELL and special education students • Focuses on alignment of all support systems for students • Student attendance • Failure rates by teacher and subject • Intervention plans targeted toward state exams

18. 3. Summarize data for ALL special education students:

19. JANUARY, 2007 DATA COACHING ASSIGNMENT III Planning for Student Success Timeline Complete/gather/review data for your campus in the following areas between January 3 and January 17 Use the data to answer questions which are listed below Meet with your data coaches between January 17 and February 3 Data Areas and Questions • Begin with the end in mind. Review Testing Calendar and distribute to all staff and have them highlight “their” dates. • Review data again for ALL special education students. • Review data for ELL students.

20. Require that students who have no test data or “first time TAKS/SDAA II takers,” take released test(s) • Review failure rates for your campus by subject and by teacher. • Review student absenteeism for the campus by subject and by teacher. • Meet with departments/grade levels including SPED, ELL and counselors to outline weekly plans for instructional support. • Review benchmark scores for the campus in all academic areas. • What is the plan for using Project Target TEKS funds?

21. 2005-06 District Made AYP Identified as Recognized under Texas system Campuses Exemplary (90%) – 11 campuses Recognized (70%) – 31 Acceptable (50%) – 18 All campuses made AYP 2006-07 District – Made AYP Campuses Exemplary (90%) – 9 Recognized (70%) – 29 Acceptable (50%) – 11 Low performing - 1 2 campuses failed AYP The Rewards of Action –Accountability Results

22. Student Results 2005-06 98.5% of all students assessed on grade level in reading 98% of all students assessed on grade level in math Special education students taking regular state exam – TAKS 85% passed reading 73% passed math Over 97% of special education students met the expectations set by their IEP team Student Results 2006-07 99.6% of all students assessed on grade level in reading 99% of all students assessed on grade level in math Special education students taking regular state exam-TAKS 83% passed reading 74% passed math Over 96% of special education students met the expectations set by their IEP team The Rewards of Action –Student Results

23. The Rewards of Action: Increased Campus Capacity for Leadership • Leadership teams now include principal, assistant principal, deans, counselors and special education campus coordinators • Campus leadership teams deeply understand both state and federal accountability systems • Campus leadership more knowledgeable about how to respond to student data through a tiered approach • Every student counts is now more than a slogan on the wall!

24. “To create an equitable and excellent classroom or school, we need to make the commitment to do this the heart of our efforts. Every day, every week, we need to reaffirm our commitment to this. This is a righteous journey, a democratic journey, a spiritual journey.” Scheurich and Skrla

25. REFERENCES • Data Wise: A Step by Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning. Katherine Boudett, Elizabeth City, and Richard Murnane. (2005). Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Education Press. • Leadership for Equity and Excellence. James Scheurich and Linda Skrla. (2003). Thousand Oaks, CA. Corwin Press.