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Illinois School Board Journal
March - April 2001

Assessing our schools
One district's answer to improve learning

By Linda Dawson

Linda Dawson is IASB director of editorial services and Journal editor.

When Lauren Copeland took her ACT for college, she scored a respectable 26 composite -- a score that would gain her admission to any of her top four college choices.

But in order to qualify for scholarship money, Lauren learned that adding one point to her composite score would mean the difference of $28,000 in tuition assistance over the course of four years.

Lauren was lucky. As a student at Elk Grove High School in Township High School District 214, she benefited from a 10-year history of systematic testing and assessments in her school district. That testing helped her determine what to study when she prepared to retake the ACT.

The systematic implementation of student assessments and the resulting knowledge gained from collecting student test data at THSD 214 had its beginnings in an 18-year-old comparison of students in the United States to students in other countries.

When "A Nation At Risk" was released in April 1983, many people hailed the report as a "wake-up call" for America to implement educational standards, improve schools and make certain every student had an equal opportunity to learn.

When a follow-up report was issued 15 years later, the nation was declared "still at risk." Some test scores showed improvement, but little headway and even decline was seen in areas of math competency and literacy. Statistics and observations gleaned between the two report dates repeatedly showed little progress:

• While 13 percent of all 17-year-olds were considered functionally illiterate in 1983, 25 percent of 12th graders scored below "basic" in reading in 1994.
• SAT scores had shown "a virtually unbroken decline" from 1963 to 1980 with average verbal scores dropping by 50 points and average math scores down nearly 40 points. Between 1984 and 1995, SAT scores rose slightly (two points on the verbal test and 11 points in math), but the average combined score, before adjustments for test differences, was 70 points lower than in 1963.
• Business and military leaders in 1983 complained about spending millions of dollars on remedial education. By 1998, U.S. manufacturers reported 40 percent of 17-year-olds lacked the math skills and 60 percent lacked to reading skills to hold a production job.¹

The answer to the original wake-up call was likened to hitting the snooze button, even though a myriad of school improvement programs had been implemented. And so the alarm was sounded again. From the district to the national level, the United States needed to examine and rework the functional structure of education. What are children being taught? What are they learning? But maybe more importantly, what assessment best determines that learning has taken place?

According to Education Week's "Quality Counts 2001: A Better Balance" report, 49 of 50 states have instituted academic standards in "at least some subjects." Illinois' standards, available on the Illinois State Board of Education Web site (www.isbe.state.il.us), are a litany of what Illinois school children are expected to learn, grade level by grade level. Early benchmarks measure basic skills; later ones "build in complexity and rigor from one level to the next, culminating in deep understanding demonstrated through complex performances."

Illinois Learning Standards (ILS), written and adopted during a project begun in 1995, represent 30 benchmarks in seven areas: English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, fine arts, physical development and health, and foreign language. The American Federation of Teachers and the Fordham Foundation rate Illinois' standards as "among the best in the nation."²

State standards, however, are just the beginning; individual districts also need to align their curriculum offerings with the standards or risk testing students on material they haven't covered.

To accomplish this, school boards must provide the vision and support for administrators and faculty to carry out comprehensive planning. But just aligning standards, agreeing to additional testing and hoping for better scores is not enough. Actual improvement involves a thorough understanding of the current buzzword in education: "assessment."

"Various forms of assessment have been a major tool in education for the last 50 years," asserts the Education Commission of the States on its issues Web site (www.ecs.org). But while assessments in the 1950s usually divided students into college-prep and vocational tracks for courses of study, assessments in 2001 have reached a "high-stakes" plateau. Such tests are now commonly used to determine grade level promotions or even as a requirement to graduate. In addition, national political pressure is being applied to all states to hold the education system accountable for precious tax dollars.

But does this increased pressure translate directly to performance? Some experts disagree.

"Before using a test to hold a program, school or school system accountable, school boards must make certain that the content of the test is relevant to the goals of the school," according to Gerald W. Bracey and Michael A. Resnick in Raising the Bar: A School Board Primer on Student Achievement. "They must ensure that the program, reform or innovation could be expected to improve scores on that test -- particularly if the test is an important element in a broader plan to assess student achievement."

That broader plan comes from the vision the school board provides. It is the cornerstone of assessment at THSD 214 in Elk Grove Village.

At the time "A Nation At Risk" was published in 1983, THSD 214 was a large, established district in the northwest suburbs, according to John Hillary, associate superintendent for educational services. They had gone through a period of great growth and, with eight high schools, had become the largest high school district in the state. The idea that this district's students could be "at risk" was at first met with skepticism. Test scores were at acceptable levels. What did they need to improve?

But this was also a time when corporate America began to flex its muscles in terms of "total quality management." A change in superintendents brought this corporate approach to THSD 214 administration. While many school boards heard the call for improvement, this district listened. The board decided it was dissatisfied with the status quo.

"It was like a bomb went off," the 30-year district veteran said. Talk turned to reform and school improvement took on a whole new meaning. "It was a whole transformation into a system of ‘what do we do?'"

According to current board president Miriam Cooper, the vision began to take shape during an all-district conference in 1989. The conference included outside speakers and people active in the district as well as the board and staff.

The result was a position statement, adopted by the board, to develop standards for what it wanted its students to know and a testing system to find out if they did. The transition, however, was not always easy.

Because the district had always encouraged academic freedom for teachers, Hillary said, no district-wide curriculum existed. A compromise established district-wide standards in core subjects while allowing site-based structuring as teachers deemed appropriate.

With no existing model, developing an assessment system and learning how to use the data has required "course corrections" and program changes along the way. The entire process has been one that Hillary compares to "building a plane while you're flying it." While seemingly a risky venture, he notes that the administration and board closely monitor progress.

"You make the plan and then you work the plan," Hillary said. And if the plan doesn't work exactly the way you envision, you make another plan.

An important part of that plan is building in ways to measure success, said Tim Schaap, assessment coordinator at Elk Grove High School. Through its testing procedures, the district can monitor all learning levels on the spectrum -- from lowest to highest achievers. Not only does this district test its students, it uses test scores as signals or benchmarks to develop specialized programs, such as reading comprehension or writing skills, to meet specific needs.

The district uses a sequenced testing schedule of Explore/PLAN/ACT for each of its 12,000 students, according to Marilynn Kulieke, director of research and evaluation.

Students come into the high school district from feeder schools, and because of widespread diversity, every student is tested in the fall of eighth grade at the high school they will attend. At least 90 percent or more take Explore, the first test in the sequence, on the testing date.

While other high schools typically test incoming students for placement purposes, THSD 214 uses Explore results as a springboard for ongoing assessment. The second test in the sequence, PLAN, is administered to every sophomore in the fall and juniors take an ACT look-alike test.

This year, however, with the new Prairie State Achievement Exam to be administered April 25-26, all underclassmen will be tested on those dates, with freshmen taking an I-PLAN, sophomores the I-ACT and juniors the PSAE, which has an ACT component.

"This (sequence) is not just to see where to (place) students but to see if they are learning," Schaap said.

While Explore test scores are used to place freshmen in English, math and science courses, they also are used to identify students who could benefit from summer school or reading programs. The THSD 214 board has made it mandatory for students who fail to make a pre-determined cut-off on test scores to take a remedial course in core curriculum. In turn, follow-up testing is used to rate those summer school and reading programs for their effectiveness.

Because the district has collected and maintained data on testing over a period of 10 years, assessment coordinators can use Explore and PLAN tests to predict how individual students, like Lauren Copeland, will do on ACT exams.

Lauren had scored a 21 composite on her Explore test as an eighth grader. She improved two points on her PLAN test as a sophomore, an increase that Schaap says was the expected norm. As a junior, she scored an ACT composite of 26 -- one point higher than the norm increase -- and acceptable for admissions standards for the colleges she was considering.

But to qualify for many of the substantial scholarships available, Lauren knew she needed at least one more point -- a 27 composite. She asked a guidance counselor at her first-choice school, DePaul University, if she should engage a private tutor before taking the ACT again. Save your money -- you can do this if you try -- was the counselor's advice.

So Lauren went back to her ACT scores and, with data analysis available from Elk Grove High School, determined where she needed to concentrate. She read seven novels to improve her reading speed and comprehension. She took practice English and math tests and went over problems with teachers and peers. And she volunteered as a writing tutor, time that benefited a younger student in writing skills (as shown in later testing) and Lauren in editing.

The payoff was big, both in terms of her score and money. Lauren raised her ACT composite not by just one point, but by four points to a 30. Her biggest gain: six points in her English score, from 29 to 35. As a result, she earned scholarships worth $7,000 a year at DePaul, in addition to being offered scholarships from three other schools.

While Lauren may be considered a high achiever, THSD 214 officials say the same types of results can be achieved at the lower end of the spectrum. In comparative figures prepared by the district for the Class of 2000, students scoring a composite of 7 on their Explore test showed a mean difference of 6.5-point increase to PLAN and I-ACT exams and a more than 7-point increase between Explore and ACT.

Mid-range students, those scoring a 15 composite, showed a mean difference increase of 2.5 points between Explore and PLAN, a 3.5-point increase between Explore and I-ACT and a 5-point increase between Explore and ACT.

Such statistics prove that learning has taken place -- or raise red flags that it hasn't. "All of this testing and research and data manipulation (has) to lead to remediation, kid by kid," Schaap said.

As new school board members are oriented to the district assessment processes and data, they have come to appreciate the system and what it tells them about students and learning.

"We started from a point of wanting to make certain what we were doing was in the best interest of all of the students," said William Dussling, who joined the board in 1998.

The board's focus has been not to fight testing, because testing provides the input data that can be used to achieve improvement. "I'm not sure what you gain from testing on a year to year basis unless you have a plan in mind," Dussling said.

In addition to helping students as individuals, the district's plan and testing programs offer a visual measure of accountability that can be shared with the community.

Hillary said the district is fortunate to have a school board that has allowed the system to grow. "We couldn't have gotten where we are today … without a lot of support from our boards of education along the way."

Everyone at THSD 214 also realizes the task is never done. The strategic planning necessary to achieve these ends may sound mechanical, Hillary said, but the plan consistently has to be monitored for effectiveness. "We have poured spirit into something for 15 years," he said. "We need to create things so we can achieve success."

"We don't want to ever sit back and think we know everything -- that we're done," board president Cooper said. "Boards always have to be cognizant of the kinds of assessments that are out there. (But) they also have to do their own assessment to improve."

References
Bracey, Gerald W. and Resnick, Michael A., Raising the Bar: A School Board Primer on Student Achievement, National School Boards Association, 1998

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¹ Dave DeSchryver, Mike Petrilli and Sarah Youssef, from a paper prepared for the Fifteen Years and Still a Nation at Risk summit on April 3, 1998