Progress in Persistently Low-Achieving Schools

At the Kentucky Board of Education meeting this week, Associate Commissioner Dewey Hensley and the District 180 team provided an update on the persistently low-achieving (PLA) schools identified in 2010.

We are very excited to see excellent progress in year one. While one year of data does not make a trend, we are anticipating a more detailed evaluation report from the University of Kentucky in coming months. These data suggest that the districts, schools, principals, teachers and students are dedicated to improvement in student learning outcomes. These data also suggest that Kentucky and districts stay the course in working with PLAs.

Our No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver request must address the issue of “priority schools,” which are defined the same as the PLAs, so I anticipate that the Kentucky waiver request will have an excellent story to share with the reviewers.

Here are some highlights from the report on PLA schools.

Data Summary: 90 percent of the schools identified as “Persistently Low-Achieving Schools — Cohort One” demonstrated statistically significant increases in the percentage of students scoring proficient or distinguished in math. Ninety percent of the PLA Cohort One schools also demonstrated statistically significant increases in reading.




* The average gain for all the PLA Cohort Schools combined in mathematics was 16 percent.
* The average gain for all the PLA Cohort Schools combined in reading was 10.33 percent.
* The combined average growth for all PLA schools was 13.16 percent.
* Kentucky’s overall math proficient/distinguished percentage stayed statistically the same.
* Kentucky’s overall gain for reading proficient/distinguished was 1.06 percent.
* Averages and gains disaggregated by turnaround model employed:
o Schools using the Transformation Model posted average increase of 14.43 percent in math and an average increase of 7.02 percent in reading.
o Schools using the Re-Staffing Model posted average increases of 16 percent in math and an average increase of 12.27 percent in reading.

Data Inferences

* Although the overall gains were larger in mathematics, that content area lags behind literacy across the state.
* The present Educational Recovery system, with a team of three Educational Recovery Specialists and an Educational Recovery Director in each region, seems an effective means for increasing achievement due to the fact that 100 percent of schools showed improvement in at least one of the two content areas.
* Rapid rises in achievement are possible in larger schools.
* The “team approach” to support PLAs has paid dividends for our investment in achievement.
* There is much to do — some schools gained, but had fewer students tested due to dropouts and enrollment changes.
* Focus on achievement — whether internally or externally motivated — is a good trait.

Highlights of PDK Gallup Poll

As a long-time member of Phi Delta Kappa (PDK), I very much enjoy reading the annual PDK/Gallup Poll results. This year, the poll has some very interesting findings that I wanted to highlight in the blog and discuss the potential impact of public opinion on Kentucky schools.

1. The public believes the best way to turn around low-achieving schools is to support the principals and teachers in those schools. The public strongly supports training and professional development for teachers; however, the public also strongly supports dismissal of ineffective teachers if we don’t see improvements in teaching. This result supports our focus in Kentucky on improving teacher and principal effectiveness and using multiple measures to determine effectiveness rather than relying solely on student test scores.

2. The overwhelming majority of parents believe a college education (two-year or four-year) is essential for jobs of the future. This result supports our focus in Kentucky on college and career readiness.

3. The public support for charter schools continues to increase. Almost 2/3 of respondents support public charter schools. I feel certain the Kentucky General Assembly will continue to review charter school legislation.

4. Teacher pay should be determined by quality of work (including student learning outcomes) rather than a single salary schedule. This result also will inform our work on teacher effectiveness and the multiple measures development.

5. As with most polls, the public feels that local schools are doing a great job; however, they rate schools in the nation much lower. This local phenomenon plays out in public opinion that federal control of schools is not supported. Most respondents feel that the state is the appropriate level for school control of standards, assessments and interventions.

For more information and poll results, go to http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/poll.htm.

Kids Count – The annual Kids Count data are available at http://datacenter.kidscount.org. Terry Brooks of the Kentucky Youth Advocates sent me an interesting chart -- http://tinyurl.com/2g3hryv --from the Kids Count Data Center on poverty levels by congressional district in Kentucky. With one in five children nationally and more than one in four in Kentucky in poverty, this information has certain implications for school district planning.