GUIDE TO IMPROVEMENT PLANS

Table of Contents

Page #
1.  Getting Started / 3
2.  Criterion 1: Goals / 4
3.  Criterion 2: Identification of factors that prevent districts/schools from meeting the AMAOs / 5-6
4.  Criterion 3: Data Analysis / 7-9
5.  Criterion 4: Follow-up/Monitoring implementation of the plan / 10-11

6.  Beyond Monitoring, Evaluation: Evaluating Achievements

/ 12

Getting Started with Success in Sight

When done right, school improvement plans can become living documents that help schools focus their efforts, guide and ensure effective implementation, and put into motion a "flywheel" of continuous improvement.

Working with their own data, school leaders identify areas of strengths and needs of improvement; set focused goals to address those needs; and identify concrete, manageable strategies for achieving those goals.

Successful Plans:

/ ·  Acknowledge the importance of asking why and digging deep into data to guide school improvement and assess progress.
·  Activities/strategies are based on research and guide the plan to focus their efforts.
·  Create a "can do" attitude, or sense of "collective efficacy" among staff.
·  Create a culture of "thinking systemically, yet acting systematically," starting with small, manageable changes that grow into ever larger, more comprehensive school improvement efforts.

Some school improvement plans, no matter how well-intentioned, are missing several key elements:

/ 1.  They identify important changes to be made, yet often try to do too much at once.
2.  They focus on making technical changes, while ignoring school culture.
3.  They are based on data, but often fail to address root causes of student under-performance.
4.  They identify what to do, but fail to make explicit how it will be done and who will do it

Setting Goals

A goal is a general statement of what should be done to solve a problem. It defines broadly, what is expected out of an improvement plan. A goal emerges from the problem that needs to be addressed and signals the final destination of a improvement plan. Goals should be SMART

Step / Description
/ Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six "W" questions:
*Who: Who is involved?
*What: What do I want to accomplish?
*Where: Identify a location.
*When: Establish a time frame.
*Which: Identify requirements and constraints.
*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, "Get in shape." But a specific goal would say, "Join a health club and workout 3 days a week."
/ Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.
To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as...... How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?
/ Attainable - When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.
You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.
/ Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.
Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.
/ Timely - A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there's no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? "Someday" won't work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, "by May 1st", then you've set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.
T can also stand for Tangible - A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing. When your goal is tangible you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.

The goals and objectives provide the basis for monitoring and evaluating the improvement plans. They are the yardsticks upon which improvement plan success or failure is measured.

Identification of factors that prevent districts/schools from meeting the AMAOs

The task of identifying factors, whether intended or unintended, that prevent students from achieving AMAOs is a difficult one. It requires districts to use techniques beyond the annual data from the state assessment. Some examples of those techniques are:

§  Documents review, such as faithful implementation of the district’s ELL plan;

§  Surveys, such as at-risk school environments, adequate preparation of core content teachers who teach ELs and of ELD teachers; Coherent/comprehensive planning and coordination of the district’s instructional services for ELs

§  Discussions with individual, specific groups and the community;

§  Interviews;

§  Observations, walk-throughs;

§  Listening to people;

§  Brainstorming;

§  Informal conversations;

§  Problem tree.

What will it take to remove the factors that are preventing ELs from achieving AMAOs? It will take:

1.  recognition of a problem(s); /
2.  proven actions that remove the factors preventing ELs from achieving AMAOs ;
3.  replication of effective practices and solutions;
4.  high expectations;
5.  targeted technical assistance; and
6.  a determination that ELs, as all other students, deserve the very the school has to offer.

What are examples of factors preventing ELs from achieving AMAOs?

/ 1.  Low expectations by school personnel
2.  Ill prepared teachers and administrators
3.  Limited Coordination among schools
4.  Tracking into non academic classes; and
5.  Isolation in resource-poor school

What are factors that can contribute to achievement?

  1. High academic standards paired with the resources to ensure that all children can reach them.
  2. A high-quality teaching force with strong skills and rich academic experience, engaged in continuous professional development, and prepared to teach linguistically and culturally diverse students.
  3. Teaching practices that recognize and make use of the diverse cultural and linguistic assets students bring to the classroom.
  4. Parents engaged as active partners and fulfilling their pivotal role in the educational success of their children.
  5. High expectations and a culture of success for students that encourages high educational aspirations and achievement.

/ There is no single solution for resolving factors that have a negative impact in educational achievement. Just as the educational achievement gap is a result of many factors so too is the solution.

Data Analysis

Data Compilation or Data Collection is a term used to describe a process of preparing and collecting data - for example as part of a process improvement or similar project. The purpose of data collection is to obtain information to keep on record, to make decisions about important issues, to pass information on to others. Primarily, data is collected to provide information regarding a specific topic.

Data collection usually takes place early on in an improvement improvement plan, and is often formalized through a data collection plan which often contains the following activities.

1.  Pre collection activity – Agree goals, target data, definitions, methods /
2.  Collection – data collection
3.  Present Findings – usually involves some form of sorting, analysis and/or presentation.

Prior to any data collection, pre-collection activity is one of the most crucial steps in the process. After pre-collection activity is fully completed, data collection in the field, whether by interviewing or other methods, can be carried out in a structured, systematic and scientific way.

A formal data collection process is necessary as it ensures that data gathered is both defined and accurate and that subsequent decisions based on arguments embodied in the findings are valid. The process provides both a baseline from which to measure from and in certain cases a target on what to improve.

Data Analysis/Evaluation: Analysis of data is a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of highlighting useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making.

Types of data analysis are:

·  Exploratory data analysis (EDA): an approach to analyzing data for the purpose of formulating hypotheses worth testing, complementing the tools of conventional statistics for testing hypotheses

§  Qualitative data analysis (QDA) or qualitative research is the analysis of non-numerical data, for example, observations, discussions with individual, specific groups, interviews etc.

Data Analysis Checklist

What Makes for a Good Data Analysis Chart? / For a Good Chart, You Should Answer "Yes" to Every Question
Is there sufficient data to know whether your hypothesis is correct? / Yes / No
Is your data accurate? / Yes / No
Have you summarized your data with an average, if appropriate? / Yes / No
Does your chart specify units of measurement for all data? / Yes / No
Have you verified that all calculations (if any) are correct? / Yes / No

Numerical evidence used to support plan: Otherwise known as data presentation or data visualization has two main objectives:

·  To use data to provide knowledge in the most effective manner possible (provide relevant, timely and complete data to each audience member in a clear and understandable manner that conveys important meaning, is actionable and can affect understanding, behavior and decisions);

·  To use data to provide knowledge in the most efficient manner possible (minimize distracters, complexity, and unnecessary data or detail given each audience's needs and roles).

With the above objectives in mind, the actual work of Data Presentation consists of:

·  Defining important meaning (relevant knowledge) that is needed by each audience member in each context

·  Finding the right data (subject area, historical reach, breadth, level of detail, etc.)

·  Determining the required periodicity of data updates (the currency of the data)

·  Determining the right timing for data presentation (when and how often the user needs to see the data)

·  Utilizing appropriate analysis, grouping, visualization, and other presentation formats

·  Creating effective delivery mechanisms for each audience member depending on their role, tasks, locations and access to technology.

Graph Checklist

What Makes for a Good Graph? / For a Good Graph, You Should Answer "Yes" to Every Question
Have you selected the appropriate graph type for the data you are displaying? / Yes / No
Does your graph have a title? / Yes / No
Have you placed the independent variable on the x-axis and the dependent variable on the y-axis? / Yes / No
Have you labeled the axes correctly and specified the units of measurement? / Yes / No
Does your graph have the proper scale (the appropriate high and low values on the axes)? / Yes / No
Is your data plotted correctly and clearly? / Yes / No

9

9

Follow-up/Monitoring implementation of the plan

Monitoring is an integral part of every improvement plan, from start to finish

Monitoring should be executed by all individuals and institutions (schools) which have an interest (stake holders) in the improvement plan. Key questions in monitoring are:

Where are we?

Where do we want to go?

How do we get there? and

What happens as we do?

The implementers and planners have to agree on monitoring indicators. Monitoring indicators are quantitative and qualitative signs (criteria) for measuring or assessing the achievement of improvement plan activities and objectives. The indicators will show the extent to which the goals for every activity have been achieved. Monitoring indicators should be explicit, pertinent and objectively verifiable.

Monitoring Indicators are of four types, namely;

§  Input indicators: describe what goes on in the improvement plan (e.g. number of students participating in the program, number not participating);

§  Output indicators: describe the improvement plan activity (e.g. number of students at each proficiency level);

§  Outcome indicators: describe the product of the activity (e.g. number of students making progress); and

§  Impact indicators: measure change in conditions of the community (e.g. number of students achieving proficiency).

Writing down the structures and strategies helps in project monitoring because they specify what will be done during project implementation. Planning must indicate what should be monitored who should monitor and how monitoring should be undertaken. /

Adapted from Monitoring, Planning and Implementation by Phil Bartle, PhD. Community Empowerment Collective, 2011

10

Implementation:

Implementation asks the key question "What happens when we do?"

Implementation is the stage where all the planned activities are put into action. Before the implementation of an improvement plan, the implementers (spearheaded by the ELD Director, school principal) should identify their strength and weaknesses (internal forces), opportunities and threats (external forces).