After a long discussion in a November 17 meeting that lasted five hours, the ISD 166 school board voted to spend $155,250 on computer software, training, and staffing to implement a concept called datadriven instruction.
Using this system, teachers will be required to assess students at regular intervals and input their answers into a computer program that generates reports on exactly what individual students, as well as entire classrooms or grade levels, know and don’t know. Teachers will then be expected to tailor their instruction to fill in learning gaps and challenge even highachieving students to learn concepts they haven’t yet mastered.
Last year, a grant enabled the district to employ Betsy Jorgenson to implement data-driven instruction in the elementary school. She worked with students who needed extra help and provided teachers with information they could use in the classroom. Superintendent Beth Schwarz is confident that this type of instruction, used for all grades, will improve the district’s overall MCA-II scores that are used to evaluate compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The initial financial outlay would cover 18 months of implementing the program. Out of the total cost, $75,000 was earmarked from the school levy that just passed the November referendum. The other $80,250 will come from the school’s fund balance. After that, the ongoing cost would be $123,750 a year.
At the meeting was Peter James, director of Great Expectations Charter School, which has implemented data-driven instruction. He said the program has increased student achievement.
School board questions
School board member Eric Kemp supported the concept but raised some questions and concerns. He suspected that some of the teaching staff would not embrace the program and suggested that they devise a method to determine the degree to which teachers were implementing it. “We’re asking people to change their method,” he said.
School board member Leonard Sobanja concurred. He believed that not all staff members would want to use computer programs to help them teach. “You’ve got to realize there’s this difference in staff. It’s always been there. It will always be there.”
In a PowerPoint presentation on the system, Superintendent Schwarz outlined ways in which personnel files could reflect compliance with the system: participation in workshops, peer reviews, administrative reviews, book reviews, and self-reflection. If necessary, she said, she would put letters in the personnel files of teachers who refused to implement the program and would take “legal steps” if their refusal continued.
Schwarz said the program has the approval of various leadership groups and that the elementary teachers using it last year found it to be helpful. Teacher Ivy Church said she didn’t hear any negative comments after a presentation was given to secondary teachers. She said parents expect that their children will get the kind of individual attention that this type of assessment would enable them to provide. Betsy Jorgenson said secondary teachers are accustomed to compiling detailed data on their students in the form of grades on quizzes, tests, papers, and projects. Sobanja said a good teacher knows a lot of this information about their students already.
Is it realistic, Kemp also asked, to think a teacher would have the time to provide individualized instruction in classrooms with students at widely varying academic levels?
If the system does not improve student achievement, Schwarz said, “then I’m the one who’s going to have egg on my face.”
“We all will,” Kemp replied. He also wondered how the superintendent and the principal would have the time to administer the new program and enforce its implementation among staff.
“We have to rely somewhat on our superintendent,” board member Rod Wannebo said, adding that Schwarz knows if her initiatives don’t work well, she could be out of a job.
The motion to buy data-driven instruction software, licensing, and training from Northwest Evaluation Association at a cost of $13,931.25 and to implement the system at a cost of $155,250 passed with four ayes and one nay from Leonard Sobanja.
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