No Child Left Behind: A Challenge for Special Education

Meeting the Challenge Through Collaborative Leadership and Systemic Change

Judith MoeningNorth East I.S.D., San Antonio, Texas

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

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

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

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

Equity ConsciousnessFour 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

Percentage of Special Education Students Served in

SPED Setting for More Than 50% of School Day

27.0%

20.0%20.0%21.0%

20.0%

29.0%

17.0%

14.0%

35.0%

31.0%

38.0%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

'99-00 '00-01 '01-02 '02-03 '03-04 '04-05 '05-06

State

NEISD

ChooseFocus

Access ActionPlan

IdentifyPatternsIn Data

DigDeeper

AgreeOn

Problem

AskWhy

ExamineCurrent

Practices

DevelopActionPlan

ImplementActionPlan

Improvement Cycle

Adapted from Data Wise, Boudett, City, and Murnane, 2005

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?

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

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

Data Coaching Assignment 1

Principal as Instructional Leader of the Campus

Presentation of a Campus Focus on Student Data and Achievement

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

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

Data Coaching Assignment 2

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?     

DATA COACHING ROUND II: PLANNING FOR RESULTS Fall, 2007

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?     

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

3. Summarize data for ALL special education students:

     Number of SPED taking 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

TAKS Reading/ELA                                                      

TAKS Math                                                      

TAKS Writing            

TAKS Science                        

TAKS Social Studies                  

TAKS-A Reading/ELA                                                      

TAKS-A Math                                                      

TAKS-A Writing            

TAKS-A Science                        

TAKS-A Soc Stud                  

TAKS-M Reading/ELA                                                      

TAKS-M Math                                                      

TAKS-MWriting            

TAKS-M Science                        

TAKS-M Soc Stud                  

TAKS-ALT Reading                                                      

TAKS-ALT Math                                                      

TAKS-ALT Writing            

TAKS-ALT Science                        

TAKS-ALT Soc Stud                  

JANUARY, 2007 DATA COACHING ASSIGNMENT IIIPlanning for Student Success

TimelineComplete/gather/review data for your campus in the following areas between January 3 and January 17Use the data to answer questions which are listed belowMeet with your data coaches between January 17 and February 3

Data Areas and Questions

1.Begin with the end in mind. Review Testing Calendar and distribute to all staff and have them highlight “their” dates.

2.Review data again for ALL special education students.

3.Review data for ELL students.

4.Require that students who have no test data or “first time TAKS/SDAA II takers,” take released test(s)

5.Review failure rates for your campus by subject and by teacher.

6.Review student absenteeism for the campus by subject and by teacher.

7.Meet with departments/grade levels including SPED, ELL and counselors to outline weekly plans for instructional support.

8.Review benchmark scores for the campus in all academic areas.

9.What is the plan for using Project Target TEKS funds?

The Rewards of Action –Accountability Results

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 –Student Results 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: 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!

“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

REFERENCES

Data Wise: A Step by Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning. KatherineBoudett, 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.