Hayes Mizell of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation has written:

"Standards have created a kind of vacuum. In the main, this vacuum is being filled by tests — obsessions about tests, preparation for tests, and fears of test results. So long as teachers are ambivalent toward standards and passive about them as a catalyst to improve instruction, tests and accountability will fill the vacuum.
This does not have to be the case. When teachers take action by using standards to focus on improving their performance and that of their students, they shift the focus from testing to learning, from accountability to responsibility, and from obligation to opportunity."
ASCD Education Update, January 2002, Emphasis added.

State standards provide the target for instruction in Maryland. Recentering school-based discussions on the state standards, instead of the assessments, is particularly important at this time as the Maryland Assessment System itself is evolving. In this dynamic setting, the standards themselves should remain relatively stable. Whatever form the final new state assessment takes, NCLB regulations require it to be aligned with state standards.

2. Emphasize that, while state test scores provide valuable data, classroom assessments, gathered on an on-going basis, provide the most helpful information to adjust instruction.

State assessment data supply essential insights about schoolwide trends, and it will be important to gather as much information as possible when the 2002 MSPAP results are released. But data collected on an ongoing basis by teachers provide much more relevant and timely information in order to diagnose individual student needs and refine instruction. They key is to ensure that assessments teachers use and the data they gather from them are aligned with the state standards.

3. Stress that teacher analysis of student work needs to be a structured and required process.

A model should be identified, based on system and school needs, for the systematic analysis of student work. (Several models are provided as links on the on-line course.) Whatever model is identified, time must be allocated regularly within the school day for teachers to meet together to assemble, analyze, and talk about the implications of student work. Specific expectations need to be established for these sessions, and school administrators must be active participants.

4. Identifying the contributing factors to the current levels of student achievement is difficult, but emphasize that it is a necessary component in determining the focus for improvement.

Team members often prepare lavish data displays and do a pretty good job of identifying the areas of lowest achievement for future focus. They then tend to jump immediately to brainstorming and implementing possible initiatives to increase student performance. However, the step that is most critical to meeting rigorous achievement goals — developing a clear understanding of contributing factors (or root causes) of the current level of achievement so that they may be addressed — is often neglected or rushed.

It is easy to understand why. Educators tend to be problem solvers and action-oriented people. School improvement team members usually have many theories and ideas based on their prior experiences about what will be most effective in increasing their students’ performance. Furthermore, they feel the pressure of time to make a quick impact because of the coming assessment. They push forward on implementing possible solutions, without a full consideration of the contributing factors, hoping that a trial-and-error approach will hit the target by chance.

Also related to the tendency of school teams to skip in-depth analysis is that this is the first time that the team conversation must shift from the quality of student work (student performance as reflected in the data) to the actions of the adults in the school (the quality of the work of the school and the district to ensure student learning). This is a difficult discussion to have. Not only must hard questions be raised, teams must also begin to accept responsibility for the success of their actions in increasing achievement.

Help is available on the web site to structure these discussions through some of the revised tools such as the new "fishbone." School teams will need substantial and specific feedback from facilitators to ensure that their needs assessments are databased and focused.

5. Continually reinforce the concept that alignment is critical.

Alignment means:

• Teachers understand the meaning of and the knowledge and skills embedded in the indicators (standards).
• Teachers know the indicators for which they are responsible and teach them in an organized and sequential way.
• Teachers assess the indicators with the same rigor and in the same format that the indicators will be assessed on the state assessment.
• Teachers monitor student progress and report it to parents based on the indicators.
• Teachers intervene with students not succeeding by focusing interventions on student improvement on the indicators.

Walk-throughs provide one vehicle to gather information about the extent of alignment in a school. They are discussed in the next section.