Western States Benchmarking Consortium

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Western States Benchmarking Consortium
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Western States Benchmarking Consortium
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Lake Washington School District
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Vancouver Public Schools
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Beaverton School District
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Cherry Creek School District
Blue Valley School District
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Poway Unified School District
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Plano Independent School District
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High Tech Environments
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Microsoft
Hewlett Packard
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Intel
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Denver Tech. Center
Sprint
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Gateway and Qualcom
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Telecomm Corridor
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Magnitude of Impact

• Approx. 1 million residents
• Almost 600 square miles
• 300 schools
• More than 25,000 full and part-time employees

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Magnitude of Impact

• Approx. 250,000 students
• Students living in poverty range from 2 to 50
• Minority students range from 6 to 30
• Average number of student languagesspoken 51

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Scope of Public Support

• Annual operating budgets approx. 1.6 billion
• History of voter levy support
• Capital construction over past decade well over
  1.5 billion
• Technology equipment investments over past decade
  over 300 million

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Pattern of High Student Performance

• Districts well exceed state and national norms
  (ITBS, SAT, ACT)
• High numbers of National Merit Scholars Recent
  student winners of National Academic Decathlon,
  National Knowledge Master Open, National Academic
  Challenge, National Odyssey of the Mind, National
  Geography Bee Championship
• International Baccalaureate Programs in most
  districts
• Very low drop out rates

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Hundreds of National Awards

• Examples
• Scores of Title I Distinguished Schools and
  national Blue Ribbon Schools
• AASA Leadership for Learning
• NSBA technology Site Visits
• CEFPI national awards for outstanding
  architectural planning and design
• 1000 Points of Light
• GFOA Certificates of Excellence in Financial
  Reporting

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Hundreds of National Awards

• Multi-Cultural Education Awards
• Many teachers certified by National Board for
  Professional Teacher Certification
• Frequent State and National Teacher of the year
  and Administrator of the Year awards
• Various recognitions by National School Public
  Relations Association
• District practices named in Models for Success
  Case Studies of Technology in Schools

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Purpose of the Consortium

• Although the WSBC member school districts are
  high performance learning organizations, they
  will become magnificently irrelevant if the
  American public education system is not wholly
  transformed to assure individual student
  excellence.

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Making Commitments
As a consortium of school districts, we are
committed to

• Focusing on the work of the student learner with
  an appreciation for the diversity of needs and
  variety of strategies needed to address those
  needs
• Developing appropriate benchmarks to reflect
  student progress and achievement
• Sharing responsibilities with the stakeholders
  (family, parent, community)
• Engaging in continuous improvement and reform to
  create the future for public education

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Strategic Areas

• Student learning
• Capacity development
• Community connectedness
• Data-driven decision-making

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Identifying Our Targets

• Student learning
• Ensuring learning for all students
• Integrating standards
• Incorporating innovative practice
• Integrating technology
• Developing a coherent curriculum

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Identifying Our Targets

• Capacity development
• Expanding organizational effectiveness
• Promoting innovation
• Improving professional/organizational development

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Identifying Our Targets

• Community connectedness
• Understanding and using assessment results
• Providing community-based learning opportunities
• Building community partnerships
• Developing a strong community

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Identifying Our Targets

• Data-driven decision-making
• Using data to affect student performance
• Using information to improve instructional
  practice
• Relating investments, outcomes and improvement
  strategies
• Using a variety of data effectively

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Developmental Levels

• Emergent
• Islands
• Integrated
• Exemplary

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Mapping a Path to Excellence

• Emergent
• School system begins to recognize the need for
  change in a strategic area
• Discussion and debate focus on the advisability
  of change, but no action is taken yet
• District policy is silent on the nature of change
  in this area

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Mapping a Path to Excellence

• Islands
• School system has pockets of change underway
• Initiatives have emerged from discomfort with
  current practices in some settings
• Discomfort is not systemic, and pilot change
  efforts tend to rise from within the system
• Change efforts may be isolated from each other,
  but are beginning to generate attention and
  debate at the policy-making and leadership levels

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Mapping a Path to Excellence

• Integrated
• School system has decided, formally, to integrate
  significant strategic changes across the entire
  system
• Organization is recognized for its best
  practices
• Changes are not yet pervasive throughout the
  system, engendering strong understanding, support
  and collaboration from the broader community

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Mapping a Path to Excellence

• Exemplary
• School system demonstrates unusually high levels
  of student and organizational performance
• People learn continuously from data and
  experience, never totally satisfied with current
  effectiveness
• Future trends are monitored to determine when new
  policies, practices and paradigms are needed
• School system leads broader efforts to improve
  quality of life for children, youth and
  familiesboth within and outside the local
  community

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