STATE OF THE SCHOOLS

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STATE OF THE SCHOOLS

• Nebraska Rural Community
• Schools Association
• May 2006

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There Is No Place Like Nebraska
This is a story of

• Nebraska Values
• Nebraska Traditions
• Nebraska Futures

N
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There Is No Place Like Nebraska

• This is a story of
• Good students
• Good schools
• Change
• Challenge

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There Is No Place Like Nebraska

• Chapter One
• Going It Alone . . . Again
• Chapter Two
• Good? Good Enough? Getting Better?
• Chapter Three
• The Rest of the Story

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There Is No Place Like Nebraska

• Chapter Four
• A Perfect Storm
• Chapter Five
• Challenges of Two Nebraskas

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There Is No Place Like Nebraska

• Chapter Six
• The Work To Do
• Chapter Seven
• Conclusion (Before the End)

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Going It Alone. . . Again!

• Chapter One

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How Nebraskas AssessmentSystem Works

• 49 states have state standards
• Iowa requires local standards
• 49 states have state tests
• Nebraska has a state writing test
• 1 state has an assessment system

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We could have . . .

• Used an existing or off-the-shelf standardized
  test . . .
  
• Measured 30-35 of the standards
• Scores correlate to income
• Sensitive only to poverty, cultural differences
• Not sensitive to instruction
• Not sensitive to learning

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We could have created state tests.

• Minimum cost of 3 million each (math, science,
  reading, literature, social studies)
  
• Sample our standards
• Reports status only
• Not diagnostic
• Measures only what kids know
• Does not measure what kids have learned
• Repeated Use
• Standardizes them and creates norms

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Nebraskas Assessment SystemSTARS

• State system
• Local measures
• Measures student performance against all
  standards
  
• Includes all students
• Multiple measures
• Immediate feedback to students and teachers

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Nebraska STARS

• S chool-based
• T eacher-led
• A ssessment, and
• R eporting
• S ystem

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• Valid and reliable
• Includes internal and external benchmarks as
  reality checks
  
• NRT
• ACT
• NAEP

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• Includes state writing test
• Reviewed and rated by panel of experts

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Identifying the STARS

• Recognized in numerous publications
• Education Leadership
• Kappan
• School Administrator

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Identifying the STARS

• National Council on Measurement in Education
  (NCME)
  
• Educational Measurements Issues and Practice,
  Summer, 2004
  
• Special Issue An Alternative Approach to
  Statewide Assessment The Nebraska
  Standards-based Teacher-led Assessment System
  

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Identifying the STARS

• The Road to 21st Century Learning, a publication
  of the U.S. Department of Education
  
• Measuring 21st Century Skills and Using 21st
  Century Assessments
  

. . . Nations most innovative assessment
system, . . .

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Identifying the STARS

• The Road to 21st Century Learning
• Federal education officials said Nebraskas
  system passed muster because the states
  constitution guarantees local control over school
  accountability and the state was able to
  demonstrate that the assessments were valid and
  reliable.

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Identifying the STARS

• Brookhart Study (2004)
• . . . The data and proficiency level
  determinations . . . Are accurate, reliable and
  trustworthy . . .

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Nebraskas STARS system supports quality learning
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Nebraskas STARS system supports quality learning
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Good?Good Enough?Getting Better?

• Chapter Two

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What is a good school?

• Overall achievement is high
• 80 of the students are getting 80 of the
  stuff
  
• Subgroup achievement mirrors the whole group
• Both trend lines are moving upward

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Very good news . . .ACT scores

• 77 take it
• Nebraska is No. 1 (states with 70 or more)
• More perfect scores in last 5 years than previous
  15
  
• More 34 scores in last 2 years than previous 8

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More very good news . . .Reading

• Met NE
  Standards
  
• 4
  8 11
  
• Performance
• Rating 84.8 85.5 83.1

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More very good news . . . Math

• Met NE
  Standards
  
• 4
  8 11
  
• Performance
• Rating 87.9 81.8 77.7

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More very good newsWriting

• Met NE
  Standards
  
• 4
  8 11
  
• Meeting or
• Exceeding 83.0 84.9
  89.5
  
• Standards

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The Rest of the Story(By Paul Harvey)

• Chapter Three

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The rest of the story . . .

• The top one-third of our students
• Never better
• Getting better
• Holding up our averages

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The rest of the story . . .

• Middle one-third
• Flatlined
• Bottom one-third
• Never worse
• Getting worse

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The Rest of the Story . . .
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Storm clouds?

• College participation rates have declined
• 1990 (almost 75)
• 2000 (almost 62)

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A Perfect Storm

• Chapter 4

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Mobility
Poverty
Depopulation
English Language
Diversity
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Poverty matters

• Students who enter school from family backgrounds
  of poverty
  
• Begin behind
• May never catch up
• Have most difficulty with reading
• Reading difficulty carries over to literacy
  difficulty in other subjects

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Poverty matters

• Cumulative Vocabulary
• Children from professional
• families 1100 words
• Children from working
• class families 700 words
• Children from welfare
• families 500 words
• Vocabulary in Beginning Reading

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Poverty matters
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Diversity

• Nebraskas school populations have changed
  increasing diversity
  
• There are 14 schools in Nebraska with majority
  minority populations
  

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Diversity matters

• What happens in Minority/Majority Schools?
• Poverty becomes the norm
• Educators no longer match the majority culture of
  students
  
• The majority of students often do not have
  English as their first language

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English Language Learners

• During the 2003-04 school year, there were 15,582
  ELL students in Nebraska
  
• Spanish, Vietnamese, Nuer and Arabic are the top
  four languages
  
• Spanish is spoken by 80 of these students

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English Language Learners

• ELL students have a wide variety of educational
  backgrounds
  
• May be highly educated in their home language
• May have limited formal schooling
• May be highly mobile
• May have come from war-torn countries and have
  other life experiences that could interfere with
  learning

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English Language Learners

• It takes at least 5-7 years for ELL students to
  have sufficient English for the academic content
  areas

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Mobility Matters

• Our Families are on the move
• Mobility matters

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Santee
Walthill
Lexington
Umo N Ho N Nation
Norfolk
S. Sioux City OPS Stapleton Morrill Minitare
Winnebago
Chapman Fremont
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Mobility Matters

• Teachers expend time collecting information and
  bringing the child on-line
  
• Classroom size is often increased
• Attendance is a major issue for our highly mobile
  students. They may miss 40-60 days
  
• Teachers have to take time to make social group
  linkages

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Mobility Matters

• Each arrival or departure changes the dynamics of
  the classroom. Groups need to be reorganized,
  student behavior changes as the pecking order is
  resorted and supplies and books must be located.

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Mobility Matters

• Children may be with us for two weeks or two
  days. Last year one class had only 4 of 22
  remaining at the end of the year. From September
  to November, we had 80 in and 80 out. We just
  start all over again.

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Mobility Matters - Student Mobility

• High school students who change schools are at
  least twice as likely not to graduate
  (Rumberger, Larson, Ream Palardy, 1999)
  
• In all income categories, highly mobile students
  are more likely to be retained a grade than
  children who do not change schools (Fowler-Finn,
  2001)

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Poverty Mobility ELL SpEd At Risk

• Absenteeism
• Failure
• Retention
• Truancy
• Drop Out

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Rural Depopulation

• Bloomfield Effect
• Northeast Nebraska
• 1970 1300 residents
• 2000 1300 residents
• 1970 675 students
• 2000 270 students

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Rural Depopulation

• McCook Effect
• Southwest Nebraska
• Major economic engine for large geographic
  area
  
• 2003-04
• 175 Senior Class Students
• 100 Kindergarten Class Students

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Rural Depopulation

• Alliance Effect
• Northwest Nebraska
• 1990-91 2317 students
• 2000-01 2003 students
• 2003-04 1728 students
• 2004-05 1706 students
• 162 Senior Class Students
• 111 Kindergarten Class Students

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The Tale of Two Nebraskas

• Chapter Five

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Two Nebraskas
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Tale of Two Nebraskas

• One-half of the students (150,000) live in 5
  counties
  
• Average per capita income is 15-22,000 over
  national average
  
• One-half of the students (150,000) live in the
  other 88 counties
  
• Average per capita income is 14,000 below
  national average

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Tale of Two Nebraskas

• Of the Nations 12 poorest counties, Nebraska has
  7 of them
  

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Tale of Two Nebraskas

• Nuckolls County
• 1 of 4 people over age 65
• One of the highest counties in nation with
  residents age 85
  
• 99 White
• 1 of 4 households makes less than 15,000
• 1 of the income from farming

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Tale of Two Nebraskas

• Loup County
• 6,000 per capita income

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Tale of Two Nebraskas
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Tale of Two Nebraskas
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The Work To Do

• Chapter Six

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Work To Do

• Equity
• Policy
• Practice

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What we need to do

• The Work
• Make equity the premier state policy in
  education
  
• Guarantee equitable opportunities to learn for
  all students
  
• Exhaust our expertise, resources and energy in
  achieving equitable outcomes

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Definitions

• Equitable opportunities to learn are those
  essential educational and support programs and
  services that have a quality that is not a
  function of district size, wealth or geographic
  location

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Definitions

• Equitable outcomes are the desired achievement
  results and they are not a function of gender,
  socioeconomic status, race or culture, and/or
  handicapping condition

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The Work

• Essential Education Policy
• Opportunities for all Nebraska students

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The Work

• Essential Education enables students to be
• Proficient in meeting the States academic
  content standards and essential learnings
  
• Successful at each educational level and in
  transitioning between those levels from early
  childhood through postsecondary education and/or
  career entry

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The Work

• Essential Education enables students to be
• Effective in functioning in and contributing to
  our culturally diverse democratic society

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K 12
The Work. . .Maximize the System

• Maxed out?
• Dump it?
• Re-energize it?
• Create new capacity?

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The Work . . .Create New Capacity

• Connect to sources
• Connect to customers and outcomes

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The Work. . .Connections create new systems

• K 12
• Pre K Transitions
• P 13 16

Learning
Earning
Living
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The Work . . .New Ways of Thinking

• Think outside the box?
• Think outside the box
• Create new box to think inside of

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P-16
EDUCATION
OPPORTUNITIES
OUTCOMES
PROGRESS BY DEMONSTRATION
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Conclusion(Before the End)

• Chapter Seven

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Conclusion

• Using the criteria we used when we were in
  school
  
• Our schools are terrific
• Our schools are never better
• But if our criterion is all children, all
  students
  
• We arent getting the job done

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Conclusion

• We Can Do This
• We can do this work
• We must find the resources
• We must remain committed to our values
• Families
• Communities
• Schools

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Conclusion

• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
  committed people can change the world.
  
• . . . Indeed, it is the only thing that ever
  has!
  
• -- Margaret Mead

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Conclusion

• The End