We Spell HOPE READ

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• We Spell HOPE R-E-A-D
• Dr. Mel Riddile
• Principal, T.C. Williams High School
• NASSP-MetLife National High School Principal of
  the Year

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T.C. Williams High School
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J.E.B. Stuart High School
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Our students were among the lowest performing in
the school system

• February 1998
• Stuart is a failing school.

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Indicators of poor performance Academic
Achievement

• High D and F rates
• 76 or 3 of 4 students read below grade level
• Passed only 1 of 11 SOLs in 1998
• SATs were the lowest in school system
• Low expectations
• Bifurcation

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Indicators of poor performance Student Behavior

• Poor attendance
• 89 attendance
• system average was 95
• Poor discipline but high suspension rates
• Gang problems
• Drop-ins
• Retention Rate
• Declining enrollment in elective programs

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Poor Skills
Low Achievement
Retention
"Drop-ins"
Drop out
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Input
Process
Output
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The issue is not that U.S. education quality has
declinedBut the economy is changing much faster
than the schools have improved. Many people
including roughly half of the recent graduates
have an education that is no longer in demand.
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• Middle Class Access
• Read at the high school level
• Math at the high school level
• Write and speak
• Solve problems using a hypothesis
• Work in diverse groups
• Use a PC

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What can improved reading levels mean to a school?
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Breakthrough High Schools
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J.E.B. Stuart High School

• Your school is a national model that others can
  only attempt to emulate. Your high school is one
  of a few in America that is actually
  accomplishing what many educators are trying to
  do, helping students from disadvantaged
  backgrounds beat the odds against them.
• Dr. Gerald N. Tirozzi
• Executive Director
• NASSP

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Stuart High SchoolAwards and Recognition
Changing America A High School Melting Pot
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Stuart High SchoolAwards and Recognition
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Stuart High SchoolAwards and Recognition
One of the original six Breakthrough High
Schools One of thirty-nine schools featured in
Breaking Ranks II The only Virginia school
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Stuart High SchoolAwards and Recognition
Model High School
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Stuart High SchoolAwards and Recognition
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Stuart High SchoolAwards and Recognition
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SOL Scores by Free Reduced Lunchin FCPS High
Schools
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SOL Scores by Free Reduced Lunchw/out
Stuarts Score
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J.E.B. Stuart High School 1998-2005 Standards of
Learning Results
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SOL Results - Passing
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SOL Results - Passing
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SOL Results - Passing
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SOL Results - Passing
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SOL Results 8th Grade v. High School - Passing
VA SOLs The same students three years later!
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Employment 1970s

• High Skill
• Low Skill

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Employment 1990s

• High Skill
• Semi Skill
• Low Skill

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Employment 2001

• High Skill
• Semi Skill
• Low Skill

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Today

• Haves
• Have-nots

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NAEP results released in February 2007

• No improvement
• 25 of high school students read below basic

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If our school was a hospital
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..poor readers would receive critical care.
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Normal Driving
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Mountain Driving
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There are no remedial jobs!

• College graduation rate
• Take Calculus in high school
• Students who say they are in a college-bound
  curriculum
• Take remedial courses in college
• High school graduation rate

• 70
• 82
• 13
• 30
• 50

Even our best students are lacking literacy
skills.
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2005-06 Lexile Framework for Reading Study
Summary of Text Lexile Measures
Interquartile Ranges Shown (25 - 75)
1600
1400
1200
Text Lexile Measure (L)
1000
800
600
High School Literature
College Literature
High School Textbooks
College Textbooks
Military
Personal Use
Entry-Level Occupations
SAT 1, ACT, AP
Source of National Test Data MetaMetrics
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On-the Job Lexile Requirements
Lexile
National Adult Literacy Study 1992
1,500 1,400 1,300 1,200 1,100 1,000 900 800
International Center for Leadership in Education
2006
Construction
Craftsman
Nurse
Sales
Secretary
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2005-06 Lexile Framework for Reading
StudySummary of High School Textbook Lexile
Measures
Interquartile Ranges Shown (25 - 75)
1400
1300
1200
Text Lexile Measure (L)
1100
1000
900
800
ELA
Science
Social Studies
Arts
CTE
Math
Subject Area Textbooks
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Lexiles and Newspapers

• Washington Post ( 1350L)
• NY Times (1380L)
• USA Today (1200L)
• Associated Press (1310L)
• Wall Street Journal (1320L)

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Goals

• Graduates 1300L
• 11th Grade 1200L
• 10th Grade 1100L
• 9th Grade 1000L

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At T.C. Williams, the focus is on learning.
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What we must be do to raise literacy levels?
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8 things we must do.

• Policy
• Assessment
• Targeted Interventions
• Literacy Coach
• Literacy Council
• Professional Development
• Technology Integration
• Monitor and Measure Progress

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Policy

• Reading Across the Curriculum
• Ongoing Professional Development

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Assessment

• SDRT
• Annual Spring Testing
• ID Students
• Set up classes
• Needs of population
• Select resource materials
• IRI

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Targeted Interventions

• Reading Classes
• ESL
• Special Ed.
• Developing Literacy
• Read 180 (FY 08 Budget)
• Achieve 3000
• Reading Across The Curriculum

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Targeted Interventions
Highest

• Reading Across The Curriculum

Achieve 3000
Literacy Course
READ 180
Lowest
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Targeted Interventions
Highest

• Reading Across The Curriculum

Achieve 3000
900
Literacy Course
650
READ 180
Lowest
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Targeted Interventions
Highest

• Reading Across The Curriculum

Achieve 3000
90
Literacy Course
READ 180
Lowest
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Professional Development

• Ongoing
• Job-imbedded
• Content specific

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Technology Integration

• Blackboard compatible
• Achieve 3000
• Read 180
• Online testing

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At the secondary level
Literacy is like a transplanted organ. We must
take anti-rejection medication.
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Monitor Progress

• Annual Pre- and Post-Testing
• Program Audit
• Evaluation
• Mid-Course Corrections

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We spell "hope?"
R-E-A-D
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Determining text difficulty

• Syntactic Complexity
• the number of words per sentence
• longer sentences are more complex and require
  more short-term memory to process
• Semantic Difficulty
• the frequency of the words in a corpus of written
  text
• corpus has over 650-million words

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The Lexile Framework for Reading

• An educational tool that links text and readers
  under a common metric-- Lexiles
• Characterizes reader with a measure and text with
  a measure
• Allows educators to forecast the level of
  comprehension a reader is expected to experience
  with a particular text

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State of the Union - Today

• State Adoptions
• California (6.1M students, STAR)
• Texas (4.1M students, TAKS)
• North Carolina (1.3M students, NCEOG)
• Utah (500K students, UCA)
• Idaho (246K students, ISAT)
• Hawaii (185K students, SAT-9, SAT-10)
• Wyoming (90K students, WyCAS)
• Oregon (250 K via Reading First grant)
• Florida 90 of districts, including Duval,
  Broward, Miami-Dade and Pinellas
• Other states get optional Lexile reports

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State of the Union - Today

• All major norm reference tests are linked
• Over 19-million students will get a Lexile
  measure from a linked test in 2004-05
• Over 450 book publishers have titles with Lexile
  measures
• Nearly 50,000 books to search at www.lexile.com
• Over 70 million Lexiled articles through
  database-services partners