SystemWide Improvement in Literacy and Numeracy

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System-Wide Improvement in Literacy and Numeracy

• AATE, Adelaide
• July 9, 2008
• Ben Levin, OISE, Canada

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Evidence Base

• Review of research 2007
• English strategy review 1998-2002
• Ontario strategy 2004-07
• Significant improvement in all outcomes
• Also improved teacher morale
• And improved public confidence

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Key Messages

• We can do better
• It takes sustained effort
• The right changes
• An appropriate implementation strategy
• Managing politics and other distractions

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Ontario 2003

• 10 years of conflict
• Stagnant results
• Declining high school graduation
• Unhappy teachers
• Public dissatisfaction
• Flight to private schools

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Ontario 2007

• Peace and stability
• Improving results
• Higher graduation rates
• Improved teacher morale
• Increased public confidence
• Return to public schools

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How to Do This

• Strategy and Leadership
• Capacity-building and infrastructure
• Communications
• Focus and distractions
• Resources
• All about improving will and skill

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The Right Changes

• Change teaching/learning practices
• Using best evidence
• Student engagement
• Outreach to parents, community
• Build sector capacity and commitment
• Improved leadership skills
• Curriculum and assessment as servants, not masters

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Reaching Every Classroom

• Changing teaching practice in ways that have a
  significant impact on student outcomes is not
  easy. Policy and organisational contexts that
  continually shift priorities to the next big
  thing, with little understanding of current
  practice undermine the sustainability of
  changes already under way. Innovation needs to be
  carefully balanced with consolidation if
  professional learning experiences are to impact
  positively on student outcomes. (Timperley et
  al., 2007, p.225)

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Implementation

• Avoid too many separate projects
• Requires infrastructure
• Relevant to the size of the challenge
• Need to build capacity
• Research, evaluation and data

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Managing Distractions

• Lots of dialogue and communication
• Respect for all parties, especially teachers
• Coherence and alignment in and across sectors

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Ontarios Strategy

• Primarily school-based
• 1.3 million students, 80,000 teachers
• 4000 elementary schools in 72 districts
• 4 systems French and English
• Self-governing districts within provincial policy
  framework
• Limited provincial testing regime

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Overall Strategy

• 2 big targets
• Elementary literacy/numeracy
• High school graduation rates
• Many smaller initiatives
• Important to have coherence
• Many of the were supportive

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Main Elements of LNS

• Set clear, compelling public target
• Created Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat to lead
  
• Significant resources
• Unrelenting focus and connection with districts
  and schools
• Strong political support
• Constant, positive, respectful messages

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Where to Focus

• All schools need to improve
• Specific attention to low performing schools
• Specific attention to coasting schools
• Specific attention to priority groups
• Aboriginal, ESL, special education, disability

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Capacity Building

• Supporting local district initiatives
• Implementing large-scale provincial professional
  development
• Changing classroom practice in lower performing
  schools
• Spreading successful school and classroom
  practices
• Building capacity to support school and classroom
  improvement Instructional leaders
• Reaching every classroom with resources, supports
  and professional learning

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Consistent Focus

• Staying the course
• Consistent strategy over several years
• Consolidating high-yield strategies and improving
  access to related resources
• e.g. webcasts, podcasts, research notes
• Scaling up improvement through networks
• Across schools and districts

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Strategies Making a Difference

• Effective instruction in comprehensive literacy
  and numeracy programs
• Blocks of classroom time for literacy and
  numeracy
• Use of student data to assess progress and inform
  classroom practices
• Supports for struggling learners, including
  tutoring
• Appropriate books and other learning resources
• Professional learning teams, including teacher
  moderation activities and collaborative work on
  instructional strategies
• School improvement planning with specific goals,
  actions and monitoring
• Higher expectations that all teachers can teach
  and all students can achieve
• Engaging school principals and developing
  instructional leadership throughout the school.

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Pressure and Support

• Blame and fear do not yield improvement
• Equally, has to be constant effort to do better
• Build on good existing practice
• Use data to generate questions
• Use networks for positive peer pressure
• Increasing specificity around practice but
  minimal mandating

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• Support and Positive Pressure Capacity Building
  with a Focus on Results

• Support first to mobilize the system around a
  shared sense of urgency to raise educational
  achievement and close gaps in performance
• Extensive and targeted capacity-building for
  improving teaching practices, instructional
  leadership and system improvement as main drivers
  in the reform agenda
• Supporting research to find, understand and share
  effective practices
• System-wide support for improvement, plus
  targeted interventions for boards and schools
  with persisting low achievement and/or
  under-performance

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• Professional Accountability Results without
  Rancour or Ranking

• Building professional accountability for school
  and system educators to hold themselves
  accountable for ensuring research-based,
  effective strategies are consistently implemented
• Identifying consistent expectations and
  supporting educators to self-evaluate, plan,
  review implementation and outcomes achieved
• Engaging school and district leaders to set
  ambitious but achievable targets and plans to
  bring about gains in student achievement
• Supporting appropriate and effective use of
  assessment and data to track school and student
  performance and to target intervention where
  needed

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The Role of Assessment

• Public is entitled to information on system
  performance
• Can and should go beyond test scores
• Educators need information on outcomes
• Must be timely, relevant
• People have to know what to do next

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Communication and Support

• Endless communication to sector
• Enlisting support from leaders and teachers
• Constant positive reinforcement
• Public communication
• Successes and challenges

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Resources

• Infrastructure
• Capacity-building
• Communications
• Leadership
• Projects
• Evaluation and research
• Total was about 1 of base

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Status as of 2008

• System is fully mobilized, goals accepted
• of students reaching benchmark has increased
  from 54 to 64
• Some gaps reduced ESL, special ed
• Number of low performing schools dropped
  dramatically
• Teacher attrition sharply down
• Public satisfaction up somewhat

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4

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EQAO Provincial Test ResultsEnglish Language
Primary
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Percentage of Schools at or Below 34 in Grade 3
Reading
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It Can Be Done

• Requires sustained effort
• Clear focus
• Alignment across issues
• Everything is about changing students experience

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Thank You
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