Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools: Report of the Strategic Support Team of the Council of the Great City Schools Submitted to the Dayton Public Schools By the Council of the Great City Schools Fall 2008 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Acknowledgments The Council of the Great City Schools thanks the many individuals who contributed to this project to improve student achievement in the Dayton Public Schools. Their efforts were critical to our ability to present the district with the best possible proposals. First, we thank Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic and Chief Academic Officer Jane McGee-Rafal. It is not easy to ask for the kind of review conducted by this project. It takes courage and openness. It also requires an uncompromising commitment to the city’s children. These two leaders have these qualities in abundance. Second, we thank members of the Community Leadership Committee for their support of the project and their leadership in working to improve the performance of the Dayton Public Schools. In particular, we thank Thomas Lasley and Tom Brietenbach, who lead the committee, for their thoughtful guidance. Third, we thank the Dayton school board for its cooperation and leadership in ensuring that this review was conducted. Fourth, we thank the members of the Dayton City Schools staff who provided all the time, documents, and data that we needed to do our work. Their openness and enthusiasm were critical to our understanding of the challenges that the school system faces. Fifth, we thank the many groups, organizations, and associations with which we met. We apologize that we were unable to meet with everyone who we know had something valuable to say. We encourage your comments. Sixth, we thank the Atlanta school district, which donated staff to the project on very short notice. Atlanta’s generosity serves as another example of how the nation’s urban public school systems are working together to help each other improve student performance. Finally, I personally thank Council staff member Ricki Price-Baugh whose skills and extremely hard work were critical to the success of this effort. Michael Casserly Executive Director Council of the Great City Schools Council of the Great City Schools 2 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Table of Contents Executive Summary: Introduction and Next Steps..........................................................................6 Introduction: Purpose and Origin of the Project ............................................................................12 Chapter 1. Background ..................................................................................................................16 Chapter 2. Findings........................................................................................................................37 Chapter 3. Recommendations ........................................................................................................65 Chapter 4. Synopsis and Discussion ..............................................................................................89 Appendix A. Data Tables...............................................................................................................91 Appendix B. Three-Year District Improvement Scenario .............................................................92 Appendix C. Summary of Questions Posed to Team ....................................................................95 Appendix D. Individuals Interviewed............................................................................................96 Appendix E. Documents Reviewed ...............................................................................................98 Appendix F. Strategic Support Team Members ..........................................................................101 Appendix G. About the Council ..................................................................................................103 Council of the Great City Schools 3 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibits Exhibit 1. Comparison of Dayton School District with the Great City Schools and Ohio................................................................................................................................................17 Exhibit 2. Trends in Dayton’s Student Demographics ..................................................................17 Exhibit 3. Percentage Proficient or Above on the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) by Subject in Spring 2008, Grades 3-8, Dayton and Statewide…………………….…………………………..18 Exhibit 4. Percentage Proficient or Above on the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) by Subject in Spring 2008, Grades 3-8, Dayton and Statewide………………………………………………...19 Exhibit 5. Percentage Proficient or Above on the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) by Subject in Spring 2008, Grades 10 and 11, Dayton and Statewide…………………………………………20 Exhibit 6. Percentage Proficient or Above on the Ohio Graduation Test (OAT) by Subject in Spring 2008, Grades 10 and 11, Dayton and Statewide…………………………………………20 Exhibit 7. Percentage of Dayton’s Students Scoring at Each Performance Level in 2008 by Subject and Grade………………………………………………………………………………. 21 Exhibit 8. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Reading on the State Tests, 2006 to 2008…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 22 Exhibit 9. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Writing on State Tests, 2006 to 2008………………………………………………………………………………………………23 Exhibit 10. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Mathematics on State Tests, 2006 to 2008………………………………………………………………………………………………24 Exhibit 11. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Science on State Tests, 2006 to 2008………………………………………………………………………………………………25 Exhibit 12. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Social Studies on State Tests, 2006 to 2008…………………………………………………………………………………………...25 Exhibit 13. Dayton/Ohio 2007-2008 Proficiency Gap by Subject Area and Ethnicity………….28 Exhibit 14. Number of Possible Points on State Reading Test versus Points Dayton Students Scored Correctly by Standard and Grade in 2008……………………………………………….29 Exhibit 15. Percent of Possible Points Dayton Students Scored by Reading Standard and Grade Level in 2008…………………………………………………………………………………….30 Council of the Great City Schools 4 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 16. Percent of Possible Points Dayton Students Scored by Math Standard and Grade Level in 2008…………………………………………………………………………………….30 Exhibit 17. Number of Possible Points on State Math Test Versus Points Dayton Students Scored Correctly by Standard and Grade in 2008………………………………………………………. 31 Exhibit 18. Summary of Performance Levels of Dayton Students by Subject…………………..32 Exhibit 19. Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Status of Dayton Schools by School……………32 Exhibit 20. Attendance in 2007-08, Graduation Rates and Graduation with Honors Diplomas in 2006-07 by Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Disadvantage Status……………………………….34 Exhibit 21. Number of Advanced Placement (AP) Exams Taken and Number and Percent with Scores of 3 or Above, 2007-08…………………………………………………………………..35 Exhibit 22. ACT Scores in Dayton, Ohio, and the Nation, 2007 and 2008…………………….. 36 Exhibit 23. SAT Scores in Dayton and Ohio, 2007 and 2008………………………………….. 36 Exhibit 24. Dayton School District Performance Index and Components………………………69 Council of the Great City Schools 5 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools: Report of the Strategic Support Team of the Council of the Great City Schools EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION The Dayton Public Schools, once again, is facing a critical moment when it must decide whether it will muddle through and sit back and watch as families choose other options for their children’s public education or whether the school system will do what it takes to raise student achievement substantially and regain some measure of confidence from parents and business. The school system has been here before. In 2002, the Council of the Great City Schools was summoned as members of a new reform-minded school board were taking their seats. The Council noted that the district was in crisis, stating bluntly that achievement was low, funding was tenuous, buildings were dilapidated, and the public was looking at its options. The organization proposed a series of major instructional and budgetary reforms to turn the district around.1 The school district responded. Its new school board was relentless in pursuit of improvement. It installed a new and energetic superintendent who was eager to move the school system forward. It redeployed a substantial portion of its budget into classroom instruction. It established a more standardized instructional system and began to curtail its fractured and often chaotic academic program. The reforms appeared to make a difference. Student achievement on state tests rose steadily from 2002 through 2006. The Council returned to the city in 2005, looked at what had happened in the intervening years, and lauded the school district publicly for the headway it had made. 2 The organization praised the school district for its more cohesive school board, its clearer mission statement, its reform-minded agenda, its concrete goals, its upgraded staffing, its stiffer accountability, its more coherent curriculum, its reemerging community partnerships, and a number of other reforms. 1 Council of the Great City Schools (2002). Raising Student Achievement in the Dayton Public Schools: Report of the Dayton Public Schools Strategic Support Teams. Washington, D.C.: Council of the Great City Schools, February 2002 2 Council of the Great City Schools (2005). Foundations of Success in the Dayton Public Schools: Report of the Dayton Public Schools Strategic Support Team, Washington, DC: Council of the Great City Schools, 2005. Council of the Great City Schools 6 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools In short, the Council concluded at the time that the Dayton Public Schools was a “district on the move,” but urged the school system in a series of recommendations to continue working on its reforms and take the next steps toward higher student achievement because overall performance was still too low. Apparently, this did not happen to the extent that we would have liked in order to continue the district’s forward momentum. The school board began to change as critical members decided not to seek reelection. The administration may have taken its eye off the ball and lost its initial focus. And the public, possibly sensing district uncertainty and the loss of energy, voted against the operational levy that might have prevented some of the recent programmatic upheavals. The result of these developments, in combination, was largely responsible, in our minds, for the slowdown in student achievement between 2006 and 2008. Academic performance did begin to slip. The system’s Performance Index dipped, and the percentages of students reading and doing math at the proficient level on the state tests showed signs of erosion. By 2008, test scores fell substantially and resulted in the district’s schools being rated as one of the lowest performing in the state. When the Council of the Great City Schools returned last month to examine the situation, it found a district that had some of the initial reform structure still in place. But it also found a district that had been substantially weakened by budget cuts and seemed unsure of where it was going. The system’s strategic plan had expired and had not yet been replaced with a series of new goals and next steps. The district had no more accountability for results than we saw some years ago. Progress was made in the development of new curriculum guides, but teachers were still uncertain about what was supposed to be taught and at what levels of rigor. Professional development was inadequate, unfocused, and ineffective. Data were being generated but not sufficiently used. And interventions for student falling behind were defined poorly. Despite the discouraging downturn, the school district has a number of assets. Its school board is strong and is beginning to coalesce around its new members. The interim superintendent is highly focused, skilled, and worth keeping as long as possible. The elements of reform at the central office remain in place. The staff is composed of many strong, talented, determined, and energetic individuals. The community remains committed to improving the district. And there are fledgling signals that charter schools and regular schools may be seeking some form of rapprochement. The community rightly is asking what needs to be done to reverse the district’s downward slide and get the school system heading in the right direction. The answers lie in some of the same proposals that the Council of the Great City Schools made in 2005. Some of the answers reside in fresh thinking and new experience about what moves urban schools forward. The Council’s team has assembled a new set of proposal that are designed to get the district moving along the path to reform again, both in the short- and long-term. Council of the Great City Schools 7 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools NEXT STEPS To accelerate its reforms, the Dayton Public Schools might consider taking the following next steps— • Establish an immediate goal to move the school district to “continuous improvement” status within three years. • Implement an emergency program of tutoring, extended-time instruction, and professional development to attain continuous improvement status. • Advocate for passage of the November operating levy and use some of the proceeds to pay for the emergency instructional initiatives. Political Preconditions • Update, revise, and announce a new strategic plan that will take the now-expired plan to the next level. • Devote some portion of each school board meeting to reviewing the status of or data on the district’s instructional program and its reform. • Design a process by which high-achieving charter schools that are interested in reaffiliating with the school district can do so on terms that allow the charters flexibility that regular schools may not have. • Accelerate efforts to improve relations between the school district’s leadership and the teachers union. • Review previous Council reports for recommendations that remain unimplemented but are still relevant as the district moves forward. Goals • Incorporate both short-term and long-range goals—including stretch goals—into the district’s new strategic plan. • Revisit all district academic improvement and school-by-school improvement goals to make sure that they are aligned with the broader goals to get out of “district improvement” status under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and out of “academic watch” status by the state and into “continuous improvement” status. Accountability • Place all senior staff in the central office on performance contracts tied to attainment of districtwide goals and a new strategic plan. Council of the Great City Schools 8 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Consider developing a recognition or reward system for schools and teachers that meet or exceed student growth expectations. • Strengthen and clarify the criteria and weights for evaluating principals on the degree to which they improve student achievement. • Incorporate the improvement of student achievement into the evaluation of the coaches and specialists. Curriculum and Instruction • Analyze the state standards and indicators in every core content area and clarify what needs to be taught at each grade level, rather than at each grade-level band. • Review the curriculum guides to ensure that they incorporate the rigor or difficulty necessary for students to do well on state and national tests. • Ensure that all core courses at every grade level—including prekindergarten, the early elementary grades, and the secondary grades—have curriculum guides. • Modify the pacing guides to allow time for review, reteaching, and enrichment based on student performance. • Reduce the number of standards and indicators being taught in the language arts curriculum units to only those being taught in the lesson • Identify, adopt, or purchase supplemental materials that will explicitly fill gaps between the curriculum and the state standards. • Reduce the use of worksheets in language arts classroom instruction. Professional Development and Teacher Quality • Modify the collective bargaining agreement in order to add more professional development days that the district can use to improve instruction. • Define professional development provided by the district around the academic goals and instructional priorities of the school system. • Differentiate the district’s professional development by teacher experience, expertise and special-needs students • Consolidate and coordinate all district professional development activities in one calendar and catalogue those activities through the professional development office. • Establish a regular schedule by which the district’s professional development is evaluated for its usefulness—and its impact on student achievement. Council of the Great City Schools 9 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Modify the collective bargaining agreement to mitigate the effects of the seniority provisions on the “bumping” of teachers when budget cuts occur. • Change the notification date for teachers to declare their intentions to leave the district from July 10 to June 30 to enable the district to hire the best possible replacements. • Include the substitute teaching pool in all teacher professional development. Reform Press • Revamp the “walkthrough” form to include curriculum implementation, instructional delivery aligned with the necessary rigor or instructional level, student engagement, and linkage to assessment results. • Expand the use of coaches and specialists into K-2 in the future to mitigate the amount of remedial work that is needed in grades 3, 4, and beyond. Assessment and Data Use • Develop an actual quarterly districtwide assessment system to track student progress through the curriculum over the course of the school year • Eliminate the second short-cycle test currently scheduled for January—and eliminate future use of the current short-cycle tests in favor of new formative quarterly districtwide assessments. • Consider dropping the TerraNova as a screen for identifying gifted and talented students. Lowest-Performing Schools and Special-Needs Students • Redirect current Title I funds in order to place additional coaches and specialists in the district’s lowest-performing schools. • Task the curriculum department with developing or identifying a Tier I and II intervention system and holding professional development on their use. • Implement a systemwide “positive behavior” program in all district schools. Preschool Students and Elementary Schools • Have the chief academic officer designate one of the early childhood directors to coordinate all pre-K efforts across the district and to build a central focus, collaboration, and accountability into the programming. • Charge the pre-K coordinator with articulating the instructional work with grade K-2 directors in order to build a more seamless academic program for students leading to state tests starting in grade 3. Council of the Great City Schools 10 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Explore the possibility of blending funds across programs for four-year olds to allow full-day programs for students currently in half-day Head Start programs. • Track pre-K pupils by program type from kindergarten through at least grade 3 to assess differences in academic progress. • Eliminate the placement of students outside of their neighborhoods unless it is a parent choice. • Explore the feasibility of having parents go to neighborhood schools to register students (with the paper trail given to the central office) • Charge the district’s senior instructional team with developing a full-fledged gifted and talented program. Middle and High Schools • Develop a comprehensive high school reform plan as part of the district’s strategic plan. • Double-block math and reading classes students in sixth through ninth grade—for students who are significantly below grade level (at least two or three years behind). • Develop a standardized course catalog for all high school courses, and standardize the expected content for those courses. • Encourage differentiated staffing patterns for seventh and eighth grades in core subjects. • Institute Advanced Placement (AP) classes for all high schools and train teachers on the use of the AP curriculum and assessments. • Seek external funds to pay for PSAT tests for all eighth- and ninth-graders, and use the results to create a pipeline toward AP and honors courses for more students. • Create a summer bridge program for students transitioning from eighth into ninth grade. • Begin development of end-of-course exams for all core content courses at the secondary school level that are required for graduation. • Backmap (back from 12th to sixth grades) the content and rigor of the district’s current secondary school courses with teams of teachers and content specialists—and compare that content and rigor against what is required of students on the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) and ACT. Council of the Great City Schools 11 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Introduction: Purpose and Origin of the Project OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT The Council of the Great City Schools, the nation’s primary coalition of large urban public school systems, has prepared this report to summarize its findings and proposals to the Dayton City Schools in order to improve student achievement. This analysis was requested by the Community Leadership Committee and coordinated by Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic and Chief Academic Officer (CAO) Jane McGee-Rafal as part of a larger citywide effort to improve public education in Dayton. To conduct its work, the Council assembled a Strategic Support Team of curriculum and instructional leaders who have addressed some of the same issues facing the Dayton Public Schools. Each of the team members came from an urban school district that improved student achievement significantly. Council staff members supported the team and prepared this report. The team made its site visit to Dayton on August 24-27, 2008. The team’s work began with a meeting with Interim Superintendent Stanic and CAO McGee-Rafal to clarify the goals of the visit and to discuss challenges confronting the district. That discussion was followed by two days of fact-finding and a day devoted to synthesizing the team’s findings and proposing preliminary strategies for improving student achievement. The team debriefed the superintendent at the end of the site visit. The site visit was followed by extensive time devoted to additional fact-finding, data collection and analysis, and conference calls to discuss details of the report. The Council commends the Community Leadership Committee and Interim Superintendent Stanic, the Dayton school board, and staff members for asking for this review. It is not easy to subject one’s school district to the scrutiny that such an analysis entails. These leaders deserve the public’s thanks. PROJECT GOALS The main goals of this review were to— • Determine a realistic goal for the academic improvement of the Dayton Public Schools by some target date. • Provide guidance to the district in establishing academic targets and metrics for improvement. • Determine whether the organization, structure or capacity of the district ensures or inhibits effective decision making, innovation, and data use. Council of the Great City Schools 12 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Determine whether administrators use data effectively to achieve district goals. • Determine ways to enhance the District Improvement Plan and the School Improvement Plans in order to move them beyond compliance documents into more effective planning guides. • Examine how school-level staff members use data to drive instruction and make instructional decisions. • Determine if the curriculum guides in reading and math are useful to teachers in guiding instruction and whether they provide strategies for working with students with learning difficulties. Also determine if the curriculum materials are being used. • Indicate whether the school district has effective professional development efforts in place. • Assess how professional development is being monitored and evaluated. • Assess the feasibility of individualized instruction. • Determine what steps could be taken to enhance early childhood education programs. • Determine the degree to which the district is able to support its low-performing schools. • Examine the district’s own curriculum audits to determine their usefulness at the school level and their impact on achievement at low-performing schools. • Provide examples of strategic plans and metric systems that exist in other major urban school systems that Dayton might examine. THE WORK OF THE STRATEGIC SUPPORT TEAM The Strategic Support Team visited the Dayton Public Schools on August 24-27, 2008, as noted. The team was composed of curriculum and instructional leaders from other urban school systems that have made substantial progress in improving student achievement. The team began its work with a discussion with Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic and Chief Academic Officer Jane McGee-Rafal of the academic challenges facing the Dayton Public Schools. The review that followed over the subsequent two days focused on the broad instructional strategies of the district and included extensive interviews with Dayton school staff members, board members, representatives of outside organizations, principals, teachers, and others. In addition, the team reviewed numerous documents and reports, and analyzed data on student performance. Council of the Great City Schools 13 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools The team briefed Interim Superintendent Stanic on its preliminary findings and proposals at the end of the visit. Team members conducted conference calls after the site visit, gathered and analyzed additional information, refined their initial recommendations, and reviewed this draft report. This approach to providing technical assistance and support to urban school districts is unique to the Council of the Great City Schools and its members, and is proving effective for a number of reasons. First, the approach allows the superintendent to work with talented, successful practitioners from other urban school systems that have an established track record for performance and improvement. Second, the recommendations developed by the team have validity because the individuals on the team have faced some of the same problems confronting the districts asking for help. It cannot be said that these individuals do not know what working in an urban school system is like or that their proposals have not been tested under rigorous conditions. Third, using senior urban school leaders from other communities is faster and less expensive than retaining a private firm. It does not take team members long to determine what is going on in a district. This rapid learning curve permits reviews that are faster and less expensive than would be the case when contracting with individuals who are less familiar with the folkways of urban education. Finally, the team comprises a pool of expertise that the superintendent, school board, and staff can use to implement the recommendations or to develop other strategies. Members of the Strategic Support Team included— STRATEGIC SUPPORT TEAM Nancy Timmons Former Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Fort Worth Independent School District Michael Casserly Executive Director Council of the Great City Schools Robin Hall Principal Atlanta Public Schools Ricki Price-Baugh Director of Academic Achievement Council of the Great City Schools CONTENTS OF THIS REPORT This report begins with an Executive Summary of the issues facing the Dayton Public Schools as it works to boost student achievement and a summary of the proposals that the Council and its Strategic Support Team are making to the school district. Chapter 1 Council of the Great City Schools 14 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools presents an overview of student characteristics and performance in the Dayton Public Schools. Chapter 2 summarizes the findings of the Strategic Support Team. Chapter 3 presents the team’s recommendations for improving student achievement in the Dayton school system. Chapter 4 presents a synopsis and discussion of major points. The appendices of this report include further information that may be of interest to the reader. Appendix A presents data tables illustrating various points made in the report. Appendix B presents backup data on the Council’s proposed three-year improvement scenario. Appendix C provides a summary of questions that were posed to the team by the community leadership group. Appendix D lists the people whom the team interviewed during its site visit. Appendix E lists the documents that the team examined. Appendix F presents brief biographical sketches of team members. And Appendix G presents a brief description of the Council of the Great City Schools and lists the Strategic Support Teams that the organization has conducted over the last 10 years. The Council has now conducted nearly 150 Strategic Support Teams in some 50 major city school districts in a variety of instructional and non-instructional areas. Each of the organization’s reports is tailored specifically to the district that we examine. The Council is guided in its instructional reviews, however, by its research on why some urban school systems improve and others do not.3 This research has focused on key instructional strategies behind the academic gains of some of the fastest-improving urban school systems in the nation and how those reforms differ from those of districts that are not seeing much progress. The Council recognizes, of course, that each city is different. No city has the same mixture of politics, student demographics, staffing patterns, and resources that Dayton has. Our recommendations, therefore, may not apply elsewhere. Finally, we should point out that we did not examine everything that could possibly be examined in a review such as this. This analysis cannot be considered an audit as such. For instance, we did not look at personnel credentials. We also did not look at school board policies in any depth or any number of other issues that often find their way into the headlines. We were unable to visit classrooms, although the Council has been invited to do so later this fall. Our focus in this report is exclusively on student achievement and how to improve it. 3 Snipes, J., Doolittle, F., Herlihy, C. (2002). Foundations for Success: Case Studies of How Urban School Systems Improve Student Achievement. MDRC for the Council of the Great City Schools. Council of the Great City Schools 15 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Chapter 1. Background LEADERSHIP The Dayton Public Schools is governed by a seven-member school board, chaired by Yvonne Isaacs, the last remaining board member elected in 2001 on the city’s reform slate. All members of the school board serve four-year terms. The board operates three committees: finance, facilities, and policy. Over the last 20 years or so, the school district has had five superintendents or about one new CEO every five years, a longer average tenure than that for superintendents in most cities. Superintendents over that period have included— • • • • • • 1985-1991 1991-1999 1999-2000 2000-2002 2002-2008 June 19, 2008-present Dr. Franklin L. Smith Dr. James A. Williams Dr. Jerrie B. McGill (Interim) Dr. Jerrie B. McGill Dr. Percy A. Mack Dr. Kurt Stanic (Interim) The superintendent has an 11-person executive cabinet that includes a chief academic officer, an assistant superintendent for pupil services, and an associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction to lead instruction.4 STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS The Dayton Public Schools, the fifth-largest school district in Ohio, enrolled some 17,050 students in 2005-2006, but this number fell to 15,023 students in 2007-08. Approximately 70 percent of the district’s students are African American, 25 percent are white, 2 percent are Hispanic, and about 3 percent are members of other racial groups. In addition, about 79 percent of the district’s students are poor enough to qualify for a federal free or reduced-price lunch, about 23 percent are students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) because they have various disabilities, and some 1 percent are English language learners. (See Exhibit 1.) The demographic composition of the school district enrollment in Dayton varies considerably from that of the state as a whole where some 17 percent of the enrollment is African American and 77 percent is white. Some 32 percent of students statewide are eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch and 14 percent are disabled. In other words, the Dayton Public Schools has about twice the proportion of poor children and students with disabilities as one might expect in Ohio. (See Exhibit 1.) 4 The Dayton Public Schools Web site lists other members of the executive cabinet as the district’s chief construction officer, executive director for safety and security, treasurer, chief of business operations, executive director for legal and labor relations, public information officer, and the executive director for human resources. Council of the Great City Schools 16 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Overall, the Dayton school district looks demographically more like other bigcity school districts across the country than it looks like its state, except that Dayton has an even greater percentage of poor students and students with disabilities than even the average urban school system nationwide. (See Exhibit 1.) Exhibit 1. Comparison of the Dayton Schools with the Great City Schools and Ohio, 2005-065 Enrollment % African American % Hispanic % White % Other % FRPL % with IEPs % ELLs Pupils/Teacher Schools Students/School Great City Schools 7,220,450 37.0 35.0 21.0 7.0 64.0 13.0 17.0 16:1 11,400 633 Dayton Ohio 17,054 70.0 2.0 25.0 3.0 79.0 23.0 1.0 16:1 39 437 1,839,683 17.0 2.0 77.0 4.0 32.0 14.0 2.0 16.0 4,012 459 Data in Exhibit 2 indicate that since 1996 or so, the Dayton school district has not only lost a considerable number of its students, but it also has found that its remaining students are more likely to be African American, Hispanic, poor, and disabled than was the case 12 years ago. During the same period, the proportion of white students enrolled in the district dropped from about 33 percent to approximately 28 percent. Exhibit 2. Trends in Dayton’s Student Demographics Enrollment % Black % Hispanic % White % Other % FRPL % ELL % IEPs Teachers Pupil/Teach 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 27,942 66.4% 0.4% 32.7% 0.6% NA NA 5.3% 1,750 16.0 26,762 67.8% 0.5% 31.1% 0.6% NA NA 5.2% 1,699 15.7 26,524 68.6% 0.5% 30.3% 0.6% NA NA 15.1% 1,755 15.1 26,695 70.7% 0.6% 28.2% 0.5% 73.5% NA 12.2% 1,755 14.4 25,865 70.9% 0.7% 27.9% 0.5% 72.6% NA 15.0% 1,885 15.9 23,522 71.0% 0.9% 27.7% 0.4% 69.8% NA 17.0% 1,618 16.1 20,547 71.4% 1.0% 27.2% 0.5% 73.7% NA 20.1% 1,437 15.8 19,813 70.8% 1.3% 27.5% 0.5% 73.8% NA 21.1% 1,456 14.6 Finally, the data show that the Dayton school district had about the same number of students per teacher as seen statewide and in other major urban school systems 5 Source: Council of the Great City Schools (2008). Beating the Odds: An Analysis of Student Performance and Achievement Gaps on State Assessments. Washington, D.C. (Author). Council of the Great City Schools 17 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools nationwide in 2005-06, the most recent year for which national numbers are available. This pattern may have changed recently, however, with the cutback in the number of city teachers in 2007-08. In addition, the average school in Dayton enrolled some 437 students, about the same as the statewide average, 459.6 In both cases—Dayton and Ohio—the size of the average school was considerably smaller than was the average school in urban school districts across the country (633). (See Exhibit 1.) STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT The Council’s Strategic Support Team also examined student achievement in Dayton from several vantage points. The team looked at spring 2008 test results, first and foremost, but also compared these performance levels with previous years. In addition, the team compared Dayton’s scores against those statewide and analyzed gaps between city and state scores by subject area. Finally, the team looked at performance on No Child Left Behind benchmarks and on the state’s accountability system, and examined scores for major racial groups. The analyses were also used as the basis for both short-term and long-term recommendations that the team has made for turning around the district’s achievement. Spring 2008 State Test Results Exhibit 3 shows the percentage of students in Dayton and statewide who have achieved at the proficient level or higher on the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT). The OAT has been given in grades 3-8 since 2005, when it replaced the Ohio State Proficiency Test. The state has added tests in writing, science, and social studies since it first began administering the new assessments. Exhibit 3. Percent Proficient or Above on the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) by Subject in Spring 2008, Grades 3-8, Dayton and Statewide Grade Level Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 6 Reading Dayton Ohio Dayton Ohio Dayton Ohio Dayton Ohio Dayton Ohio Dayton Ohio 57.1 77.4 46.4 81.1 38.6 72.7 49.2 79.7 45.5 77.3 51.2 79.4 Writing 55.2 81.7 60.5 85.7 Math 47.0 79.3 34.3 74.6 24.8 61.8 40.2 76.6 30.6 68.8 40.1 72.8 Science Social Studies 24.6 66.4 18.0 64.8 25.5 62.2 19.8 53.5 This statistic includes all schools – elementary, middle, and high. Council of the Great City Schools 18 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools The results for spring 2008 show three major patterns: the percentage of students at or above proficiency in each grade and subject is considerably lower in Dayton than are statewide averages, and the percentage of Dayton students at or above proficiency generally declines between grades 3 and 5, while remaining rather steady in grades 6 through 8. The data also suggest that students both in Dayton and statewide score somewhat better in reading than in math. The data are presented graphically in Exhibit 4. Exhibit 4. Percentage Proficient or Above on the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) by Subject in Spring 2008, Grades 3-8, Dayton and Statewide 90 P e r c e n t P r o fic ie n t o r H ig h e r 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 DaytonOhio DaytonOhio DaytonOhio DaytonOhio DaytonOhio DaytonOhio Gr 3 Reading Writing Math Gr 4 Gr 5 Gr 6 Gr 7 Gr 8 57.1 77.4 46.4 81.1 38.6 72.7 49.2 79.7 45.5 77.3 51.2 79.4 55.2 81.7 60.5 85.7 47.0 79.3 34.3 74.6 24.8 61.8 40.2 76.6 30.6 68.8 40.1 72.8 Science 24.6 66.4 25.5 62.2 Social Studies 18.0 64.8 19.8 53.5 In grades 10 and 11, the state also administers the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) as part of the federal requirements under No Child Left Behind to test in at least one grade at the high school level. Exhibit 5 shows the results for students in both the Dayton Public Schools and the state of Ohio in spring 2008. The data indicate that Dayton students, once again, score significantly lower than the statewide averages in every subject tested. Students in Dayton and statewide, moreover, appeared to score somewhat higher in reading than in math. The only pattern in the results of the OGT that differs substantially from that of the OAT is that Dayton students (and students statewide) score higher in grade 11 than they do at grade 10. However, this result may be little more than an artifact of the higher number of dropouts as students move up the grade levels. (See Exhibit 5.) Council of the Great City Schools 19 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 5. Percentage Proficient or Above on the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) by Subject in Spring 2008, Grades 10 and 11, Dayton and Statewide Grade Level Grade 10 Grade 11 Reading Writing Math Science Social Studies 62.3 85.2 79.3 91.9 65.2 85.2 83.6 93.0 48.5 79.0 71.4 88.2 40.2 72.8 58.3 83.6 49.9 78.4 67.8 86.5 Dayton Ohio Dayton Ohio The data above are presented graphically in Exhibit 6. Exhibit 6. Percentage Proficient or Above on the Ohio Graduation Test (OAT) by Subject in Spring 2008, Grades 10 and 11, Dayton and Statewide 100 80 60 40 20 0 Reading Writing Math Science Social Studies Gr 10 Dayton 62.3 65.2 48.5 40.2 49.9 Gr 10 Ohio 85.2 85.2 79.0 72.8 78.4 Gr 11 Dayton 79.3 83.6 71.4 58.3 67.8 Gr 11 Ohio 91.9 93.0 88.2 83.6 86.5 Finally, Exhibit 7 summarizes the percentage of students in each subject area and grade level scoring at the proficiency level, but also scoring at the limited, the basic, accelerated, and the advanced levels. The exhibit also indicates the percentage of students who were not tested. Council of the Great City Schools 20 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 7. Percentage of Dayton’s Students Scoring at Each Performance Level in 2008 by Subject and Grade 100% 6 2 8 15 4 6 2 10 2 6 4 6 2 10 2 5 3 8 11 11 13 9 5 25 24 7 19 24 36 4 5 15 16 31 43 4 23 36 28 3 8 11 15 13 80% 3 5 6 6 9 15 11 19 5 9 7 10 9 25 27 29 29 30 38 26 2 8 27 60% 19 6 30 21 14 4 42 43 40 44 48 61 41 28 22 40% 24 36 28 21 18 19 46 39 36 0 27 24 0 0 0 0 0 0 21 22 0 0 Gr 3 Gr Rdg 3M a th Gr 4 Gr Rd 4M g G r a th 4W r tg Gr 5 Gr Rd 5M g G r a th Gr 5 S 5 S ci oc St 0 32 0 29 29 27 1 1 21 23 4 1 1 2 17 2 28 29 2 2 21 27 9 2 4 5 5 1 Gr 6 Gr Rdg 6M a th Gr 7 Gr Rdg 7M g r a th 7W rt g Gr 8 Gr Rdg 8M G r a th Gr 8 Sc 8S i oc St Gr 1 G r 0 Rd 10 g Gr Ma 1 0 th W G r r tg G r 10 S 10 c i So cS t Al lT es t s 25 26 0% 24 35 31 30 27 54 20% 36 20 21 27 Untested Limited Basic Proficient Accelerated Advanced Trends from Spring 2006 to Spring 2008 The Council’s Strategic Support Team also examined short-term trends in test scores in reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies between spring 2006 and spring 2008. The results are shown in the exhibits that follow. (See Exhibits 8-12.) The data on reading trends indicate that the reading achievement of students in the Dayton Public Schools improved to any major extent only at the eighth-grade level. Here, the percentage of students scoring at or above proficiency improved by 7.7 percentage points, compared with a statewide gain of only 2.3 percentage points. All other grades, though, show that students in the Dayton Public Schools have seen minimal progress or have actually shown a decline in their test scores. In most cases, the reading achievement gap between students in Dayton and students statewide has actually grown over the threeyear period. The data also indicate that most of the loss in proficiency occurred between 2007 and 2008, although there was also slippage between 2006 and 2007 in some grades. (See Exhibit 8.) Council of the Great City Schools 21 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 8. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Reading on the State Tests, 2006 to 2008 3 Dayton Ohio Gap 56.3 75.1 (18.8) 56.2 78.3 (22.1) 57.1 77.4 (20.3) Change 2006 to 2007 (0.1) 3.2 (3.3) 4 Dayton Ohio Gap 47.2 76.8 (29.6) 48.1 80.0 (31.9) 46.4 81.1 (34.7) 0.9 3.2 (2.3) (1.7) 1.1 (2.8) (0.8) 4.3 (5.1) 5 Dayton Ohio Gap 47.5 75.3 (27.8) 55.5 80.0 (24.5) 38.6 72.7 (34.1) 8.0 4.7 3.3 (16.9) (7.3) (9.6) (8.9) (2.6) (6.3) 6 Dayton Ohio Gap 56.9 83.6 (26.7) 45.3 77.7 (32.4) 49.2 79.7 (30.5) (11.6) (5.9) (5.7) 3.9 2.0 1.9 (7.7) (3.9) (3.8) 7 Dayton Ohio Gap 44.4 78.9 (34.5) 45.7 77.5 (31.8) 45.5 77.3 (31.8) 1.3 (1.4) 2.7 (0.2) (0.2) 0.0 1.1 (1.6) 2.7 8 Dayton Ohio Gap 43.5 77.1 (33.6) 50.0 80.2 (30.2) 51.2 79.4 (28.2) 6.5 3.1 3.4 1.2 (0.8) 2.0 7.7 2.3 5.4 10 Dayton Ohio Gap 73.3 89.4 (16.1) 68.3 86.9 (18.6) 62.3 85.2 (22.9) (5.0) (2.5) (2.5) (6.0) (1.7) (4.3) (11.0) (4.2) (6.8) 11 Dayton Ohio Gap 86.1 93.7 (7.6) 84.4 92.8 (8.4) 79.3 91.9 (12.6) (1.7) (0.9) (0.8) (5.1) (0.9) (4.2) (6.8) (1.8) (5.0) Grade Level % Proficient or Above 2006-2007 2007-2008 2005-2006 Change 2007 to 2008 0.9 (0.9) 1.8 Change 2006 to 2008 0.8 2.3 (1.5) Test score data in writing show a somewhat different picture. In this subject, which is not tested in as many grades or years as is reading, scores of Dayton students improved in grade 7, and declined in grades 4 and 10. Writing scores of students in grade 11 were relatively stagnant. In addition, students in Dayton (and statewide) scored better in writing than they did in reading—a pattern that is often seen in test scores nationwide. Overall, though, Dayton students generally lost ground, when compared with students statewide. (See Exhibit 9.) Council of the Great City Schools 22 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 9. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Writing on State Tests, 2006 to 2008 % Proficient or Above 2006-2007 2007-2008 59.5 82.3 (22.8) 55.2 81.7 (26.5) Change 2006 to 2007 (5.0) (3.6) (1.4) 53.0 81.1 (28.1) 60.5 85.7 (25.2) 53.0 81.1 (28.1) 7.5 4.6 2.9 ---- 74.0 88.0 (14.0) 75.6 89.2 (13.6) 65.2 85.2 (20.0) 1.6 1.2 0.4 (10.4) (4.0) (6.4) (8.8) (2.8) (6.0) 82.4 91.9 (9.5) 86.8 93.4 (6.6) 83.6 93.0 (9.4) 4.4 1.5 2.9 (3.2) (0.4) (2.8) 1.2 1.1 0.1 2005-2006 Grade Level 4 Dayton Ohio Gap 7 Dayton Ohio Gap 10 Dayton Ohio Gap 11 Dayton Ohio Gap 64.5 85.9 (21.4) Change 2007 to 2008 (4.3) (0.6) (3.7) Change 2006 to 2008 (9.3) (4.2) (5.1) Trends in test scores in mathematics are shown in Exhibit 10. The data indicate that math scores of students in the Dayton Public Schools increased between 2006 and 2008 in grades 6, 7 and 8; declined in grades 3, 4, and 10; and held relatively steady in grades 5 and 11. Where there were declines, they occurred—for the most part—between 2007 and 2008, rather than between 2006 and 2007. Dayton students in grades 5 and 11 showed fairly consistent scores across the entire three-year period. And the grades showing increases in scores generally registered them between 2006 and 2007, instead of between 2007 and 2008. By and large, students statewide also saw gains and losses in math scores over the period that were similar to those seen in Dayton. Grades that saw increases across the state also saw increases in Dayton; grades that saw decreases statewide also saw decreases in the city—except in grade 3 where scores of students in Dayton declined while scores of third-graders statewide improved. When scores of Dayton students went down, however, they often declined at a somewhat faster rate than did the scores of students statewide, although the gains shown by Dayton students in the eighth grade were far faster than those seen across the state. The difference between scores of students in Dayton and scores of students statewide remained steady or widened over the three-year period, except in grade 8 where the district made up ground on the state averages. (See Exhibit 10.) Council of the Great City Schools 23 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 10. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Mathematics on State Tests, 2006 to 2008 % Proficient or Above 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 3 Dayton Ohio Gap 55.7 74.9 (19.2) 60.8 84.5 (23.7) 47.0 79.3 (32.3) Change 2006 to 2007 5.1 9.6 (4.5) 4 Dayton Ohio Gap 46.0 85.9 (39.9) 46.0 75.9 (29.9) 34.3 74.6 (40.3) 0.0 (10.0) 10.0 (11.7) (1.3) (10.4) (11.7) (11.3) (0.4) 5 Dayton Ohio Gap 24.9 62.7 (37.8) 27.9 61.2 (33.3) 24.8 61.8 (37.0) 3.0 (1.5) 4.5 (3.1) 0.6 (3.7) (0.1) (0.9) 0.8 6 Dayton Ohio Gap 31.8 68.4 (36.6) 39.5 74.0 (34.5) 40.2 76.6 (36.4) 7.7 5.6 2.1 0.7 2.6 (1.9) 8.4 8.2 0.2 7 Dayton Ohio Gap 28.4 63.2 (34.8) 37.1 71.2 (34.1) 30.6 68.8 (38.2) 8.7 8.0 0.7 (6.5) (2.4) (4.1) 2.2 5.6 (3.4) 8 Dayton Ohio Gap 29.9 68.6 (38.7) 40.2 71.5 (31.3) 40.1 72.8 (32.7) 10.3 2.9 7.4 (0.1) 1.3 (1.4) 10.2 4.2 6.0 10 Dayton Ohio Gap 60.2 82.7 (22.5) 54.7 81.2 (26.5) 48.5 79.0 (30.5) (5.5) (1.5) (4.0) (6.2) (2.2) (4.0) (11.7) (3.7) (8.0) 11 Dayton Ohio Gap 71.5 88.9 (17.4) 75.1 88.8 (13.7) 71.4 88.2 (16.8) 3.6 (0.1) 3.7 (3.7) (0.6) (3.1) (0.1) (0.7) 0.6 Grade Level Change 2007 to 2008 (13.8) (5.2) (8.6) Change 2006 to 2008 (8.7) 4.4 (13.1) Exhibit 11 displays trends in science scores among students in the Dayton Public Schools. The data show slight increases in the scores of Dayton students in grade 8 between 2007 and 2008 and in grade 11 between 2006 and 2008; but the data show small decreases in these scores in grade 5 between 2007 and 2008 and in grade 10 between 2006 and 2008. Scores of students statewide showed very little movement over the two- and three-year periods in which the tests were given. In general, science scores of students Council of the Great City Schools 24 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools both in the Dayton school district and the state as a whole were somewhat lower than were those seen in mathematics and considerably lower than were those seen in reading. Exhibit 11. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Science on State Tests, 2006 to 2008 % Proficient or Above 2006-2007 2007-2008 5 Dayton Ohio Gap 27.6 68.0 (40.4) 24.6 66.4 (41.8) Change 2006 to 2007 ---- 8 Dayton Ohio Gap 22.8 62.7 (39.9) 25.5 62.2 (36.7) ---- 2.7 (0.5) 3.2 ---- 10 Dayton Ohio Gap 42.2 73.1 (30.9) 37.8 72.4 (34.6) 40.2 72.8 (32.6) (4.4) (0.7) (3.7) 2.4 0.4 2.0 (2.0) (0.3) (1.7) 11 Dayton Ohio Gap 52.4 82.8 (30.4) 61.6 83.6 (22.0) 58.3 83.6 (25.3) 9.2 0.8 8.4 (3.3) 0.0 (3.3) 5.9 0.8 5.1 2005-2006 Grade Level Change 2007 to 2008 (3.0) (1.6) (1.4) Change 2006 to 2008 ---- Finally, the scores and trends of district students on state social studies assessments are shown in Exhibit 12. The data indicate, once again, that city students score well below statewide averages. Some evidence indicates that district eighth-graders made gains on these tests, but the trend line spans a single year. Otherwise, scores of students show little movement in either the Dayton school district or the state as a whole. Exhibit 12. Change in the Percentage Proficient or Above in Social Studies on State Tests, 2006 to 2008 % Proficient or Above 2006-2007 2007-2008 5 Dayton Ohio Gap 19.3 57.9 (38.6) 18.0 64.8 (46.8) Change 2006 to 2007 ---- 8 Dayton Ohio Gap 16.0 49.3 (33.3) 19.8 53.5 (33.7) ---- 3.8 4.2 (0.4) ---- 10 Dayton Ohio Gap 47.5 76.4 (28.9) 49.9 78.4 (28.5) (6.7) (3.1) (3.6) 2.4 2.0 0.4 (4.3) (1.1) (3.2) 2005-2006 Grade Level 54.2 79.5 (25.3) Council of the Great City Schools Change 2007 to 2008 (1.3) 6.9 (8.2) Change 2006 to 2008 ---- 25 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 11 Dayton Ohio Gap 66.3 86.4 (20.1) 73.7 87.6 (13.9) 67.8 86.5 (18.7) 7.4 1.2 6.2 (5.9) (1.1) (4.8) 1.5 0.1 1.4 Trends in the City-State Achievement Gap By and large, the Dayton public school system has lost ground to others in the state in its academic achievement. This slippage is most evident between 2007 and 2008, and it involved most grades and subjects tested, although there were some exceptions. In reading achievement, the differences between the scores of students in the Dayton Public Schools and those statewide grew from 2006 to 2008 in every grade tested except for grades 7 and 8, where the district outpaced statewide gains slightly in grade 7 and substantially in grade 8. Gaps between students in the city and those statewide, however, increased in the other grades by a high of 6.8 percentage points in grade 10 to 1.5 percentage points in grade 3. This widening of the gap occurred mostly between 2007 and 2008. Dayton students also lost ground to their statewide peers in writing. The gap between scores of students in the city and the state widened by 5 percentage points in grade 4 and 6 percentage points in grade 10, while holding steady in grade 10 between 2006 and 2008. However, students in the district made up some ground on their peers statewide in grade 7, where gains in writing scores outpaced gains of students statewide between 2007 and 2008. In mathematics, Dayton students either lost ground or failed to close the gap with their statewide peers at every grade level except grade 8, where city students showed substantially greater gains than did their peers statewide. In one grade—3—the gap between Dayton students and their peers statewide widened by double-digit margins (13 percentage points). Again, most of the ground was lost between 2007 and 2008, rather than between 2006 and 2007. Results for science scores were slightly more promising, but in this case there was very little movement in student scores at either the city or the state levels. City students picked up a little ground on their peers statewide in grades 8 and 11. The gains were actually substantial in grade 11, but still the scores of city students saw slippage even in that grade between 2007 and 2008. Finally, trends in social studies scores were similar to trends seen in other subjects. Students in the district lost ground compared with statewide averages in every grade tested except grade 11, where there was a marginal narrowing of the city-state gap. Racially Identifiable Achievement Gaps The Council’s Strategic Support Team also looked at racially identifiable achievement gaps in the Dayton school system. The reader should keep in mind, Council of the Great City Schools 26 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools however, that African Americans and whites form the two largest groups in the city, and account for 95 percent of all students enrolled in the district. Exhibit 13 illustrates the achievement gaps between students in Dayton and statewide for each major racial group in reading, math, writing, science, and social studies. (Data were not available grade by grade.) The achievement gaps between African American students in Dayton and African American students statewide reflect the smallest differences, but the comparison is actually between African American students in Dayton and African American students in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Toledo—because the five cities together enroll the vast majority of all African American students statewide. Council of the Great City Schools 27 Exhibit 13. Dayton/Ohio 2007-2008 Proficient and Above Percentage Gap by Subject Area and Ethnicity 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 Gap 48 41 40 37 33 15 29 26 10 23 24 22 17 5 10 12 10 10 30 27 24 24 20 24 29 24 18 12 R Reading M Mathematics 0 R M W S T Asian R M W S T Black R M W S T Hispanic R M W S T Multiracial R M W S T White W Writing S Science T Social Studies Test Performance by Standard It is fortunate for the school system that Dayton is in a state that also provides student performance data by standard. This section examines reading and math scores of Dayton students by standard. Exhibit 14 shows that the state’s reading test in grade 3 has 49 possible points, including nine points involving vocabulary, 18 points involving various aspects of the reading process, 10 points involving informational text, and 12 points involving literature text. (The points in each grade area will differ, although one can see that the emphasis on the reading process falls off as the grade levels increase and the emphasis on reading text for understanding increases.) Exhibit 14. Number of Possible Points on State Reading Test Versus Points Correct by Dayton Students by Standard and Grade in 2008 2007-2008 District Reading Gap Data 12 13 15 12 11 12 45 11 50 40 13 10 29.6 of 33 12 35 15 30 18 14 6 14 23.5 of 28 21.1 of 22 25 19 of 20 19.9 of 20 6 5 19 of 19 4 6 5 6 7 5 4 3 4 5 8 9 9 8 4 5 6 8 9 5 9 5 5 7 5 8 10 10 12 11 12 11 5 15 3 5 6 5 17 5 16.8 of 20.5 17 18 20 ge ve os 0A 0P ad e1 e1 Gr ad Gr ra s ib ag le e e er Av Gr ad e8 e8 Gr ad e7 ad Gr ss i ag Po er Av Po e7 Info Text bl e e ss i ag ad Gr e6 ad Process bl e e Av Po e6 Gr ad Gr Vocabulary er ss i ag bl e e Av Gr ad e5 e5 ad Gr er ss i ag Po er Av Gr ad e4 e4 bl e e bl ss i Po er ad Gr e3 ad Gr Gr ad e3 Av Po ss i ag bl e e 0 Lit Text Source: Dayton Public Schools The exhibit shows that a third-grade student will have to earn at least 33 total points across the four standards in order to be considered proficient in reading. Thirdgraders in Dayton, however, averaged 29.6 points. The number of points needed to score Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools at the proficient level actually decreases as students move up the grades, such that only 20.5 points out of 48 possible points are needed in grade 10 in order to be considered proficient. Still, Dayton students attain only 16.8 points in grade 10. Although Dayton students are closer to proficiency in grades 6, 7, and 8, they are further away from this benchmark in grade 10 than they were in grade 3. A closer look at the data shows that students fall further and further below proficient as they move up the grade levels in the areas of information and literature text, in which students are required to read, understand, and interpret text of various lengths and complexity. For example, students are half as likely to earn the available points in information and literature text in 10th grade as they were in third grade. (See Exhibit 15.) Exhibit 15. Percent of Possible Points Dayton Students Scored by Reading Standard and Grade Level in 2008 Area Gr. 3 Gr. 4 Gr. 5 Gr. 6 Gr. 7 Gr. 8 Gr. 10 Vocab. Process Info Text Lit. Text 66.7 61.1 60.0 50.0 50.0 41.2 38.5 45.5 55.6 47.1 50.0 45.5 37.5 41.7 50.0 33.3 44.4 45.5 42.9 38.5 55.6 41.7 40.0 33.3 50.0 50.0 27.8 25.0 Math results are similar to what are seen in reading, as evidenced by the data presented in Exhibit 16. To be considered proficient in math, third-graders will have to score 30 points out of a possible 52 in the areas of number sense (15 possible points), measurement (9 possible points), geometry (9 possible points), algebra (10 possible points), and data (9 possible points). Tenth-graders, in contrast, will have to score 20 out of 46 points to be considered proficient in math. The emphasis on number sense declines as students move up the grade levels, whereas the emphasis on the use of data increases slightly. Dayton’s third-grade students score an average of 29 points of the 30 needed for math proficiency, and tenth-graders score an average 17 points out of the 20 needed for math proficiency, meaning that they are further away from proficiency at that grade level than they were in third grade. Exhibit 16. Percent of Possible Points Dayton Students Scored by Math Standard and Grade Level in 2008 Area Gr. 3 Gr. 4 Gr. 5 Gr. 6 Gr. 7 Gr. 8 Gr. 10 Num Measure Geometry Algebra Data 40.0 88.9 55.6 50.0 55.6 21.4 55.6 40.0 40.0 40.0 33.3 55.6 30.0 55.6 33.3 14.3 75.0 44.4 27.3 37.5 18.2 44.4 30.0 18.2 33.0 22.2 37.5 50.0 27.3 20.0 33.3 37.5 50.0 40.0 27.3 Council of the Great City Schools 30 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools The data also show that Dayton students fall progressively further behind in the areas of measurement and data as they move up the grade levels. (See Exhibit 17.) By the time the district’s students are in 10th grade, they are about half as likely to earn the available points in these areas as they were in the third grade. However, the drop-off generally starts in grade 4. Exhibit 17. Number of Possible Points on State Math Test Versus Points Correct by Dayton Students by Standard and Grade in 2008 2007-2008 District Math Gap Data 60 9 11 11 10 10 9 19 of 25 18 of 20 17 of 20 9 8 14 of 17 14 of 16 3 8 4 4 3 9 4 3 2 2 3 3 6 2 3 4 9 11 6 3 2 3 2 3 8 3 4 14 5 5 14 15 3 4 8 15 10 5 4 9 3 5 3 4 8 9 8 5 20 of 25 20 10 10 5 10 9 30 11 29 of 30 8 10 40 11 10 9 8 9 9 10 50 g e1 0A ve ra s ib Gr ad e1 0P os er Av ad e8 Gr ad l ag e b le e ss i e8 Gr ad Gr ad e7 Av Po er ss i e7 Gr ad Gr ag b le e Po er Av e6 Gr ad e6 ad ag b le e Po er e5 Av Gr ad ss i ag b le e ss i e5 Gr ad Gr Gr ad e4 Av Po er ss i e4 ad Gr ag b le e ag Po er Av e3 ad Gr Gr ad e3 Po ss i b le 0 Num Measure Geometry Algebra Data Source: Dayton Public Schools All in all, the academic achievement of students enrolled in the Dayton Public Schools is at a very low level and is the lowest in the state. (See Exhibit 18.) Some 49 percent of the district’s students read at the limited or basic levels (i.e., below proficiency), and about 61 percent score at these levels in math. Even larger numbers of Dayton’s students score poorly in science and social studies. Some 57 percent of all students districtwide, in sum, score at the state’s lowest performance levels. Council of the Great City Schools 31 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 18. Summary of Performance Levels of Dayton Students by Subject 100% 90% 2 5 6 8 13 16 80% 4 5 5 7 7 10 18 17 25 27 70% 32 41 60% 50% 40% 43 28 30 22 30% 27 20% 33 27 10% 0% 40 Advanced Accelerated Proficient Basic Limited Untested 26 28 27 12 1 1 2 2 2 1 Reading Mathematics Writing Science Social Studies all DISTRICT ACCOUNTABILITY The Dayton Public Schools is held accountable for student achievement on two different systems: the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program and the state’s own accountability system. Under NCLB, the state requires that around 77 percent of students be proficient in reading and about 65 percent be proficient in math to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmarks under the law.7 The district itself is under “district improvement” status under NCLB, and all but three district schools were in one stage of sanction or another, as of August 18, 2008. (The status of three schools was not known.) Each sanction carries with it a series of requirements that must be carried out under the law. Ten schools are in full restructuring status and require the most overhaul. (See Exhibit 19.) Exhibit 19. AYP Status of Dayton Schools by School FY 09 Classification of DPS Schools by Improvement Status as of August 18, 2008 School Fairview ES Belle Haven Edison Sanction Level 9 8 7 Restructuring Restructuring Restructuring 7 In 2007-08, the minimal reading bar to attain AYP is 77.0% in third grade, 74.6% in fourth and fifth grades, 80.6% in sixth grade, 74.9% in seventh grade, 79.0% in eighth grade, 77.4% in 10th grade, and 85% in 11th grade. The minimal math bar is 68.5% in third grade, 73.7% in fourth grade, 59.7% in fifth grade, 64.1% in sixth grade, 57.8% in seventh grade, 58.0% in eighth grade, 68% in 10th grade, and 85% in 11th grade. Council of the Great City Schools 32 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Orville Wright Loos Belmont HS Dunbar HS Jefferson ES Jefferson Primary Wilbur Wright Fairview MS Meadowdale HS Patterson Kennedy ES Rosa Parks Thurgood Marshall HS Gorman Eastmont Park Horace Mann Kemp Kiser Longfellow Center Meadowdale ES Van Cleve (E.J. Brown) Carlson (Louise Troy) Cleveland Franklin ES John H. Patterson Wogaman Earley Gardendale World of Wonder (WOW) Boys Prep Stivers Valerie Dayton Tech Design Early College Academy Ruskin 7 6 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 At Risk At Risk At Risk Met Met Met Unknown Unknown Unknown Restructuring Restructuring Restructuring Restructuring Restructuring Restructuring Restructuring Planning for Restructuring Planning for Restructuring Planning for Restructuring Planning for Restructuring Planning for Restructuring Year 3 Year 2 Year 2 Year 2 Year 2 Year 2 Year 2 Year 2 Year 1 Year 1 Year 1 Year 1 Year 1 The state also uses a Performance Index that takes into account test scores in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies as a tool to hold school districts accountable for student achievement. The index has a maximum of 120 points, and stipulates that 70 points puts a school district in “academic watch” status and 80 points puts a school district in “continuous improvement” status. Below 70 points, a district is in “emergency” status. The latest Performance Indices published by the state place Dayton right at 70 points, on the edge between emergency status and academic watch status. (The district has met none of the 30 necessary state standards). The district’s index has dropped from 73.3 in 2006 to 71.5 in 2007 to its current level of 70.0. Council of the Great City Schools 33 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools ATTENDANCE AND GRADUATION RATES The graduation rates among students in the Dayton Public Schools are also low, and the attendance rates, while not as low as the team has found in other cities, is below state goals for the district. In 2006-2007, Dayton reported an on-time graduation rate of 86 percent among African American students; 78.6 percent among Hispanic students; 82.4 percent among multiracial students; and 69.7 percent among white students—using the state’s definition. (See Exhibit 20.) The state lists the district’s overall graduation rate as 82.8 percent. Dayton Public Schools also reported an attendance rate in 2007-2008 of 90.8 percent among African American students; 92.8 percent among Hispanic students; 90.4 percent among white students; and 91.2 percent among economically disadvantaged students. Exhibit 20. Attendance in 2007-08, Graduation Rates and Graduation with Honors Diplomas in 2006-07 by Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Disadvantage Status Group Ohio Requirement Asian or Pacific Island. Black, Non-Hispanic Hispanic Multiracial White, Non-Hispanic Attendance 2007-08 Graduation 2006-07 Goal: 93% Goal: 90% 94.7% 90.8% 92.8% 91.4% 90.4% -86.0% 78.6% 82.4% 69.7% Graduation with Honors Diploma 2006-07 -5.7% 0.0% 14.3% 10.7% ADVANCED PLACEMENT The Council also examined Advanced Placement (AP) courses and test scores to determine the number of students participating, number of exams taken, and the number of exam grades of 3 or higher. These courses require students to work at high levels, and are well-regarded enough by higher education that students who score a 3 or above may be granted college credit for that content area. The Council noted in its 2005 report that five district schools offered AP courses. However, on the basis of 2007-08 and current-year data, it appears that AP courses are available only at Thurgood Marshall and Stivers High Schools. Exhibit 21 shows the number of exams taken and the scores on these exams for the two schools in the 2007-08 school year. The data indicate that 248 AP exams were taken at the two participating schools in 2007-08 and that 74 exams, or 30 percent, had scores of 3 or above. Of the two schools, Stivers had a higher percentage of exams with scores at or above 3 than did Marshall—44 percent vs. 7 percent. Council of the Great City Schools 34 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 21. Number of AP Exams Taken and Number and Percent with Scores of 3 or Above, 2007-08 AP Exam Thurgood Marshall Exams Number Taken Scoring 3 or Higher Stivers Percent Scoring 3 or Higher Exams Taken Total Number Scoring 3 or Higher Percent Scoring 3 or Higher Total AP Taken Exams Scoring 3 or Higher Total Percent Scoring 3 or Higher Biology 10 1 10% 10 1 10% Chemistry 12 1 8% 12 1 8% 10 0 0% Physics B 10 0 0% Calculus AB Eng. Lit. & Comp. Eng Lang. & Comp. U.S. History European History Govt. & Politics Music Theory Spanish Language TOTAL 10 0 0% 7 5 71% 17 5 29% 9 4 44% 23 18 78% 32 22 69% 23 2 9% 43 18 42% 66 20 30% 19 0 0 19 0 0% 23 94 1 7 4% 7% 24 12 50% 24 12 50% 24 7 29% 47 8 17% 8 5 63% 8 5 63% 3 0 0% 3 0 0% 154 67 44% 248 74 30% ACT and SAT Results Finally, the team looked at college entrance exam scores (ACT and SAT) taken by students in the district who were aspiring to attend college. ACT results for 2007 and 2008 are shown in Exhibit 22. The data indicate that the average ACT score among students in the Dayton Public Schools was 17.8 in 2008, up from 17.1 in 1999-00 (data not shown). The district saw its highest scores in science and its lowest scores in English. Overall, scores of district students on the ACT were considerably lower than were either composite scores of students statewide (21.7) or composite scores of students nationally (21.1). Scores of Dayton students were also lower than were the average scores of students among the Great City Schools (18.9). (Not shown.) Council of the Great City Schools 35 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Exhibit 22. ACT Scores in Dayton, Ohio, and the Nation, 2007 and 2008 Nation Ohio Dayton Gender Female Male Race Black White Hispanic Asian Composite English 2007 2008 Mathematics 2007 2008 Reading 2007 2008 Science 2007 2008 2007 2008 20.7 21 16.1 20.6 21.1 16.9 21 21.3 17.1 21 21.5 17.4 21.5 22 17.6 21.4 22.1 18 21 21.6 17.7 20.8 21.7 18.3 21.2 21.6 17.2 21.1 21.7 17.8 16.4 15.3 16.9 16.9 16.9 17.3 17.2 17.9 17.9 16.9 17.8 18.3 17.5 18 18 18.9 17.3 17 17.6 18.1 15 21.6 13.2 23 16 23.1 20.8 24 16.5 20.6 17.4 22 16.7 21.4 24.3 25.5 16.5 23.3 16.8 16 17.1 24.1 23.3 23.5 17 21.7 17.6 25 17.7 22.5 23 22.5 16.4 22 16.2 22 17 22.9 23 24 In addition to the ACT, Dayton students took the SAT as part of their college application process. The results of the SAT testing in 2007 and 2008 are shown in Exhibit 23. The data indicate that 129 eligible Dayton students took the SAT in 2008, down from 144 students in 2007. The average verbal score on the SAT was 466 for Dayton students, compared with an average verbal score of 534 for students statewide. In addition, the average math score for Dayton students was 438 in 2008, compared with 544 that year for students statewide. Exhibit 23. SAT Scores in Dayton and Ohio, 2007 and 2008 Dayton Ohio Verbal Dayton Verbal Ohio Math Dayton Math Ohio Comb Dayton Comb Ohio White 2007 2008 Δ 2007 144 129 -15 25 33,902 32,723 -1,179 26,080 460 466 6 544 536 534 -2 544 437 438 1 512 542 544 2 552 897 904 7 1056 1,078 1078 0 1,096 Black 2008 Δ 2007 24 -1 93 25,639 -441 2,848 552 8 437 544 0 452 525 13 419 554 2 442 1077 21 856 1,098 2 894 2008 Δ 2007 2008 Δ 2007 82 -11 1 2 1 3,032 184 641 703 62 440 3 449 -3 417 -2 439 -3 857 1 888 -6 0 0 0 0 0 0 12 932 450 530 433 531 883 1,061 2008 Δ 7 -5 851 -81 473 23 526 -4 399 -34 528 -3 872 -11 1,054 -7 Number Hispanic Other Council of the Great City Schools 36 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Chapter 2. Findings FINDINGS This chapter summarizes the findings of the Council’s Strategic Support Team about the next steps needed to ensure the continuing improvement of the Dayton Public Schools. The findings are presented in 10 sections, corresponding to the categories that the Council of the Great City Schools has identified as critical to the academic improvement of urban school systems nationwide.8 These categories pertain to political consensus and governance; goal setting; accountability; curriculum; professional development and teacher quality; reform press (or the ability to get reforms into the classrooms); assessments and use of data; low-performing schools; elementary schools; and secondary schools. A. Political Preconditions and Governance Urban school districts that have improved significantly share a number of common characteristics. These commonalties also set them apart from urban school systems that have not seen significant improvements. One of the key features of the faster improving districts involves the political unity of the district’s leadership, its focus on student achievement, and the ability of the school board and the administration to work together on the same agenda. The Strategic Support Team did not conduct a special analysis of the board or its governing structure, but it did interview some school board members and it reviewed recent board agendas and minutes. The following summarizes the team’s findings and observations about the leadership of the Dayton school system. Positive Findings • The Dayton school board has an excellent and seasoned chair, and its new members appear to be coalescing and working well together. The board displayed substantial leadership in moving quickly to name the interim superintendent in time for the new school year. • The school board and district staff members appear to support the interim superintendent, and business representatives interviewed by the team were hopeful about his leadership. • The school board and the interim superintendent and his staff appear to be working well together and are focused on reversing the decline in many test scores experienced by the district over the last two years. 8 Snipes, J., Doolittle, F., Herlihy, C. (2002). Foundations for Success: Case Studies of How Urban School Systems Improve Student Achievement. MDRC for the Council of the Great City Schools. Council of the Great City Schools 37 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • New school construction continues in wake of the November 2002 passage of a building improvement bond issue by a margin of 64 percent to 36 percent. The bond leverages state matching funds to replace older school buildings. • The district is moving to place a scaled-down operating levy increase on the ballot for November 2008, following the defeat of a larger levy in 2007. • Dayton’s Community Leadership Committee showed leadership in retaining Evergreen Solutions LLC to assess district operations and the Council of the Great City Schools to examine ways the district could improve student achievement. • The community sees pockets of excellence in the school district, and appears poised to support the district if progress can be made in raising student achievement. • The school district has formed some critical partnerships with several local colleges, universities, and the Montgomery County Education Service Center (ESC). • Parents gave credit to the district’s chief academic officer and central-office staff for being more responsive to their questions and concerns than was the case in previous years. • The interim superintendent has instituted a weekly memorandum to the school board that includes reports from central-office departments on the progress they are making. The school board clearly welcomes the ongoing communication. • There appears to be budding interest in finding a way for some charter schools to rejoin the school district, as well as finding a way to end the hostility between the two sectors. • The organizational structure of the school system relating to curriculum and instruction is generally straightforward. The chief academic officer (CAO) reports to the interim superintendent; and the offices of elementary education, secondary education, assessment and accountability, and school improvement and external resources reports to the CAO. Areas of Major Concern • More than 6,000 students have left the Dayton Public Schools for charter schools over the last several years. • The school district did not implement many of the critical recommendations made by the Council of the Great City Schools in its 2005 review, although the district implemented many of the recommendations from the Council’s 2002 report. Council of the Great City Schools 38 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • The business community has grown impatient with the pace of improvement in student achievement in the Dayton Public Schools. As a result, the business support that the district enjoys is extremely fragile. • The Dayton Public Schools’ strategic plan—A New Day is Dawning—expired before a new plan was developed outlining the district’s next steps. (The previous plan, approved in December 2005, was generally well articulated, clear, and straightforward.) • The district has not passed an operating levy in 16 years. In 2007, voters defeated a measure that would have increased the school district’s operating levy. As a result, the district was forced to cut more than 200 teaching positions. This action reduced the amount of instructional time for students by 30 minutes a day in order to meet contractual planning periods; increased the number of split classes, with two grade levels in a single classroom being taught by one teacher; triggered extensive “bumping,” which increased number of teachers taking assignments in unfamiliar grades and subjects; led to the loss of a number of young and very enthusiastic teachers (including a former teacher of the year); and increased the number of students in a class. The Council’s Strategic Support Team believes that these disruptions contributed to the decline seen in many test scores in the 2007-08 school year. In addition, the team suspects that turnover on the board and a loss of administrative focus contributed to the downturn in scores. • Some community members expressed dissatisfaction with schools other than the district’s few high-achieving schools. Community members interviewed perceived significant inequities between schools in the East and West sides of the city. • Parents interviewed by the team indicated that the school district’s efforts to engage them in the work of the district were weak. Some expressed the belief that the district reached out to them only when it was asking them to support a levy. • Despite the unity of the school board, the board’s meetings are not extensively devoted to the district’s instructional program or status. The team reviewed board agendas for July 15, August 5, and August 19, 2008. One expects a large number of contracts and management issues on the agendas of school boards immediately prior to the opening of school, but in the agendas reviewed, there were no apparent reports or updates on the district’s instructional plans or progress. • While the organizational structure of the instructional unit is typical, staff members do not have a strong tradition or habit of good communications or collaboration. B. Goal Setting Urban school systems that have seen significant gains in student achievement often have a clear sense of where they are going. This clarity is exhibited not only in the Council of the Great City Schools 39 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools leadership’s consensus about the direction of the district, but also in how the leadership has translated its broad vision into explicit academic goals that are set for the whole district and its individual schools. These goals are measurable and are accompanied by specific timelines for when particular targets are to be attained. Positive Findings • The interim superintendent has articulated three main goals for the school year: increasing academic improvement, enhancing safety and the school environment, and passing the operating levy. • The district’s Web site indicates that the mission of the district is the same as that seen in 2005— Mission Statement The mission of the Dayton Public Schools is to guarantee a quality education for every student, every day. • The Dayton Public Schools has adopted district goals based on No Child Left Behind targets. • The district has set school-by-school goals that are comprehensive and measurable. • The school board is working to develop new goals for itself and for the district, both long term and short term. Preliminary goals are built around improving student achievement; providing continuous professional development; ensuring safe and secure learning environments; using data for decision making; providing necessary resources; and increasing community involvement. • Schools complete comprehensive School Improvement Plans that meet state requirements and include three major components: a needs assessment and summary of quantitative data on student achievement; opinion survey results; and the plan itself.9 In addition, the school improvement plans includes an appendix incorporating the state-issued school report card; data tables with assessment results; parent, staff, and student survey results; and adequate yearly progress (AYP) worksheets. 9 Sections of the plan include: problem definition, school goals and measurable objectives, systemic organizational strategies, monitoring and assessment plan, strategies for assisting students having difficulty, student attendance and plan, strategies for assisting students having difficulty, student and staff attendance, provision to include teachers in academic decision making, provisions to attract highly qualified teachers, parental and community involvement, staff development plan, funding to support the school improvement plan, and documentation that highly qualified teachers provide classroom instruction. Council of the Great City Schools 40 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Areas of Major Concern • The district’s strategic plan—the District Improvement Plan Framework—expired in 2007 and needs to be updated in order to drive the district’s next steps; inform its overall strategic direction; and anchor individual school goals and plans. • The District Improvement Plan Framework contains components on systemic leadership, building leadership, budget, school board governance, grant alignment, professional development, academic support, and secondary schools. There also is a set of priority issues listed in the framework: right-sizing the organization, early childhood education, secondary reform, prek-8 curriculum rigor, and opening and closing schools. The framework has next steps in district reform that span only a single year. It also lacks measurable indicators specifying how goal attainment is ascertained or how progress is monitored. Finally, many of the activities listed in each section are vaguely worded and would not necessarily lead to substantial district improvement if and when done. • Many of the goals in the preliminary strategic plan initiative being developed by the school board when the team visited are vague and lack measurements, e.g., “Keep K-3 class sizes low” or “Apply professional development to all staff where applicable” or “Monitor student behavior systems.” • The school improvement plans are voluminous and may be used more for compliance purposes than as guides for how a school can improve. • The district has not yet set academic, attendance, dropout, and discipline goals that are measurable and attainable. • The team did not see goals or strategies for student subgroups in the school improvement plans that it reviewed. • Not everyone interviewed by the team was familiar with the interim superintendent’s goals for the new school year. • Staff members interviewed by the team do not always describe the district’s instructional priorities and strategies in a common language, although the interim superintendent aspires to create a shared understanding of the curriculum and where the district is going. C. Accountability It is not sufficient for a school system, particularly an urban one, to have goals if no one is held accountable for attaining them. Urban school systems that have seen substantial improvement have devised specific methods for holding themselves responsible for student achievement, usually starting at the top of the system and working down through the central-office staff and the principals. Council of the Great City Schools 41 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Positive Findings • Many schools indicated that they had leadership teams, and these teams were identified as part of the comprehensive school improvement plans. • The principals’ evaluation form assesses school leaders on their progress in (a) building administrator leadership; (b) strategic planning; (c) student, stakeholder, and market focus; (d) measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; (e) faculty and staff focus; (f) process management; and (g) performance results.10 Areas of Major Concern • The district is in “academic watch” status under the state accountability system and is in the fifth year of “district improvement” status under No Child Left Behind. Test scores, in fact, are the worst in the state. If the district’s Performance Index (now around 70) was to decline by a mere 0.2 points, the district would fall into “academic emergency” status. • The school district must reach a Performance Index score of 80 to reach “continuous improvement” status, but no systematic strategy appears to be in place to attain this target. The district has been pursuing a goal of increasing its Performance Index by 1.3 points a year. • No one below the superintendent level in the central office is held explicitly accountable for student achievement districtwide. • The district’s “Principal Performance Excellence Rubric” articulates how each variable is assessed (on a scale ranging from unsatisfactory to advanced). But the evaluation form has not been implemented fully, is vague about how schools earn the 30 points needed for proficiency, and does not include explicit data on academic progress in each school. Principals interviewed by the team could not articulate how their school’s performance would be calculated when determining their evaluations. In addition, a principal can be rated proficient in the “performance results” category even if there is “not a sustained positive trend, and the achievement gap between student groups has not closed.” Finally, there is only a five-point difference between “proficient (30 points)” and “advanced (35 points)” on the evaluation forms, a margin that is probably insufficient to spur greater performance. The district was developing an evaluation and incentive program for principals when the Council conducted its 2005 review, but the program was not implemented fully; nor was it funded. 10 Source: Dayton Public Schools Building Administrator Performance Excellence Rubric. Council of the Great City Schools 42 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Improving student achievement is not part of the evaluation system for literacy instructional specialists (LISs), mathematics instructional specialists (MISs), math intervention teachers (MITs), and literacy intervention teachers (LITs). • Teachers are not held explicitly accountable for raising student achievement. Instead, teachers in their first year are evaluated using the Pathwise Classroom Observation System (developed in 1995), which includes 19 criteria in four major categories: (a) organizing content knowledge for student learning, (b) creating an environment for student learning, (c) teaching for student learning, and (d) teacher professionalism.11 The evaluation of teachers after the first year is based on assessments of their participation in and learning from professional development activities. • The process for removing ineffective teachers is lengthy and time-consuming. (The procedure is spelled out explicitly in the collective bargaining agreement.) • No system exists to recognize or reward schools or teachers whose students achieve or exceed expected growth in student achievement. D. Curriculum and Instruction Urban school districts that have seen substantial gains in student achievement usually have a detailed curriculum that is aligned with state standards and assessments and instructional programs that are cohesive, tied to the standards, and fairly paced over the school year. In addition, many of these districts define the ground rules for purchasing materials that differ from districtwide rules. Finally, many of these districts have carefully considered supplemental materials and intervention strategies that are aligned explicitly with the curriculum and the assessments on which staff members will be held accountable. Positive Findings • Central-office instructional staff members have a strong working knowledge of the state’s curriculum frameworks. • Considerable progress has been made in the district since 2002 in reforming, upgrading, and defining the district’s instructional program. 11 Organizing content knowledge includes becoming familiar with what students know, articulating clear learning goals, demonstrating connections among content being taught, selecting teaching methods and approaches that are appropriate to the students, and selecting appropriate evaluation strategies. Creating an environment for student learning includes creating a climate of fairness, establishing rapport with students, communicating learning expectations, maintaining consistent standards of classroom behavior, and making the environment safe and conducive for learning. Teaching for student learning includes clarifying learning goals, making content comprehensible, encouraging students to extend their learning, monitoring students’ understanding, and using instructional time effectively. And teacher professionalism includes reflecting on the extent learning goals were met, demonstrating a sense of efficacy, building professional relationships, and communicating with parents or guardians. Council of the Great City Schools 43 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Language Arts • The district uses Houghton-Mifflin’s literacy program in grades k-6 and the HoltRinehart and Winston reading text in grades 7-12. • The team received a table of contents for The Teacher’s Guide to the Four Blocks®, with a notation stating that the publication will be distributed to teachers during the 2008-09 school year. (There was no indication, however, of how the guides will be used; nor did any of the interviewees indicate that they were aware that the guides had been purchased.) • The language arts curriculum guides are organized around the Four Blocks framework advocated by the district. Each unit of instruction is outlined compactly on a single page. Moreover, the guide builds writing into the literacy program, something that is not always done in other districts. Mathematics • The district uses Harcourt Mathematics in K-5, the Connected Math Project in grades 6-8, and Pearson Education math in grades 9-12. The programs have been used successfully in other urban districts to raise student achievement. • The DPS Mathematics 3-Blocks Framework, published in 2006, clearly explains the philosophy and instructional expectations for teaching mathematics in the Dayton Public Schools. The document clarifies each component in the three blocks of instructional time with definitions and examples. Required teaching practices include the use of graphic organizers such as word webs, tree diagrams and Venn diagrams, as well as problem-solving strategies. In addition, the document calls for the use of a problem of the day (POD) four times a week. These problems provide practice in the use of extended-response questions. The framework includes a separate mathematics vocabulary list of “hot words” taken from the Ohio Achievement Test. And the appendix to the framework contains a four-point scoring guide for students to help them evaluate and understand their own work, and a scoring rubric for teachers to assess student work. The appendix also contains a lesson plan sheet with a format that matches the three-block system. • The school district commissioned the University of Dayton in 2007-08 to conduct an audit of the mathematics curriculum guides for grades 4-8. The audit examined the alignment of the Dayton Public Schools pacing guides by standard and indicator with the Ohio Academic Content Standards for Mathematics. The appendix clearly indicates where the indicator is introduced, practiced, and mastered. It also shows when only a portion of the indicator is contained in the pacing guides. The district’s math department developed new pacing guides to fill the multiple gaps revealed in the report, and purchased some new middle school materials to strengthen weak areas exposed in the report. The Council’s team was in agreement with the findings from the University of Dayton study. Council of the Great City Schools 44 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • The Word Wall vocabulary in the pacing guides for mathematics reflects high expectations and is clearly linked to the lessons (e.g., “Grade 3 Mathematics Curriculum Guide Week 7” highlights these words: multiply, factor, product, array, cumulative property of multiplication, repeated addition, skip counting, and area model). • The math guides list a reasonable number of indicators for each unit. • Some schools use “Knowing Math” in grades 3-6 as part of an extended-day math intervention strategy. Areas of Major Concern • The curriculum guides developed by the school district lack uniformity across content areas, making it more complicated and time-consuming for use by teachers who provide instruction in multiple subjects. Recently, however, attempts have been made to remedy this situation. • Little capacity exists in the district to either individualize or differentiate instruction, and the district provides little professional development to build this capacity. • The curriculum guides assume teachers know how to self-monitor coverage of the curriculum; what has been taught; what needs to be retaught; and what students have mastered on the instructional continuum. • The curriculum guides do not appear to have been distributed to teachers with appropriate supports or training. Hence, use of the curriculum guides appears to be irregular and sporadic. • No curriculum guides are available in grades K-2 in any subject area, making it difficult for teachers to build the foundational skills that students will need in grades 3 and beyond. • Nothing in the curriculum guides or in any other materials that the team received from the district provides any guidance to teachers on the level of rigor or difficulty to which they need to teach skills so that students can succeed on state tests and in subsequent grade levels. (The scores suggest that the level of instructional rigor being used by teachers in the district’s classrooms is quite low on average.) • The pacing guides accompanying the curriculum guides are not user-friendly and require training before classroom implementation. (The pacing charts for life science, earth science, and physical science at the elementary school level are simply divided into trimesters.) Council of the Great City Schools 45 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • The pacing guides in all guides fail to provide time for reteaching or modifying instruction based on student performance or need. Language Arts • Language arts instruction and the curriculum guides that define that instruction are clearly driven by the district’s purchased textbooks, rather than by state standards. • The literacy curriculum guide is only loosely aligned with the general dimensions and requirements of reading, writing, research, and communication skills. • Most lessons in the curriculum guides list more indicators/objectives than can reasonably be taught in the allotted time (e.g., the third-grade pacing guide has 19 indicators listed in one seven-day period, and week 27 includes 30 indicators). Based on what the team learned in interviews, it appears that the lessons were not built around these indicators. Instead, the “Skills Focus” and “Strategy Focus” sections of the guide were actually the focus of the lessons, but nothing in writing lets teachers know that this is the case. Consequently, teachers have no way to know what is important and what is not. Furthermore, if these two sections define the lesson, then it is unclear how all the indicators from the Ohio Academic Content Standards will be covered. • The short list of topics in the “Strategy Focus” and “Skills Focus” sections of each page of the curriculum guide provided no hints or examples of the specific depth at which students are expected to learn a specific skill or concept. For example, “Theme 5, Week 32 of Grade 3” calls for the teacher to focus on the writing process. However, the guide gives no indication of what students have already learned and what they were expected to learn. • The “Evidence of Understanding” section of the curriculum guide is usually tied to page numbers from workbooks and/or worksheets, suggesting that worksheets are actually encouraged in classrooms—a practice that contradicts the goals of the language arts program. • “Sight words” presented in the language arts guides were low level and suggested very low expectations of students at respective grade levels. For example, fourthgrade words included “about,” “were,” and “threw.” The guides did not include grade level expectations for vocabulary. • The curriculum guide for language arts instruction mainly calls for whole group instruction following the textbook. Furthermore, the third-grade guide furnished to the team did not indicate when the teacher needed to supplement the book in order to fill gaps between the text and state standards or how to intervene with students who are not mastering the objectives. There was no indication that a gap analysis similar to that conducted on mathematics was also conducted for literacy. Council of the Great City Schools 46 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Finally, the language arts guide refers to “Test Sophistication,” which the team later learned was contained in a separate document. • The curriculum guides at the high school levels are incomplete (e.g., 10th grade language arts). Mathematics and Science • The math curriculum guides call for teaching the six state math standards prior to the testing date, but the guides schedule little work after that date in May. In addition, the team did not see probability taught in grade 3 prior to the state test, even though this concept is included on the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) released items for that grade level. • The University of Dayton study of mathematics alignment conducted in 2007-08 found that many state standards were not covered in the pacing guides. The gaps ranged from 10 percent coverage of indicators in the measurement strand in eighth grade to 100 percent coverage in fourth-grade geometry and measurement. The fourth grade had the highest alignment, with 74.8 percent coverage, but each succeeding grade level had lower alignment, ranging from 58.5 to 41.3 percent of indicators covered in the pacing guides. The data and measurement strands had the lowest average alignment (55.2 percent) and the number strand had the highest average alignment (74.8 percent). • The University of Dayton study only examined the alignment of pacing guides with state standards and indicators. It did not examine textbook resources to determine where the books were aligned and where teachers would need additional support to meet the intent of the standards and the indicators. It also did not examine released tests to determine if the level of rigor in the guides and textbooks provided students with sufficient concept building or introduced practice to be successful on the tests or in subsequent grade levels. • Teachers have to consult multiple documents in each content area to know what the school district’s expectations are. All of the resources together may offer important guidance, but it is unlikely that any teacher will be able to consult all of the resources in each content area. For example, in mathematics, teachers have to juggle the 2006 DPS Mathematics 3-Blocks Framework, problems of the day, hot words, a pacing chart, and a curriculum guide. The curriculum guide also references pages on a separate OAT test-preparation guide. • The mathematics curriculum guides are textbook driven and do not indicate how to fill in alignment gaps between the textbook and state standards, although the guides do offer detailed guidance for hands-on experiences and applications. • The grade 6-8 math curriculum guide is not aligned with the math program being used in these grades. Council of the Great City Schools 47 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • The math curriculum guide includes no references to additional documents needed to execute the problem of the day, to supplemental materials, or to materials needed for Tier II-type instructional interventions. • A Wright University study of the school district’s middle-school science curriculum guides indicated that surveys of grade 4-6 science teachers showed that they devoted little time to science because of an overemphasis on math and language arts. In addition, the study indicated that science instruction in grades 46 was routinely handled by regularly certified teachers rather than by teachers with special training or certification in science. Seventh- and eighth-grade teachers, moreover, reported that they did not have time to teach science, and that their students lacked the foundations in science and math to master grade-level work. The study also noted that following state indicators would result in disjointed instruction by the time students reached middle school. Finally, the report found weaknesses in the adopted science materials. The report generally links gaps and weaknesses in the curriculum guides, the textbooks, and minimal teacher preparation in science with low science achievement on the Ohio Achievement Test.12 The team agreed with results of the study. • The pacing chart in science that the team reviewed is a simple listing of key concepts to be mastered by students by trimester in kindergarten through sixth grade. The pacing system is not designed to guide the weekly use of instructional time in science. At every grade level, the first trimester focuses on physical science, followed by earth science in the second trimester, and life science in the third—without any regard to the number of objectives to be taught. Science processes, technology, and other concepts are to be infused throughout the school year, but with little indication of how. The earth and space science/physical science pacing calendar for the eighth grade, however, is organized by quarter, with earth science as the first topic. In several places, the state indicator for a topic does not appear to have a strong relationship to teaching activities (e.g., page 8 of the pacing chart does not clearly indicate what students are to know about the rock cycle). • There is no clearly defined math intervention program or strategy in grades 9-12. E. Professional Development and Teacher Quality Another feature that improving urban school systems have in common is a highquality and cohesive professional development program that is aligned closely with the school system’s instructional program and is provided districtwide. These programs are often defined centrally, but built around the district’s articulated curriculum, delivered uniformly across the district, and differentiated in ways that address the specific needs of teachers and students. These faster-improving districts also find ways to ensure that some of their better teachers are working in schools with the greatest needs. 12 Basista, B. and Tomlin, J. (2008) Evaluation of Dayton Public School’s (sic) Middle School Science Curriculum, Wright State University. Council of the Great City Schools 48 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Positive Findings • The district has a catalog and calendar of professional development offerings. Some of the offerings indicate that a class is offered for new teachers and other classes are for experienced teachers. The professional development calendar includes such items as personnel evaluation procedures and forms, parent communications, four-blocks usage, classroom management, differentiated instruction, the effects of poverty, math and literacy standards, math manipulatives, and other topics. • The team heard many positive comments about the conference-style summer institute for teachers (June 9-13, 2008) that pooled money and resources to primarily address student achievement. • Schools provide three professional-development days prior to the opening of schools and have four professional development days in all. • The math department is planning a monthly and mandatory professional development session on the connected mathematics program (CMP). The sessions are designated for teachers in grades 6-7, grade 8, and grade 9. It is not clear whether a teacher who teaches both seventh and eighth grades would have to attend two sessions a month. Teachers at 11 elementary and secondary schools are involved. • The district does have some professional development for principals and assistant principals. • Principals interviewed by the team appreciated having professional development about the Schlechty leadership system provided prior to being asked to implement it. The program focuses on student engagement, the quality of student work, and the use of achievement results. • Principals reported to the team that they seek out recommendations for professional development from the central office, i.e., they often call the central office for recommendations about who could provide professional development on designated topics. • .The professional development department created a handbook for new teachers. It features background information about the district, including pictures of school board officers and the interim superintendent. In addition, the handbook offers practical information, including testing calendars, an entry-year teacher calendar, praxis observation forms, payroll schedules, and paycheck explanations. Furthermore, the handbook includes information on educational jargon, classroom layouts, and classroom rules and procedures. It also features a monthly set of activities for new teachers and their mentors. The activities are arranged logically for the time of year. For example, the September checklist includes activities to get to know students, and information on creating an environment for student Council of the Great City Schools 49 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools learning, reporting child abuse, classroom management strategies, student code of conduct, and lesson planning with a review of standards and benchmarks. It also provides instructions for accessing Ohio Resource Center materials. • Professional development for each teacher is reported at the school level and tracked at the central-office level. • Teachers can sign up for professional development online, a practice the team does not always find in other cities. Areas of Major Concern • The district’s program of professional development is fragmented and uncoordinated. Moreover, the program has been ineffective in raising student achievement scores and is not really designed to do so. • No links exist between the district’s goals and its professional development program. The district’s “Staff Development Plan/Proposal” form needed to acquire professional development units has a section that teachers use to specify the district goal or initiative their proposed professional development will address. However, the list of goals does not match the five goals in the August 5, 2008, No Child Left Behind Parent Newsletter.13 In addition, many interviewees indicated that they find the form cumbersome and that they often proceed with professional development without completing it. • A Local Professional Development Committee, composed of five members appointed by the teachers’ association and four members appointed by the superintendent, is responsible for reviewing and approving teacher applications and proposals for course work, continuing education credits and other professional development activities. • The district conducts a teacher survey to define priorities for professional development, but the survey may not be yielding the desired results. For example, only 75 teachers responded that they wanted professional development on the Four Blocks literacy approach and 113 teachers expressed interest in reading instruction. Reading achievement scores, however, suggest a far greater need than the survey responses indicate. In addition, the response rates are far too low to be of much help in setting the district’s professional development priorities. 13 The Staff development Plan/Proposal lists the following goals/initiatives: accountability, civic capacity, equity, literacy and mathematics, organizational development, parental involvement, professional development, and student behavior. The No Child Left Behind Parent Newsletter of August 5, 2008, lists: significantly increasing academic achievement and learning for all students, thus, closing the achievement gap; ensuring that all students have access to a comprehensive education by providing a high-quality program of study across all core curriculum areas; improving instructional delivery to all students by using best practices and providing a comprehensive professional development program to all instructional staff; ensuring a safe and secure school and learning environment; significantly increasing the involvement of parents and the community in order to improve student achievement. Council of the Great City Schools 50 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Individual departments plan their own professional development in isolation from each other—and frequently do not coordinate their work with the district’s professional development director, other content staff, or the district’s research and accountability units. • There appears to be a plan to use federal Title II funds for sheltered instruction observation protocol (SIOP) training, but there appears to be little coordination across departments in order to integrate this training with other professional development plans. • The vast majority of the district’s professional development sessions is held after school, is voluntary, and is so poorly attended that they are sometimes cancelled for lack of participants. The team found no evidence that the district had sought to find out why teachers chose not to participate or how they thought the trend could be reversed. • The district’s professional development offerings, whether attended or not, are rarely differentiated by teacher experience or expertise. Nor are there any lessons in the professional development program on how general education teachers should differentiate instruction for students with disabilities or English language learners. • Individual schools have the responsibility for defining much of their own professional development, even when significant evidence exists showing that there are shared needs across the schools. Data provided to the team show that individual schools offer between no and nine professional development offerings. The range suggests that not all schools report their professional development; that not all schools offer the same professional development; and that schools do not offer professional development of similar quality. • The professional development offered by the schools is not evaluated for its effects on student achievement or on changes in classroom practice. • The district does not appear to anticipate what professional development it will need when it changes programs or structures. For instance, little to no professional development for staff members was offered when the district converted from a Pre-K-5 to Pre-K-8 structure. And no professional development or support was offered to teachers who found that they had to teach new grade levels or subjects due to the “bumping” that followed the budget cuts. • Instructional coaches and intervention teachers receive initial training, but no evidence exists to suggest that the training is followed up, reinforced, or supported later. • The district provides little professional development for regular and intervention teachers on how to work together in the classroom for maximum effect. Council of the Great City Schools 51 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • The human resources department of the school district determines highly qualified teacher status under No Child Left Behind by having teachers complete a survey form rather than using a database on teacher credentials. This practice amounts to a massive waste of time. Even worse, the survey’s low response rates made it appear that the district was not in compliance with the federal law because the district seemed to have an unusually low rate of highly qualified teachers. It is unclear to the team why the survey form was used, and why teachers allowed such a skewed picture of themselves to be presented. • The maximum class sizes negotiated in the collective bargaining agreement are 27 in grades k-3; 29 students in grades 4-6; 32 in grades 7-8; and 35 students in grades 9-12—all relatively high. • Data on the distribution of teachers across the district indicate that there is a slight tendency for teacher salaries to be somewhat higher, on average, in lower-poverty schools and slightly more students per teacher in the higher poverty schools. • The report conducted by Evergreen Solutions LLC indicated that 43.7 percent of Dayton’s teachers had between no and four years of experience, but it did not distinguish between total years of teaching experience and years employed by the Dayton Public Schools. Our review of the numbers indicated that as of March 7, 2008, 91 teachers—or 8.6 percent of the teaching force—were on steps 1-4 of the salary scale, and that 18 percent of the teaching force had been employed by the school system for four years or less. (A teacher can be employed with one year of experience but have 10 years or more of total teaching experience elsewhere. The district grants up to step 10 for new hires, depending on the number of years of previous teaching experience.) • Teachers do not have to let the school district know that they are leaving the system until July 10, making it difficult for the district to offer early contracts to its best recruits in the spring before another school system can grab them. The practice results in the district losing recruits to other districts. • There is an orientation program for new teachers at the beginning of each school year and a small mentor program, but the district lacks a meaningful and effective new teacher induction program. • Substitute teachers (except for long-term subs) are not included in the district’s regular professional development program. This void is particularly problematic because many people interviewed by the team indicated high teacher absenteeism. (The team was not able to gather specific teacher absenteeism data, however.) • Implementing the seniority provisions in the collective bargaining agreement, when the district had to cut funds, resulted in substantial bumping of teachers. (Seniority is generally based on a teacher’s number of continuous years of service providing at least 120 days of teaching per year. There are 178 instructional days in a year.) Council of the Great City Schools 52 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Seniority provisions also apply to hiring and placement of teachers in the summer school program, and to the transfer of teachers from school to school. • The district provides Baldridge continuous-improvement process training for teachers, administrators, and support staff as required by the state. (Training is provided through Jim Shipley & Associates.). But it is unclear how this training relates to Schlechty Center training and how both of these initiatives are evaluated for their impact on student achievement. F. Reform Press Urban school systems that are improving student achievement are not waiting for their reforms to trickle down from the central office into the schools and classrooms. Instead, these systems have developed specific strategies to drive instructional reforms into schools and classrooms, and they create strategies to monitor the implementation of these reforms to ensure their integrity and comprehensiveness. Positive Findings • The district uses a strong, state-developed school improvement plan template for the preparation of school improvement plans. • The district has a uniform “walkthrough” form, and teachers receive a copy of the walkthrough results. • The district has a central- and school-based instructional support system in math and literacy that could form the basis for a stronger method to move curriculum initiatives into the classroom, if done properly. • The mathematics and the literacy instructional specialists are working together in teams at the school level to bring information and technical supports to the schools that they serve. • The math and literacy intervention teachers are scheduled to meet monthly during the school year, providing better coordination across schools in the district. • The district uses Initial Entry Year Evaluation forms to assess new teacher performance in the classroom, including what is being taught, how it is being presented, and how teachers are assessing student progress. The district has a scoring rubric measuring 19 criteria in four domains that result in teacher ratings ranging from “unsatisfactory” to “distinguished.” Areas of Major Concern • The district lacks any systemic monitoring of appropriateness, usefulness, effectiveness, or implementation of school improvement plans (SIPs). Council of the Great City Schools 53 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • School improvement plans are not subjected to any comprehensive central-office review or peer review to ensure that planning is thorough or that its results are likely to improve academic performance. • School improvement plans cannot supersede the collective bargaining agreement, and a majority of School Improvement Plan Committee members must be teachers (including one representative of the bargaining unit). • Little connection exists between how the central-office staff understands curriculum pacing guides and how the guides are interpreted and used in the schools. • The school walkthrough form furnished to the team is superficial and not related to the implementation of the district’s curriculum guides or the level of instructional rigor used in the classrooms. (The walkthrough form is a one-page checklist of items divided into four broad categories: learning environment, student behavior, management, and physical space.)14 • The walkthrough results are not used systematically, even though individual teachers seem to receive the results. • The central office hires the math and literacy intervention teachers, but they are evaluated by principals, creating a potential conflict between the central-office and the school leadership teams. • The math and literacy intervention teachers are spread across too many schools to be effective. • Job qualifications for literacy intervention specials do not require a reading endorsement or any proven success in improving reading achievement among students. • The math and literacy intervention teachers sometimes handle duties that are unrelated to interventions, including running spelling bees and other activities. • The math and literacy intervention teachers work only with the tested grades 3-7, but have no responsibilities for pupils in grades K-2. 14 Learning environment includes items on whether standards are posted on the walls, questioning is at a high level, there is teacher-student interaction, authentic student work is displayed, the pace of the lesson is appropriate, technology is used, instruction is differentiated, as well as how learning is assessed, how student progress is monitored, and how well students are able to verbalize expectations. Student behavior includes: students on task and engaged, class expectations posted, corrections handled with dignity, and students demonstrate appropriate behavior. Management includes: routine techniques used for noninstructional duties, materials at hand, procedures established for classroom transitions, teacher promptness in beginning the lesson, availability of lesson plans, and sufficient time for learning tasks. Physical space includes: availability of centers for exploration, student accessibility to board and teacher, bulletin board materials, classroom neatness, and absence of desk clutter. Council of the Great City Schools 54 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • The rubric for the Initial Entry Year Evaluation is scored in such a way that teachers can earn a proficient rating without using the district’s curriculum. There are two criteria (2-A, 1-C) that require teachers to present the goals and objectives of a lesson. But using the district’s curriculum is mentioned only in criterion 2-A. In order to earn a “distinguished” rating, a teacher must be able to articulate “how their goals relate to curriculum frameworks and standards.” G. Assessment and Data Use One of the most noticeable features of urban school systems that are seeing significant improvements in student achievement involves the regular assessment of student progress and the use of data to decide on the nature and placement of interventions and professional development before the end of the school year. Moreover, these districts use data to monitor school and district progress and hold people accountable for results. Positive Findings • The Ohio Assessment Test (OAT) is typically given to students in late April or early May of each year, and the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) is administered in mid to late March. Results are returned to the district in preliminary form in August. • The Dayton Public Schools actually has strong personnel and technical capacity at the central-office level to generate performance data. For instance, the district can provide sophisticated data reports by school on the OAT by standard, points earned by standard, and proficiency levels attained. This capacity could be better marshaled to improve student achievement, but not every school district has the capacity that Dayton’s does. The district was also able to provide the team with “safe harbor” requirements for reading, math, and attendance, that is, the minimum gains in these areas needed under No Child Left Behind to avoid sanctions. In addition, the district was able to provide the team data on graduation targets (2008-09) by subgroup, as well as data on the percentage of students and schools qualifying for EdChoice vouchers. The district had set out a goal of increasing its Performance Index by 1.3 points a year (the current state rate). • The district provides each school with performance data according to standard and type of test question (multiple choice, short answer, and extended response) and showing the number of points possible on the OAT and OGT versus the number of points earned. These data are also provided by student so that schools can identify individuals and groups needing support on particular concepts or skills. • The district has attempted to implement short-cycle assessments to provide before and after measures of student progress. Council of the Great City Schools 55 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Schools have data teams to assist with the analysis and interpretation of test results. • The school district can track the movement of students from regular schools to charter schools and back. • The district’s intranet can provide principals and teachers with student-level achievement data. • The district has curtailed its use of the standardized TerraNova assessment, which was not aligned with either state standards or the district’s pacing guides, and took time away from instruction. (The test was typically administered in early October.) Areas of Major Concern • It was not clear to the team that personnel at the school level and sometimes at the central-office level used the data produced by the district to maximum effect in driving instructional decision making. School staff members often have data, but it is unclear that it is well used or that people know how to use it to attain specified goals. • The central office provides data to schools, and central-office staff members visit schools to discuss the data. Still, it does not appear that school-based staff members are sufficiently versed in those data to inform instruction. Use of data at the school level appears sporadic and uneven. • The position of executive director for assessment and accountability is vacant. • The short-cycle tests that the district administers replaced the interim assessments that the district was giving and are not aligned with the pacing guides; nor are these short-cycle tests used as a traditional benchmark test to mark student progress through the curriculum. The tests are not well-regarded by teachers or principals. • There is no contract for the second short-cycle exam, scheduled to be given in January, and the timeline is too short to develop an assessment of any acceptable quality. • The district lacks end-of-course exams at the high school level to determine whether course-content expectations are being met. • Schools do not always indicate how their instructional practices match up with their test scores. For example, in one school improvement plan reviewed by the team, third-grade OAT math scores were lowest in the area of patterns and functions (only four third-graders scored above proficient on the standard). But the school determined that its instructional focus for the year would be on the number standard. Patterns and Functions, of course, are the basis for algebraic Council of the Great City Schools 56 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools thinking and higher-level math work as students move to higher grades. Perhaps the school chose the number focus because 15 points were available on the OAT for that standard, compared with 10 points for the patterns and functions standard. It was not clear that anyone at the central-office level checked the school improvement plan carefully enough to question the school about how this decision was reached. • Some pre-K student data are not entered into the student information system (SIS), making it difficult for the district to track the performance of pre-K students as they move through the later grades. • The district appears to use TerraNova as a screen for its gifted and talented program, a questionable practice given the nature and purposes of that particular test. H. Low-Performing Schools and Special-Needs Students Urban school systems that are seeing substantial improvement in student performance have a targeted strategy for intervening in and increasing achievement in their lowest-performing schools. Such strategies may vary from city to city, but they share a number of common elements. Positive Findings • The district uses state school improvement funds to contract with the local education service center (ESC) to provide external coaches to work with principals in the lowest-performing schools. • The district conducted an internal review/audit of its lowest-performing schools in 2007-8 and prepared a written report of its findings. The audit teams were composed of about a dozen staff members from the district and the Montgomery County Education Service Center, who spent a full day in selected schools observing classrooms and interviewing school-based staff. • Math and literacy intervention teachers have been assigned to elementary schools and K-8 schools to support students needing additional help. • The team received documentation of a state-required summer reading intervention program for students in grades 2, 3, and 4 (Summer R.E.A.D.S), but it was implemented at only four sites. The district also has a literacy program for students in temporary housing, as well as a technology-based credit recovery program. • Title I funds provide external coaches to six elementary schools, a Saturday literacy program in five elementary schools, another second literacy teacher to nine elementary schools, another literacy specialist to five elementary schools, a social worker in one school, a student support specialist at two elementary Council of the Great City Schools 57 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools schools, an extended day reading and math program at eight elementary schools, principals’ training in the Schlechty system at 14 elementary schools, and a summer reading program at four elementary schools. • Fifteen Title I schools offer 39 supplemental educational services (SES) providers to tutor students. The number of SES providers ranges from six to 20 per school. The program served 1,112 out of 1,435 eligible students in 2007-08.15 Some services are provided on school property. • The district serves about 370 English language learners (grades K-12) in English as a second language (ESL) programs at seven selected sites. • The district has implemented a positive behavior program in 11 of its schools. Areas of Major Concern • The district appears to lack a meaningful strategy to intervene with students as they fall behind over the course of the school year or are already behind. No tiered intervention system is in place in the district. • The district’s commendable internal curriculum audit of its low-performing schools was not followed up in a convincing way. Results of the audit appeared to show pockets of excellence, but generally low expectations for students; extensive reliance on worksheets and whole-group instruction; and little use of questioning by teachers that would elicit student analysis, evaluation, or synthesis of concepts or skills. The reports for each school were about five pages long and sometimes too general to provide much guidance to the individual schools reviewed. • Twenty-eight schools are in school improvement status under No Child Left Behind for 2008-09. Ten low-performing schools have not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for five or more years, and five schools are in School Improvement 4 status, planning for restructuring. Additionally, one school (Gorman) is in School Improvement 3 status, and seven schools are in School Improvement 2 status. Finally, five schools are in their first year of School Improvement 1 status. Of the six schools not designated as in need of school improvement, three are classified as “at risk.” The district also includes three charter schools that have returned to the public school system, but their status was not known when the team visited. • The Title I per pupil allocation is $413.26 per student, an amount that is distributed uniformly across the schools, rather than targeted more carefully on schools with low levels of student achievement. 15 Office of School Improvement & External Resources, “Supplemental Educational Services (SES) 20072008 Overview,” Dayton Public Schools. Council of the Great City Schools 58 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Schools are given little guidance on the effective use of their Title I funds to boost student achievement, support their school improvement plans, or meet district academic priorities. • The district set aside about $1.8 million for its supplemental education services (SES) program in 2007-2008—or about $1,605 per child. It spent about $1.4 million of this money and served about 1,112 students in 15 schools. Thirty-nine providers offered SES from January to May at various sites, including schools, local libraries, churches, and community centers, as well as online and at students’ homes.16 The district’s enrollment window will be open from September 15 to November 14, 2008. • The district lacks a mechanism to evaluate the effectiveness of the SES program beyond the state’s list of effective programs. The district does survey families whose children receive SES, but only 10 percent of surveys were returned. The results from this small number of respondents indicated that 84 percent were satisfied with the number of tutoring sessions provided and that 79 percent (110) indicated that their child was doing better in reading and/or math because of the tutoring. About 75 parents stated that an SES provider or providers had promised a reward or incentive for selecting their tutoring program.17 • Coordination is nonexistent between the district’s intervention teachers and SES providers around individual student needs. • Requests for transfers under No Child Left Behind were to be returned by parents as of September 5, 2008. There were few options and few parents participated. • The district has an extremely weak program and strategy for improving English mastery and content attainment among its English language learners. • Fifteen schools have between one and seven students with limited English proficiency, and five other schools have a clear inequity in the number of staff members available to serve their English language learning (ELL) students.18 16 SES providers included 2 B Natural by Design, A to Z Home Tutoring, A+ Professional Tutoring, Academic Recovery Services, Academic Village, All Kids Can Learn, Amicus II, ATS Project Success, Babbage Net School, Bright Point Place, Catapult Online, Classroom Connections, Club Z, Community Threads, Dayton Urban League, Educational Resource Consultants of Ohio, Education Recruiting Services, Education Station, Highrise Services, JDP Educational Associates, Initiative for Academic Achievement, Increased Learning Services, Metropolitan Certified Teachers Association, Miami Valley Literacy Council, Milestones Tutoring, New Dimensions Learning Center, Open Book Tutoring, Paramount Development Association, Porter Education and Communications, Power Kids, Project Impact, Student Achievement Center, T.O.P.S., Tutorial Services, Tutoring in Your Home, and Wims Enterprises. 17 Three separate parent comments on the survey forms indicated an unfulfilled promise of $50 for the student. Other parent comments indicated the promise of a gift card or other unspecified rewards. 18 Fairview Elementary School has 42 limited-English proficient students, with one ESL teacher and a paraprofessional. Patterson Kenney serves 137 limited-English proficient students (20 percent of the school), with one ESL teacher and one paraprofessional and an interpreter three days a week. Kiser Elementary has 32 limited-English proficient students (7 percent of the school), with one paraprofessional Council of the Great City Schools 59 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • The pupil/teacher ratio in one ELL center is about 140:1—with only one paraprofessional to assist. • Nearly half of all ELL students who are not in an ELL center are in de facto English language immersion classes with periodic 30-40 minute pull-out sessions to learn English. • The Dayton Public Schools serves an unusually high percentage of special education students—about 21 percent of the total enrollment in 2007-08. Of these 3,200 students, 2,000 were African American and 1,000 were white. The reason for this high rate is not entirely clear. Some of the reason might be due to the poor instructional program in the district; and some of it might be due to the absence of programs for these students in charter schools. A number of individuals interviewed by the team indicated that charter schools sometimes enrolled students with disabilities in order to claim the extra aid and then returned these students to the Dayton Public Schools after the official fall enrollment count. The team looked into this claim and found that this situation was true of 185 students in 2006-2007 and 177 students in 2007-2008. The amount of total aid for this group would exceed $2.0 million. • No mechanism exists to ensure that schoolwork follows students who have been suspended and dismissed from school, putting them further behind their peers and complicating their reentry into the school program. • Only 100 to 200 students participated in the district’s most recent summer school program. I. Preschool Students and Elementary Schools It is often difficult for urban school district to improve everything at once. The districts experiencing success in improving student achievement did not attempt to do so. Instead, these districts had a defined a clear sequence of reforms often starting at the early elementary grades and working up to the middle and high school grades. Positive Findings • The Dayton Public Schools currently has five funded programs serving prekindergarten students. In 2007-08, Head Start served about 330 students in nine centers with half-day programs. Title I funded some 21 early childhood education centers serving about 400 students. The State Early Childhood Education (ECE) Program at Longfellow School served 45 students in three classrooms. The Franklin Montessori School served 28 three- and four-year-olds in four classrooms. The district’s noncategorical ECE special education program served the remaining students. one day a week. Thurgood Marshall serves 21 limited-English proficient students, with one paraprofessional one day a week. Council of the Great City Schools 60 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • The team received written evaluations for all prekindergarten programs except the noncategorical program. These evaluations included academic indicators using a variety of assessments, including self-assessments, High/Scope child observation records, Brigance, and other tools. • The district used the early childhood environment rating scale (ECERS) to screen pre-K classrooms for their curriculum environment. ECERS scores are shown on a seven-point scale.19 The 2006-07 ECERS average ratings ranged from a low of 2.4 (at Fairview) to a high of 4.8 (at Belle Haven). Four of the total 20 classrooms examined scored below the minimal rating of 3.0. The 2007-08 ECERS report indicated substantial improvement in the subscale scores over the previous year, but the report does not lend itself to easy comparisons with results in previous years because subscale scores were not reported for individual schools. • The district uses the Brigance to assess pupil progress in prekindergarten, although the team did not see data on this assessment. The Title I ECE program tested 347 students in the fall of 2007-08 and 77 percent (269 students) were considered academically at risk. By the spring testing, 102 students (29 percent) were considered to be still at risk. • The district has a process for enrolling prekindergarten students directly into district schools, including from early childhood programs that are not operated by the school district. • The district has assigned a coordinating teacher to develop a program for gifted students. About 200 males and 270 females have been identified as gifted in 2008-09. Areas of Major Concern 19 • The simultaneous implementation of K-8 schools and staff cutbacks during the 2007-08 school year made it difficult to manage elementary school operations effectively. Transfers of teachers into new positions disrupted school initiatives, while the transfer of textbooks and resources to the K-8 programs often did not move seamlessly to schools where resources were needed. • Seventh- and eighth-grade students in K-8 schools now are often taught in selfcontained classrooms by general education teachers who lack the background, expertise, or systematic support to prepare students for high school coursework. Even when K-8 schools try to differentiate their staffing patterns at these grade levels, low enrollment sometime requires teachers to teach two or more content areas, even when their expertise may only be in one area. • Administrators interviewed by the team indicated weak coordination among the various early childhood programs. The ECERS scale is: 1-inadequate; 3-minimal; 5-good; and 7-excellent Council of the Great City Schools 61 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • There does not appear to be any clear articulation in the academic features of the early childhood programs and the district’s early grades. • The Head Start Self-Assessment Report for 2008 identifies the computerized maintenance of student records as an area of weakness for the district. As a result of this weakness, the district is unable to track early childhood participants through later grades to see how—or if—the programs have had an impact on student performance. A separate report20 examined academic gains in language development, literacy, math, science, and other indicators between 2005-06 and 2007-08, but the analysis did not include a matched group of students, making it difficult to draw valid conclusions. The analysis did suggest, however, that the program improved participants’ use of ever-more complex vocabulary. • Federal and state early childhood funds are not skillfully combined with local resources to create more full-day services for four-year olds. • Parents have to go to the central office to register their children for early childhood education programs. This practice ensures better control of enrollment information for the district, but it means that parents have to make arrangements to travel downtown, and sometimes have to wait a considerable length of time to be served. Parents complained that siblings were sometimes assigned to differing schools, particularly if parents enrolled their children at differing times. • The number of students assigned to schools outside of their neighborhoods may be feeding parent desires to leave the district schools and enroll their children in nearby charters. • The team reviewed school-by-school data on the identification of gifted/talented students, and found that the percentage of students identified as gifted ranged from zero at Fairview Elementary School to 21.4 percent at Stivers—or an average of 4.1 percent per school. Eighteen schools identified 10 or fewer students as gifted/talented. Nearly half of the identified students are white (217), 224 are African American, and 8 are Hispanic. • The written goals for gifted services are not necessarily consistent with school programs. For example, the goals suggest hiring a gifted resource teacher and purchasing an online enrichment program for all identified gifted fifth- and sixthgraders, but there is no stated objective or expected result from this program. There is also no indication of what the identified children are to miss each day while they are working online. Finally, the district does not appear to plan an evaluation of any of the program’s goals to determine their value for gifted students. 20 Dayton Public Schools Head Start Program: Annual COR Gains Comparison & Head Start Outcomes, 7/21/2008. Council of the Great City Schools 62 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools J. Middle and High Schools While many urban school systems that see gains in student performance focus initially on their elementary schools, they do not ignore their middle and high schools. No national consensus yet exists on how to improve high schools academically, but the faster-moving districts have put a number of strategies in place to ensure that students who did not learn the basic skills in the elementary schools do so before they graduate from high school. Positive Findings • To graduate from high school, students must pass all sections of the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT). • The Dayton school district has started to implement “High Schools that Work,” a nationally available high school reform model, in a number of its schools: Dunbar, Meadowdale, Belmont, Marshall, Stivers, Wright, and Patterson. • The school district has one model high school—Stivers. Students gain entry through either academic prowess or by audition. • High schools provide OGT practice-periods during school days for 11th-graders, and this practice has improved test results for many participating students. • The district has seen increases in the number of Advanced Placement (AP) exams students take and a doubling of the percentage of these exams in which students score a 3, 4 or 5, qualifying for college credit. Table 12 of the Council’s 2005 report indicated that only 341 students were enrolled in AP courses in 2003-04. These students took 146 AP exams, but only 22 (15 percent) scored a 3 or higher. In 2007-08, the number of AP exams had increased to 246, with 74 (about 30 percent) attaining a score of 3 or better. • The district has implemented a series of tech-prep programs in collaboration with Sinclair College, allowing the few participating students to earn college credit while in high school. Course reports were accompanied with data on expected job growth in the respective areas. (Interestingly, the team saw no career offerings in the aeronautics field.) Areas of Major Concern • No districtwide mechanisms exist by which elementary and secondary school principals and teachers can discuss the articulation of curriculum across grades. • Even though the district has data showing that most students are not well-prepared for the rigor of high school courses, the district lacks a summer bridge program for students transitioning to high school, as well as targeted remediation for students in grades 6, 7, and 8 who are behind. Council of the Great City Schools 63 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • Interviewees told the team that more than 70 percent of ninth-graders fail at least one core course, a finding that has substantial ramifications for predicting the students who are most likely to drop out of school, according to recent research. • No real systemic strategy is in place for reforming the district’s high schools; nor does the district have a plan for restructuring schools that are under No Child Left Behind sanction. • The content for high school courses is not standardized, allowing for variations in rigor and expectations within and across schools. In addition, the district does not have a catalog of high school courses. • The district also lacks systematic program for building or increasing the level of rigor in core courses in a way that would develop a larger pipeline for higher-level courses. • The use of the PSAT to identify and place students in higher-level coursework is limited. • Advanced Placement (AP) courses are only offered at the Stivers and Thurgood Marshall High Schools, a decrease from the five schools offering these courses when the Council conducted its previous review. There appear to be no AP courses offered at Belmont, Dunbar, Meadowdale, or Patterson high schools. Moreover, e-mails furnished to the team indicate that the schools themselves had to provide information to the central office about which AP courses they were offering, suggesting that the central office did not have that information. • Relatively few students in the district take AP exams, and the passing rate, while improving, is still low. • The district makes limited use of ACT and SAT preparation classes. Council of the Great City Schools 64 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Chapter 3. Recommendations The Council presents its recommendations and proposals in this chapter, using the same 10 categories that we used in the previous chapter. However, this chapter also includes a series of short-term recommendations to move the Dayton Public Schools away from its current position on the cusp of “emergency” and “academic watch” statuses to “continuous improvement” status within three years. The longer-term recommendations are meant to be pursued immediately, as well, but they involve a more systemic effort to overhaul the instructional program of the school district than those presented in the first section. Both sections of this chapter are based on the best research available and are designed to put the district’s academic gains on a more sustainable and credible trajectory. SHORT-TERM PROPOSALS The Council of the Great City Schools proposes that the Dayton Public schools move aggressively to attain continuous improvement status within three years. With this end in mind, the Council urges the school district to take a number of critical steps— beginning this school year—to improve student achievement and lay the foundation for sustainable gains in the future. These short-term steps would involve a series of stagesetting actions; activities designed to build district capacity; efforts to enhance principal and teacher skills; and strategies to boost test scores in order to move the district into continuous improvement status, create momentum, and turn around the lowestperforming schools. 1. Stage-Setting Strategies Three unmistakable factors spurred the Strategic Support Team to suggest that the leadership of the Dayton Public Schools take a series of short-term actions to boost the school district’s academic results. One, public support of the district from business leaders and parents is extremely fragile and it would not take much for them to abandon the system to an even greater degree than they have already done. Two, the team was not sure that the district had much confidence in its own capabilities to teach its students to higher levels. And three, the district will probably need to return to the voters at some point after this fall’s operating levy, and the school system will need results to tout from its current levy campaign, if it is successful. The Council and its Strategic Support Team, therefore, recommends a series of short-term actions to demonstrate a sense of urgency, boost the public’s confidence that the district understands the community’s concerns, and build some goodwill. These actions include— a. Have the school board and the superintendent make a clear, public, and bold statement sometime in the next month outlining their sense of urgency for turning around the school system, boosting student achievement, and helping to revitalize the city. Council of the Great City Schools 65 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools b. Have the superintendent issue a formal written statement outlining his short-term priorities—increasing academic improvement, enhancing safety and the school environment, and passing the operating levy. (Some people in the community know these priorities; many don’t.) c. Indicate publicly that academic improvement priorities include efforts to raise student achievement levels; design and implement a meaningful gifted and talented program for all schools in the district; enhance teaching quality; implement a systemwide “positive behavior” program; and move the district away from “emergency” and “academic watch” status to “improvement” status within the next three years. (Indicate that levy proceeds will be used for these priorities, including some of the funds—about $1-2 million—for three days of professional development, one day before schools start, one in October, and one in January.) d. Convene a series of focus groups, town-hall meetings, or hearings to provide opportunities for parents and other community members to discuss their frustrations with the school system and their priorities for improvement. (This action will also provide input for updating the now-expired strategic plan and will allow district leaders to describe why the levy is so important.) e. Design, develop, and circulate a “citizen’s budget” that allows the public to see at a glance where the district gets its resources and how it spends them. f. Announce that the district will be moving toward a process by which parents will be able to register their children at their nearest school, rather than having to come downtown to the central office to do so. g. Enlist a citywide army of volunteers to tutor and mentor district students as the school system works to improve student achievement. 2. Objectives under the Strategic Plan Initiative The school board and staff should complete their work setting specific objectives for school district improvement. The goals should be specific and might include the following— a. Improve the school district’s Performance Index from 70 to 80 within three years. (See section 5 below for details.) b. Increase the number of teaching staff receiving professional development in reading instruction from “x” percent to “y” percent. c. Decrease the number of disciplinary incidents from “a” per month to “b” per month. d. Increase the number of volunteer hours from “x” to “y” annually Council of the Great City Schools 66 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 3. Strategies for Enhancing Teacher and Staff Capacity The school district is paying the price for having so few days officially devoted to the professional development of its teachers and staff. The Council and its Strategic Support Team are proposing a number of short-term steps to build internal capacity to improve student achievement and prepare for the subsequent steps in the school system’s reforms. These steps would include— a. Charge the district’s leadership with establishing a series of cross-functional teams to begin work on redrafting and renewing the school system’s strategic plan. Each team, to the extent possible, should receive some training on how to work in these kinds of teams and some professional development on changemanagement strategies. Teams might be assigned initially to work on professional development, student assignment, and curriculum writing tasks. b. Announce a series of monthly professional development sessions for principals to clarify new goals and priorities, personnel evaluation procedures, instructional monitoring efforts, data interpretation and use, intervention strategies, professional learning communities and use of common planning time, positive behavior strategies, customer service and parent outreach strategies, and the like. c. Design and convene—with the collaboration of the teachers union—a series of professional development sessions for teachers who find themselves over the last year having to teach subjects and grades that they had previously not taught. Professional development should include sessions on the curriculum guides, adopted texts, intervention strategies, and interpretation and use of data to inform instruction. d. Convene a series of site-based professional development sessions on revisions to and use of the curriculum guides (see subsequent section for recommendations on revisions to the guides), positive-behavior support programs, and short-term instruction plans (see next section). e. Convene a series of professional development sessions for literacy and math intervention teachers and literacy and mathematics instructional specialists on their roles in supporting teachers and boosting academic performance. 4. Strategies for Boosting Student Achievement The slippage in student achievement and the decline in the district’s state Performance Index scores suggest that the district should set up immediate procedures to boost test scores and create some momentum for longer-term reforms. The strategies recommended in this section should not be mistaken for longer-term reforms or the actions that will be needed to sustain gains and enhance deeper student knowledge. Essentially, these proposals amount to educational triage and are designed to move the district into improvement status under the state’s sanction system. But the team believes Council of the Great City Schools 67 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools that these recommendations can realistically move the district into that status within three years. a. Analyze Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) and Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) results for the last two years by content area, standard or strand, grade level, school, and student to identify the precise achievement of each. b. Identify the concepts and skills on which the lowest-performing students are having particular trouble in each subject area that forms the basis of the state’s Performance Index (i.e., reading, writing, math, science, and social studies). (See subsequent narrative following recommendations.) c. Have central-office staff identify materials already in the schools or develop supplemental materials that address the most common skill deficits. Ensure that the materials do more than simply having students working on worksheets or doing practice exercises. d. If necessary, develop sample or model lesson plans in priority areas to ensure that skills are taught at the level of rigor expected on the state assessments. (Prioritize the development of lessons based on the analysis of the state assessment scores.) e. Retain tutors, community volunteers, retired teachers, or current teachers to work with students in identified areas. Provide training on the use of the materials in targeted skill areas that the central office has identified. f. Redeploy the literacy and math intervention teachers and literacy and mathematics instructional specialists to help focus on high priority “target” students as a way to raise the Performance Index. These educators can help coordinate and conduct tutoring, interpret data, guide instructional practice and interventions, ensure that the “four-block” time is used appropriately, and collaborate with central-office administrators in pushing the reforms forward. g. Conduct a series of intensive small-group and individual tutoring sessions for identified students, schools, and grades on concepts and skills on which the analysis indicates students are having particular trouble, and hold these sessions after school and on Saturdays. Tutoring sessions should be mandatory for students and should begin this school year no later than January 2009. The preliminary analysis by the Council’s Strategic Support Team indicates that this short-term strategy could move the school district to continuous improvement” status under the state’s accountability system within three years. The state computes the status of each school district on the Performance Index that it developed to hold systems accountable for results. The Performance Index is computed on all tests taken by students in a school district. Dayton has an index of 70.1, right on the edge between “emergency” status (the Council of the Great City Schools 68 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools lowest) and “academic watch” status. The district needs an index of 80 to attain “continuous improvement” status. The index is calculated by weighting test results by the percentage of a district’s students attaining the five different proficient levels. (See Exhibit 24.) Exhibit 24. Dayton School District Performance Index and Its Components Performance Levels Number of Tests All Tests (DPS) Percent Weight Points Untested Limited Basic Proficient Accelerated Advanced Dayton Index 305 6,429 7,190 6,484 2,451 1,166 24,025 24,025 24,025 24,025 24,025 24,025 1.3% 26.8% 29.9% 27.0% 10.2% 4.9% 0.0 0.3 0.6 1.0 1.1 1.2 0.0 8.0 18.0 27.0 11.2 5.8 70.0 Under the state’s accountability system, students who have not been tested receive no (zero) points on the state’s Performance Index. Students in the “limited” proficiency category receive a weight of 0.3 points. Students in the “basic” category receive a weight of 0.6 points. Students in the “proficient” category are given a weight of 1.0. Students in the “accelerated” category receive a weight of 1.1 points; and students in the “advanced” category receive a weight of 1.2 points. In 2007-2008, the Dayton Public Schools had the equivalent of Performance Index scores that varied considerably by grade and subject. (The state does not actually calculate indices subject-by-subject or grade-by-grade, but it is possible to do so.) The highest index would be in seventh-grade writing—85—and the lowest would be in fifthgrade math—55. The overall scores in mathematics, science, and social studies would be in the “emergency” category if they were calculated in that manner. (See Appendix B.) The Performance Index for the district—any district—can be affected by two actions: testing all students, and moving low-performing students up to the next highest performance category. For example, testing an otherwise untested child earns the district a weight of 0.3 rather than 0.0. There were 305 such children in the district in 2007-2008. Likewise, moving a student from the “basic” to the “proficiency” category increases a district’s weighting by 0.4 points per child. There were more than 7,000 students testing in the basic category that year. Consequently, the Council and its Strategic Support Team asked the question, “How many students would need to show improvement to earn the school district a performance rating of 80 and what would be a reasonable time period in which to attain that status?” The Council estimates that the Dayton Public Schools could move to continuous improvement status (80) in three years by focusing support on students in each grade. In Council of the Great City Schools 69 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools year one (2008-2009), the district would need to move 17 percent of its currently “limited” students into the “basic” category, and approximately 17 percent of its basic students into the proficient category in three subjects—reading, writing, and math. It would also require testing all previously untested students in year one. Taking these steps would translates into the movement of approximately 588 students across grades 3-8 and 10 districtwide—about 17 students per school on average or less than five percent of the district’s enrollment. The result would be that the district’s Performance Index rating would increase to 73. (See Appendix B.) In year two (2009-2010), the district would have to move 26 percent of its remaining students in the limited category to basic, and 26 percent of the remaining basic students into the proficient range in reading, writing, and math. (We assume that there would be no untested students in the second year.) Taking these steps would translate into moving about 727 students across grades 3-8 and 10 districtwide—about 21 students per school on average. This would move the district’s Performance Index rating from 73 to 77. (See Appendix B.) Finally, the district in year three (2020-2011) would need to move 31 percent of its remaining students in the limited category into the basic range, and 31 percent of the remaining basic students into the proficient range. (Again, we assume that there would be no untested students in the third year.) Taking these steps would translate into moving some 747 student across grades 3-8 and 10—about 22 students per school on average. This would move the district’s Performance Index rating from 77 to 80. (See Appendix B.) Overall, these numbers are small. However, improving the achievement of these students will require intense and focused interventions. For example, schools might choose to work with some students intensely on literacy and other students intensely in math. The data on each school and on skill deficits among the students at those schools should inform the decisions about which students to focus on and in which areas. The Council’s team recommends that the central office meet weekly on the progress and status of this strategy, and use results from a new interim assessment (see subsequent recommendations) to indicate where the effort needs to be fine-tuned over the course of the school year. This strategy also would mean that school staff members would need to use their data and understand where their students are, what they need to learn, and how that learning will be assessed. In addition, the team proposes that schools also reach down to grades K-2, identify students who are showing signs of struggling, and ensure that they are kept on grade level. Finally, the team emphasizes that the strategy we are outlining means focusing on low-achieving students. It does not mean imposing a drill-and-kill session. These students will need help with concepts and skills; they will not need more worksheets and practice on skills that they haven’t yet mastered. If the program devolves into a mechanized Council of the Great City Schools 70 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools process, the district will not be able to sustain gains or build student skills for the subsequent grades. LONGER-TERM RECOMMENDATIONS The recommendations in this section are meant to be pursued by the Dayton Public Schools at the same time as it focuses on the shorter-term proposals laid out in the previous section. However, the recommendations in this section may take longer to implement, in some cases, and were designed as ongoing reforms to the district’s instructional program. The Council presents these proposals using the same categories as those used in the previous chapter of this report. A. Political Preconditions and Governance Urban districts that have made significant improvements in student performance have leaders who set student achievement as their first priority, define a vision for how to raise that achievement, and develop a careful “theory of action” for what needs to be done. As the Dayton Public Schools works on its short- and long-term reforms, it should— 1. Revisit previous recommendations made by the Council to strengthen the district’s public image and its outreach to parents and the community. The Council’s Strategic Support Team was told repeatedly that the exodus from the Dayton Public Schools was partly the result of parents feeling poorly treated in their children’s schools or feeling not welcome. The district should consider developing clear standards for how parents are treated, what professional development for school-based staff is needed, and what strategies and mechanisms (e.g., a parents ombudsman) need to be put in place to spur this effort. The school district might also consider ways to marshal parents and the community to enlist in and support the instructional push that this report is recommending. For instance, the district may want to establish a voluntary tutoring, mentoring, or afterschool program that gives adults the opportunity to work with students who need help with homework or have trouble reading. A citywide effort might build some additional ownership in the schools and break down the perception that the school district is only interested in the community when the district needs a levy passed. 2. Update, revise, and announce a new strategic plan that will take the now-expired plan to the next steps. Use recommendations from this report and other resources as part of the process. Consider holding a series of community meetings and forums to inform the plan and identify community priorities. The Council would suggest establishing a series of cross-functional teams of administrators, teachers, and others to work across separated areas of responsibility to develop a plan for stronger community involvement. Such teams have the benefit of getting people to think outside their respective units, encouraging collaboration and Council of the Great City Schools 71 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools building joint ownership for solutions; spurring better communications and developing a common language for what staff members mean by the terminology they use; ensuring that strategies reflect the complexity of issues that the district faces; and combating the sense of unit competition and factional behavior that the Strategic Support Team witnessed. The cross-functional teams should have clear tasks and timelines related to development of the plan; receive training on changemanagement strategies and system’s thinking; and be held accountable for the results they get. 3. Devote some portion of each school board meeting to reviewing the status of or data on the district’s instructional program and its reform. 4. Design a process by which high-achieving charter schools that are interested in reaffiliating with the school district can do so on terms that allow the charters flexibility that regular schools may not have. The team heard from several sources that some charter schools were interested in rejoining the school district in some capacity and that others might at least be interested in a discussion on how they and the regular schools could work more closely together. The Council sees this as a welcome sign and an opportunity for some level of rapprochement in the long-standing tug-of-war between the two groups. The Council would be happy to help in this process. 5. Accelerate efforts to improve relations between the school district’s leadership and teachers union. The Council noted in its 2005 report that the relationships between management and the teachers union had improved, but ample evidence indicates that the relationship continues to be strained. This situation influences the public’s perceptions of the district’s quality, its focus on children as a top priority, and its customer friendliness. It was also clear from the Council’s interviews that parents’ willingness to send their children to district schools was shaped, in part, on how the public perceived the squabbles over the contract. Some of the proposals in this report will require the collaboration of both sides in order to succeed. 6. Review previous Council reports for recommendations that remain unimplemented but are still relevant as the district moves forward. B. Goal Setting Fast-improving urban districts set specific performance goals and targets for themselves and their schools. These goals have specific timetables and are focused on improved student achievement and on narrowing gaps in the performance of subgroups. These districts often have both long-term and annual goals. Moreover, despite their high poverty levels, these districts focus relentlessly on meeting those goals. As the Dayton Public Schools takes the next steps in its reforms, it should— Council of the Great City Schools 72 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 7. Look at strategic plans, balanced score-cards, and other metric-based goal systems in the public school systems of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Dallas, New York City, and Atlanta for examples of how plans and metrics are used in other urban school systems. 8. Incorporate both short-term and long-range goals into the district’s new strategic plan. The plan should also include “stretch” goals in areas beyond the federal No Child Left Behind and the state accountability system, including AP participation, ACT and SAT performance, dropout rates, suspensions and disciplinary incidents, and the like. It should, moreover, include a monitoring component, timeframe, and accountability provisions. Finally, the activities should be revisited to ensure that they are more than simply a menu of items. 9. Revisit all district academic improvement and school-by-school improvement goals to make sure that they align with the broader goals to get out of federal “district improvement” status and out of “academic watch” status by the state and into “continuous improvement” status. The district is in “academic watch” status under the state’s accountability system and “district improvement” status (year 5) under No Child Left Behind. Moreover, only three of the district’s schools have met adequate yearly progress (AYP) targets. The district should ensure that the district’s goals can be met when the individual schools meet their goals in case the attainment of school goals continues to leave the overall district behind in meetings its goals. 10. Incorporate subgroup goals into all school improvement plans. On average, the district’s white students met the state’s achievement targets, but African American and Hispanic students did not. The district’s strategic plan and school improvement plans should include explicit goals for narrowing these racially identifiable achievement gaps, rather than leaving their progress unstated. 11. Tighten the school district’s review and approval of individual school improvement plans. Many of the school improvement plans reviewed by the team reflected considerable and thoughtful work by school staff members. At the same time, strategies proposed by some schools did not seem to match the challenges those schools were facing and were not likely to result in much improvement in student achievement. In addition, the team did not see any meaningful process at the district level to review those plans for their instructional viability or to monitor progress on those plans over the course of the school year. Finally, there was little to indicate that the plans were consistent with the district’s plan, in part, because there is no district plan at the moment. Council of the Great City Schools 73 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools C. Accountability Urban school districts that are seeing significant gains in student performance attribute at least some of their progress to improved systems of accountability. The importance of these systems is that they focus staff attention and energy on defined systemwide goals. They also make it clearer how and on what personnel will be evaluated. Finally, these accountability systems have the added benefit of signaling to the public that school staff members are responsible for getting results. 12. Place all senior staff in the central office on performance contracts tied to attainment of districtwide goals and a new strategic plan. Only the superintendent and district principals are held accountable in any way for improving districtwide student achievement. We urge the district, as we did in our 2005 report, to begin placing central-office staff on performance contracts tied to increasing student achievement or to include districtwide student achievement in the evaluation of central-office staff. The district should consider setting a timeline for making this transition. Ultimately, these evaluations should also include the stretch goals suggested in a previous section of this chapter. 13. Consider developing a recognition or reward system for schools and teachers that meet or exceed student achievement expectations. The research on such reward systems suggests that they have to be fairly large to be effective. But there are some promising prototypes being tested across the country, including those used in the school systems of New York City, Denver, Houston, and Tampa. The Council team thinks it may be worth trying this approach as part of the district’s larger portfolio of reforms. The district might also want to seek resources from the private sector for the effort. (The rewards should be based on movement in scale scores in order to determine whether increase in these scores has exceeded a full year’s growth or otherwise surpassed expectations.) 14. Strengthen and clarify the criteria and weights for evaluating principals on the degree to which they improve student achievement, and move forward with implementing the system. The school district had moved several years ago to implement a principal evaluation and incentive program, but the effort was not fully realized. The team proposes moving forward on this initiative, and making sure that every principal knows precisely what will be expected of her or him in terms of improving student achievement. The team also proposes modifying the 35-point evaluation system somewhat to give principals credit for the movement of students from any one performance level to another, rather than giving credit just for moving students above the proficiency bar. This change would also make the principals’ evaluations more consistent with the Council of the Great City Schools 74 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools state’s Performance Index. The district should also build movement toward AYP benchmarks into the evaluation procedure. 15. Incorporate the improvement of student achievement into the evaluation of the literacy and mathematics instructional specialists and literacy and math intervention teachers. The team interviewed many hard-working instructional specialists and intervention teachers. Their evaluation should be linked to their job duties, however, and tied to improvement in student achievement. These individuals are critical to the district’s effectiveness in raising student achievement. 16. Establish an expedited process, in collaboration with the teachers union, for the review and dismissal of ineffective teachers. The team recognizes the need to protect teachers’ rights, but all sides know that it is not in the interest of students, the teaching profession, the union, or the public to retain ineffective teachers. The Council urges the district and union to negotiate a review process that takes no longer than 90 days. (The District of Columbia school system has a program such as this, although it has never worked as intended.) D. Curriculum and Instruction Preliminary research by the Council and others suggests that urban school districts that are improving student performance are doing so, in part, by providing a common curriculum and instructional program. They are doing this to bring greater focus to their instructional efforts, to mitigate the effects of high student mobility, and to strengthen their ability to support and monitor the implementation of programs and improve their capacity to provide professional development and technical assistance to school-based staff. 17. Analyze the state standards and indicators in every core content area and clarify what needs to be taught at each grade level, rather than at each grade-level band as is currently the case. The Ohio state standards are fairly broad in how they are worded and are sometimes open to interpretation by the teacher. In addition, some indicators are expressed in grade bands, rather than individual grades. If the guides are to be used, they need to be made more specific at each grade level. The Council team suggests that the central office analyze the standards, rather than forcing the teachers to do so, and that the district clarify the meaning and precision of the standards and indicators that are open to interpretation in the pacing guide. This clarification may require adding an appendix to the document that is referenced in the pacing guide lessons. The district might also use released state-test items to double-check that instructional expectations in the guide are at the right level of rigor or complexity for students to do well on the tests. Council of the Great City Schools 75 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 18. Review the curriculum guides to ensure that they incorporate the rigor necessary for students to do well on state and national tests and have the foundation for more complex work in the next grade level (e.g., vocabulary, higher-level questions, performance tasks, and rubrics.) 19. Ensure that all core courses at every grade level—including prekindergarten, the early elementary grades, and the secondary grades—have curriculum guides. The curriculum guides need to be in place for all grade levels, not just those subject to state testing. Otherwise, the foundation skills are not necessarily built from the earliest grades, and teachers may not be sure how the content is articulated from one grade to the next. First-grade teachers, for instance, should know that they are responsible for students’ understanding of how punctuation marks at the end of a sentence affect the meaning of what is read and how to decide which ones to use. Second-grade teachers should know that they are teaching the use of periods in abbreviations, commas in friendly letters, and commas and quotations marks to set off simple quotations, etc. Thus, teachers at every grade should know not only what they teach but also what was taught before them—and all of this knowledge should build from one grade to the next and be included in the curriculum guides, starting with prekindergarten. 20. Check to see that curriculum guides and texts build requisite skills vertically through the grades. The team was particularly concerned that the district apparently has not considered that students are often tested on the state assessments in coursework they took years earlier. The mathematics portion of Ohio Graduation Test (OGT), for instance, includes items testing student mastery of probability and statistics. This topic was last officially taught in eighth grade according to the curriculum guides. However, most students take Algebra I in the ninth grade, followed by geometry in the tenth. The pacing guides for algebra and geometry could easily incorporate the reviews as well as any other concepts that reoccur on the OGT and college preparation. Moreover, some teachers in the Pre-K-8 grades may not be aware that science and social studies passages appear on the reading portion of the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT). Students who have experience with the vocabulary and structure of this type of reading will find these passages easier to read and be more successful than will students who have not had this exposure. Thus, pacing guides for reading, science, and social studies need to cross-reference each other to help teachers find the time to incorporate all of these content areas. 21. Create a standard format for all curriculum guides with an introduction that explains the philosophy, layout, and features teachers will find in the guide. Consolidate reference documents into the appendix for each guide. If there are other reference materials that teachers need for their lessons, such as problems of the day or academic vocabulary words, the district should put that Council of the Great City Schools 76 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools information in the appendix of the pacing guides so that everything is consolidated in a single place at each grade level. The pacing guide should reference page numbers in the appendix so that teachers know exactly where to look for clarification. The district might also put into the appendix examples of student work reflecting differing levels of course mastery, as well as suggestions for raising the level of student performance from one level to another. Finally, the appendix might include sample test items that have been released by the state to show how skills might be assessed. This information would also enable teachers to check how well their classroom assignments were reflecting that level of rigor. 22. Modify the pacing guides to allow time for review, reteaching, and enrichment based on student performance. 23. Clarify which activities in the curriculum guides are required and which ones are optional. 24. Reduce the number of standards and indicators of what is being taught in the language arts curriculum units to only those being taught in the lesson. (Tangential standards can be listed elsewhere.) 25. Develop districtwide policies about the required use of the curriculum guides once they are revised. The school board should consider requiring the use of the curriculum guides once they are revised. Principals should be charged with ensuring that the guides are the basis for the instruction in their schools. Moreover, teachers should want to use the guides once they are revised. The modified documents will free teachers to use their creativity in instructional design and lessons, instead of saddling them with guessing what needs to be taught and at what level of rigor. 26. Revisit the curriculum guides annually based on student achievement results on the OAT, OGT, and the benchmarks tests to determine if modifications are needed. The district should analyze performance by standard and item; determine areas of weakness; and modify the curriculum guides if the weaknesses seem to stem from how the guides are written. If concepts are not presented adequately, the district should look to see if the foundation for those concepts and skills were properly laid in prior grade levels. And teachers need to know where the revisions are and why they were made. If, on the other hand, the concepts and skills were found in the original guides, then an analysis should be conducted to determine if there was sufficient periodic review (five to seven times during the year). If not, these guides should be revised accordingly. Council of the Great City Schools 77 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools If there was no problem in the guides themselves, it would be helpful to examine the textbook and other classroom resources to determine if they allowed for sufficient concept development and practice. If that does not seem to be the case, teachers may need additional resources. Finally, if the supports were all present, it would be valuable to determine the type of professional development needed to ensure that the concepts are taught well in the upcoming year. This may take some prioritizing, entailing concentrating on concepts that are pivotal to more complex learning in current and subsequent grade levels. 27. Ensure that all teachers receive training on the purposes, philosophy, and use of curriculum guides once the guides have been revised. 28. Create a feedback loop for teachers to provide comments and suggestions for how the curriculum guides are working and how to modify them. 29. Engage the University of Dayton to continue its independent analysis of the gaps between state standards/indicators, the revised curriculum and pacing guides, and the district’s adopted texts. The University of Dayton’s initial analyses were quite good, even if the researchers did not examine everything that needs to be considered. The Council would recommend that this work continue. For instance, adopted texts have not been examined yet, and the sequencing of skills across the grades has not been analyzed to ensure adequate concept development before review and testing. 30. Identify, adopt, or purchase supplemental materials that will explicitly fill the gaps identified in the analysis recommended above. 31. Adjust the pacing guides to reflect when and how teachers should use any new supplemental materials that the district buys for its schools. The pacing guides should contain references to the approved supplemental materials. 32. Develop an electronic tool that would assist teachers in monitoring the progress of individual students on the curriculum. The district does not currently have a mechanism to determine how students are progressing through the curriculum over the course of the school year. The district might look at the system used by principals in the Atlanta Public Schools to monitor individual student progress through the curriculum and determine when instructional interventions are needed. (The district may want to contact Robin Hall, a member of the Strategic Support Team that developed this report, for additional information about that system.) 33. Immediately fill the staffing vacancies in English language arts and math. 34. Incorporate into the “evidence of understanding” section of the language arts curriculum guides student projects, authentic work, and real world applications rather than having so many worksheet references. Council of the Great City Schools 78 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 35. Reduce the use of worksheets in language arts classroom instruction. The district should build in the type of work that reflects the philosophy of the district, engages students in their work, and moves from practice to comprehension and synthesis of skills. 36. Interview district teachers to determine what they are using to decide what to teach and what they are using in classrooms to instruct students. To build a strong, districtwide instructional program for students who move from school to school, districts must not only have quality pacing guides, but teachers need to use them. The district needs to know whether teachers are using the guides and if not, why not. A random stratified structured survey can be used to sample teachers’ opinions at various grade levels, content areas, and schools, enabling teachers to honestly say what they use and why they have confidence in their choices. This survey might be developed and disseminated through a contract with a local university. If teachers are not using the pacing guides, it is important to begin building an understanding of why these documents are important, and find out what features in the guides teachers like and what they find confusing or misleading. Those insights can be beneficial in planning and implementing the recommendations that follow. E. Professional Development and Teacher Quality Many of the faster-improving urban school district across the country are standardizing and focusing their professional development. They are doing this to ensure better implementation of their curricula and to clarify what is expected of principals and teachers. This standardized approach does not mean that each school cannot supplement districtwide training with other activities or use some creativity in how that training is applied, but this approach does require principals and teachers to participate in professional development that is common across schools and based on district priorities. To help boost the quality of its professional development, the district might consider taking the following steps. 37. Modify the collective bargaining agreement in order to add more professional development days that the district can use to improve instruction. Also reclaim the Western Ohio Education Association (WOEA) day for district professional development. Teachers in Dayton do not have access to information that is vital to their success, because there are so few days for professional development. Many teachers, moreover, cannot or chose not to attend voluntary sessions. The team encourages a collaborative effort with the union to solve this problem. It is disheartening when teachers discover after a year of hard work that they may have focused their instruction on the wrong concepts or were focusing their instruction incorrectly. Conversely, the district must ensure that the professional development it offers meets high standards for quality and utility. Council of the Great City Schools 79 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 38. Define professional development provided by the district around the academic goals and instructional priorities of the school system (informed by achievement results rather than solely by teacher surveys.) 39. Synchronize school-based professional development with district instructional priorities and school improvement plans. This action does not mean that school-based professional development has to match the training provided by the district. Instead, the school-based professional development should complement that training and/or provide training on unique challenges facing an individual school as it works to implement its school improvement plan and raise student achievement. 40. Differentiate the district’s professional development by teacher experience, expertise, and special-needs students. 41. Consolidate and coordinate all district professional development activities in one calendar and catalog those activities through the professional development office. Set up a committee or cross-functional team under the leadership of the professional development unit to coordinate the professional development calendar, follow-up activities, and major district priorities. The cross-functional teams can act to resolve issues that interfere with collaboration across departments and to develop traditional, on-site, and online strategies that seamlessly link the districts goals with systematic supports to enhance the capacity of all district staff members to achieve the district’s academic goals. 42. Plan the professional development calendar in the spring for the subsequent school year, and publish the calendar early in the school year. 43. Conduct a survey or a series of focus groups of teachers to determine their reasons for not attending professional development sessions and/or the reasons for their dissatisfaction with them. Make changes based on the results. 44. Divide the current three-day in-service sessions conducted at the opening of the school year into three parts—one day for the district, one day for the principals, and one day for teachers to work in their classrooms. 45. Establish a regular schedule by which the district’s professional development is evaluated for its usefulness—and its impact on student achievement. One-shot professional development is unlikely to move student achievement, but ongoing coursework should have an impact. The district should build a means to track changes in student performance in order to target professional development, and use the data to improve professional development offerings. 46. Review upcoming district instructional and other initiatives and include professional development in those rollouts. Council of the Great City Schools 80 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 47. Ensure that all new coaches and specialists have the same cognitive coaching and other professional development experienced by the regular teachers and by the original group of coaches and specialists. 48. Provide training to math and literacy intervention teachers on working together with regular teachers in the classrooms. The St. Paul Public Schools has developed a DVD that demonstrates a variety of models for intervention and regular teachers working together in classrooms. The Dayton schools might use this resource to plan more effective ways to foster cooperation and collaboration between intervention and regular classroom teachers. 49. Eliminate the highly qualified teacher (HQT) survey form and require these data to be collected by the human resources department from personnel files. Whenever possible, the district should use its own data, so schools and teachers do not have to fill out district survey forms. It is reasonable, however, to ask school staff members to verify that information in these files is indeed accurate. 50. Modify the collective bargaining agreement to mitigate the effects of the seniority provisions on the bumping of teachers when budget cuts occur. 51. Change the notification date for teachers to declare their intentions to leave the district from July 10 to June 30 to enable the district to hire the best possible replacements. 52. Include substitute teachers in all teacher professional development. The district should design professional development for substitute teachers on predetermined training dates. For example, middle school mathematics teachers will be having training one day a month this year. The substitute teachers who are replacing these teachers should have received training in order to maintain mathematics skills or conduct practice sessions while the regular teachers are participating in their own training. 53. Ensure that there is seamless linkage of the training that principals are receiving on the Baldridge and Schlechty systems to improving student achievement. F. Reform Press Urban school districts that are seeing steady progress in student achievement do not develop new policies at the central office and hope that they will find their way into district classrooms. Instead, these districts design specific strategies to ensure that the reforms are being supported and implemented in all classrooms. The Dayton school district might consider taking a number of steps to strengthen how its programs are being implemented. Council of the Great City Schools 81 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 54. Revamp the walkthrough form to include curriculum implementation, instructional delivery aligned with the necessary rigor or instructional level, student engagement, and linkage to assessment results. Build aggregate results into faculty meeting discussions on where students are and where they need to be academically. 55. Incorporate use of the curriculum guides into the walkthrough form. This recommendation would require the central office to build a tool suitable for an administrator to know quickly if the classroom instruction was on target without having to be an expert in every curriculum area. This does not mean that teachers should move in lockstep fashion through the pacing guides. Teachers may have good reasons for not introducing certain topics at the suggested time, but should also have a plan for getting back to those concepts and skills later. 56. Build the use of the curriculum guides into the action steps presented in the school improvement plans. 57. Consult the respective principals in the hiring and placement of math and literacy intervention teachers. Principals ought to have a voice in who works in their buildings. Along with this power, come expectations that the selected intervention teachers will be evaluated on improvements in student achievement and the implementation of the district’s curriculum. 58. Expand the use of math and literacy intervention teachers into K-2 in the future to mitigate the amount of remedial work that is needed in grades 3, 4, and beyond. 59. Review the qualifications of the mathematics and literacy specialists to ensure that they are not unduly subject to bumping when the district is forced to lay off teachers. G. Assessment and Data Use A common feature of urban districts making substantial gains in student achievement is their use of statistical data. These districts use data to monitor progress, identify schools or students that are starting to slip behind, provide professional development for teachers, and decide on intervention strategies to bring students back up to speed. The Dayton Public Schools could strengthen how it uses the data it has to further accelerate student achievement. 60. Develop an actual quarterly districtwide assessment system to track student progress through the curriculum over the course of the school year The district should use cross-functional teams of curriculum and assessment staff members and teachers to develop the formative tests and to ensure that they are aligned with the state tests and the district’s pacing system. The interim assessments should also be analyzed and designed so that they have a high level of predictive validity with the state tests. Council of the Great City Schools 82 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools The important feature of these assessments is that they are formative, not evaluative, and that they are used over the school year to assess student progress, adjust classroom practice, and decide on where to intervene. The district should be prepared to analyze the results quickly, and modify them frequently based on results and feedback from teachers. The exams should also be short in length and able to be returned to teachers within a matter of days. Finally, to the extent possible, the exams should have the same look or format and the same mix of multiple choice and extended response questions that students will see on the state tests. The district might also establish a cadre of teachers to score extended response items to ensure inter-rater reliability and a common understanding of what goes into a highquality response. Teachers should be paid for that work. 61. Clarify how the data from the interim exams should be interpreted and used to inform classroom practice and employ suggested intervention strategies. 62. Eliminate the second short-cycle test currently scheduled for January—and eliminate future use of the current short-cycle tests in favor of the formative quarterly districtwide assessments recommended above. 63. Enter prekindergarten student data into the student information system (SIS) system to determine how well these students progress in the district’s academic program in the early grades. 64. Consider dropping the TerraNova as a screen for identifying gifted and talented students when a more appropriate assessment screen (e.g., the Naglieri) has been identified to replace it. The TerraNova is a norm-referenced test and is not designed to screen for gifted and talented students. For example, it does not identify students with the potential for being gifted. Instead, it is more likely to identify students who test well. The Council’s Strategic Support Team suggests that the district look at a tool such as the Naglieri system. The National Association of Gifted and Talented Students may have other recommendations. 65. Fill the vacancy in the assessment and accountability office with a strong candidate with the ability to work collaboratively with other educators. 66. Consolidate evaluation funds from external grants and place the funds into the research unit to boost its capacity to conduct program evaluations and coordinate testing. As noted in the Council’s 2005 report, the school district does not evaluate its major programs on a regular basis. That report stated, “The district could augment its research and evaluation staff by transferring some of the evaluation funds from external grants to the research unit. Using this strategy would enable the unit to add Council of the Great City Schools 83 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools two people whose sole functions would involve program evaluation. Finally, the district could augment its research capacity by partnering with local universities.”21 H. Lowest-Performing Schools and Special-Needs Students A number of urban school districts have increased citywide achievement by setting up separate administrative units to focus exclusively on their lowest-performing schools. However, in Dayton, so many schools are in need that the district should consider a bold districtwide strategy to prove to itself and the public that student achievement can improve at a faster pace. 67. Redirect current Title I funds in order to place additional math and literacy intervention teachers in the district’s lowest-performing schools. Differentiate the Title I allocations so that the lowest-performing eligible schools get a higher per pupil allocation, instead of the uniform per pupil allocation they get currently. 68. Task the curriculum department with developing or identifying a Tier I and II intervention system and holding professional development on their use. Use the new professional development days for this purpose. 69. Use the school-based data teams to monitor implementation of the intervention systems and assess results. 70. Permit the math and literacy intervention teachers to share data on targeted student academic needs with Title I supplemental education services (SES) providers. 71. Implement a systemwide “positive behavior” program in all district schools. (See programs in the Fort Worth and Cincinnati school districts for model codes of conduct and programs. Also see www.pbis.org for programs.) 72. Monitor the progress of English language learning (ELL) students and the test participation rates of ELLs. 73. Develop a template for schools to align their use of Title I dollars with district instructional goals and priorities. 74. Develop a mechanism to ensure that schoolwork follows students who are suspended and dismissed school. I. Preschool Students and Elementary Schools It is difficult for urban school districts to improve by trying to raise the academic performance of all grades simultaneously. Instead, many of the fastest-improving districts started their reforms at the elementary grades and worked their way up to the middle and high schools. Districts have used this approach to correct serious curriculum alignment 21 Council of the Great City Schools (2005) Foundations for Success in the Dayton Public Schools, pages 63-64. Council of the Great City Schools 84 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools problems in the lower grades and stem the tide of students entering middle and high schools without basic skills. As next steps in its reforms, the Dayton Public Schools might— 75. Have the chief academic officer designate one of the early childhood directors to coordinate all pre-K efforts across the district to build a central focus, collaboration, and accountability into the programming. 76. Charge the pre-K coordinator with articulating the instructional work with grade K-2 directors (e.g., development of curriculum guides, blending resources, etc.) in order to build a more seamless academic program for students leading to state tests starting in grade 3. The Council’s 2005 report indicated that there appeared to be insufficient instructional emphasis on age-appropriate academic development in Head Start programs. The district should work with all nondistrict early-childhood providers to ensure that students emerging from pre-K programs into kindergarten can— a. Demonstrate knowledge of 100 “high frequency words” at pre-K, kindergarten, first, and subsequent grades. b. Identify all 26 letters (upper and lower case) by the end of pre-K. c. Identify at least 13 phonemic sounds by the end of kindergarten. d. Demonstrate print awareness by the end of pre-K. e. Read 60 words a minute with comprehension by the end of first grade. 77. Explore the possibility of blending funds across programs for four-year olds to allow full-day programming for students currently in half-day Head Start programs. . 78. Track pre-K pupils by program type from kindergarten through at least grade 3 to assess differences in academic progress. Use the data to revise pre-K programs as necessary. 79. Eliminate the placement of students outside their neighborhoods unless it is a parent choice. 80. Explore the feasibility of having parents go to neighborhood schools to register students (with the paper trail given to central office) 81. Charge the district’s senior instructional team with developing a full-fledged gifted and talented program. Council of the Great City Schools 85 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools J. Middle and High Schools Although fast-improving urban school districts often begin their reforms at the elementary grades, they did not overlook the secondary schools. They develop interventions for struggling students and ensure that all students have an opportunity to learn to high standards. As next steps, the Dayton Public Schools might— 82. Develop a comprehensive high school reform plan as part of the district’s strategic plan that includes— • Measurable targets for tracking and improving dropout rates, attendance, coursetaking patterns, suspension rates, high school graduation rates, etc. • A timeline for placing Advanced Placement (AP) classes in every high school in the district. • End-of-course exams in key content areas, e.g., English, math, and sciences. • Increased numbers of ninth-grade students enrolled in Algebra I. • Numbers of ninth graders completing/failing a core course. • Training for principals on alternative scheduling procedures that would accommodate double-blocking. The district does not have a well-developed strategy for improving the quality of its high schools, yet staff members in many of the district’s middle and high schools appear eager for reform and assistance. Only one high school in the district— Stivers—could be described as high achieving. Otherwise, the data indicate that academic performance at the secondary level is quite low. 83. Double-block math and reading classes students in sixth through ninth grades—for students who are significantly below grade level (at least two or three years behind). This recommendation from the 2005 Council report is still applicable today. Students cannot afford to reach high school unprepared to handle the coursework. It does not appear that the district is providing any additional time for struggling learners in math or reading. The team suggests that the district begin double-blocking, but to keep in mind that the blocks need not be consecutive. They could, in fact, be two separate classes offered during the school day. The district also needs to think through the nature of the block, i.e., what is taught during the block rather than simply repeating instructional practices that have not proven effective. 84. Develop a standardized course catalog for all high school courses, and standardize the expected content for those courses to ensure equity of access to knowledge and skills across the district. Council of the Great City Schools 86 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools 85. Encourage differentiated staffing patterns for grades 7-8 in core subjects to better prepare students for high school coursework. It is rare for any teacher to have the depth of content knowledge and strategies in the four core content areas that would prepare students to be successful academically. The best way to handle this reality would be to set up differentiated staffing patterns by content area and rotate teachers as need be. 86. Institute Advanced Placement (AP) classes for all high schools and train teachers on the use of the AP curriculum and assessments. Set goals for AP participation rates and passing scores. Offering AP courses requires careful planning and building a pipeline of students who are prepared to handle the intensity of these classes. Teachers must also have required training to teach the classes. However, the team could see no reason why Dayton students should be limited to having two high schools with AP offerings if the district truly wants to prepare all students to be successful after graduation. 87. Seek external funds to pay for PSAT tests for all eighth- and ninth-graders, and use the results to create a pipeline leading to AP and honors courses for more students. The district has few ways to determine what its middle and high school talent pool is or to identify which students might benefit from much more rigorous coursework. A number of urban school districts around the country use the PSAT or its ACT equivalent to identify promising students and steer them into honors or AP classes. 88. Create a summer bridge program (with business assistance) for students transitioning from eighth to ninth grade. The program might include remedial skill-building work in the areas of social skills, conflict mediation, study skills, time management, and college planning. 89. Establish an online program for course recovery for students who fail core courses in the ninth grade. 90. Begin development of end-of-course exams for all core content courses at the secondary school level that are required for graduation. Tie the rigor of the exams to the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) and the ACT/SAT. Some research indicates that having to take such exams helps to improve overall academic performance, whereas other research suggests that having to do so would increase the dropout rate. It is worth the district debating and considering the option, however. 91. Design and establish ACT/SAT preparation classes at all schools for 11th- and 12thgraders. 92. Backmap (back from 12th to sixth grades) the content and rigor of the district’s current secondary school courses with teams of teachers and content specialists—and Council of the Great City Schools 87 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools compare that content and rigor against what is required of students on the OGT and ACT; then revise the courses accordingly with professional development, instructional materials, and supplemental support. Evidence suggests that high school course content in the district is not very rigorous. Average SAT and ACT scores are very low and the percentage of students going on to four-year colleges and universities is low. The strategy proposed here by the Council’s Strategic Support Team will take time to implement, but the district should begin by partnering with its many local colleges and universities to assess high school course content and rigor. Council of the Great City Schools 88 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Chapter 4. Synopsis and Discussion The Dayton Public Schools, once again, is trying to develop some traction under its instructional program and substantially improve student achievement. The school district made substantial improvements in the way it taught its students following the Council of the Great City Schools’ instructional review in 2002. One could see the evidence in the significant gains the district made in its test scores between 2002 and 2005. By 2006, however, the school district’s academic progress began to level off and eventually drop. Always low, test scores in city schools were rated the lowest in the state by 2008 when the district fell to the edge of “academic emergency” status under the state accountability system. A number of factors may have been responsible for stalling and reversing the school system’s earlier reforms and upward trajectory. Many of the people on the school board’s reform slate who were elected in 2002 to turn around the fortunes of the school system moved onto other activities. The administration, moreover, seemed to lose some of its initial energy and focus. And the loss of the 2007 operating levy triggered a series of budget cuts that had significant ramifications in the classroom because of the way the collective bargaining agreement is structured. It is always difficult to attribute the ups and downs of tests scores to specific events, but the Council’s Strategic Support Team believes these are the most plausible explanations. When the Council returned to Dayton last month to look at the state of the current instructional situation, it found a school system that continued to have many assets—a strong school board, a talented and very focused interim superintendent, determined and capable staff, and much of the initial reform architecture still in place, At the same time, it was clear that many of the recommendations made by the Council in 2005 had not been fully implemented, that other reforms were implemented poorly, and that considerable work remained. The school district’s strategic plan, which had driven so much of the earlier progress, had expired and a replacement had not been developed. Accountability for results remained weak and unconvincing. Considerable work had been done on the curriculum, but sizable and critical gaps remained, causing substantial uncertainty about what the district really expected to be taught. The school system had not articulated the rigor it expected in order for students to be successful on state tests. The professional development needed to enhance the skills and focus of classroom teachers was wholly inadequate. The system was far more capable than in previous years of generating good data, but it lacked a way of getting people to use these data across the district. And the school district continued to lack a well-articulated strategy for intervening with students as they began to fall behind. Council of the Great City Schools 89 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools All of these weaknesses and more need to be addressed if the school system is going to reverse its academic slide and substantially improve student achievement. The Council of the Great City Schools is suggesting that the district set a clear and attainable goal for moving into “continuous improvement” status within three years. It is also proposing a two-part series of recommendations. The first part would entail a crash program of tutoring, professional development, and extended-time programs to improve the district’s Performance Index rating and lay the groundwork for longer-term sustainable gains. The district needs to be clear with the public about the urgency of the situation, and should commit itself to using some of the proceeds of the operating levy, if the public approves it, to support an emergency effort to improve. The second group of recommendations would entail a more comprehensive set of instructional reforms for the years ahead, namely: a second-stage strategic development effort; clearer direction; stiffer accountability for results; a better articulation of what was to be taught and at what level of difficulty; a more extensive and coherent program of professional development; a more usable assessment system; a better use of data to inform instruction; a better mechanism for intervening with students who lag in their achievement; a more clearly articulated each childhood program; a greater access to gifted and talented programs; and a long-term effort to improve secondary school coursework. The Council is proposing that work on both parts—long-term and shortterm—begin immediately. The Council is suggesting a number of difficult strategies that will require considerable effort and collaboration on the part of the larger community. We believe that the citizenry should approve the additional money that the district is seeking and, at the same time, should insist on clarification about how the funds will be used and what kinds of results citizens can expect. District and charter schools ought to proceed with discussions about how they can join forces for the academic betterment of the city’s children, since neither side, on its own, seems to be doing such a great job. The collective bargaining agreement should be revisited to allow for more professional development and less seniority-based bumping when money is in short supply. And community groups and businesses who have sat on the sidelines hoping for better days ought to get involved. Dayton is a Great City with a stellar past and a promising future. And its school system should be an integral part of how the community reaches its full potential. The fact that the school system—for one brief moment several years ago—made such substantial headway on behalf of the city’s children ought to remind everyone what focus, determination, collaboration, and skill can accomplish. The slide in recent years should also be a cautionary tale about how easily things can all fall apart if people begin to rest on their laurels and lose the focus they once had. One of the abiding lessons in urban public education is how fragile the work can be and how, in fact, the work is really never done. The Council of the Great City Schools is optimistic that the Dayton Public Schools—with the help of its community—can regain its footing and move public education forward in the city. We are confident that the school district and the people it serves think so too. Council of the Great City Schools 90 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools APPENDIX A. DATA TABLES Council of the Great City Schools 91 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools APPENDIX B. THREE-YEAR DISTRICT IMPROVEMENT SCENARIO Baseline Performance Index 2007-2008 Grade 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 Test Totals Reading 81% 70% 63% 75% 71% 76% 81% 74% Mathematics 74% 63% 55% 69% 65% 70% 72% 67% Writing Science Social Studies 63% 62% 62% 68% 64% 57% 71% 63% Grade Totals 77% 70% 61% 72% 73% 66% 75% 70% 76% 85% 82% 81% Year One Scenario 2008-2009 Grade 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 Test Totals Reading 83% 74% 66% 78% 75% 80% 85% 77% Mathematics 77% 67% 59% 73% 70% 75% 76% 71% Writing Science Social Studies 63% 62% 63% 72% 66% 58% 74% 65% Grade Totals 80% 73% 63% 75% 77% 69% 79% 73% 79% 88% 88% 85% 0 5 2 1 11 15 17 46 68 90 54 47 41 55 47 45 35 48 70 66 40 2 3 2 0 9 17 17 335 269 51 401 351 50 SS 7 61 12 18 46 40 17 51 21 54 170 296 235 189 309 265 407 66 144 56 71 77 1871 41 37 4 3 2 # Students Affected 31 38 24 48 42 50 36 Scien Untested to Tested Grade Totals Untested to Tested Limited to Basic Basic to Proficient 44 55 77 38 50 38 33 Untested to Tested Basic to Proficient Writing Untested to Tested Limited to Basic Grade 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 Test Totals Math Limited to Basic Basic to Proficient Reading Untested to Tested Numbers of Students Affected in Year One Scenario 2008-200922 85 99 59 95 103 66 81 588 22 Numbers could change slightly because of student mobility in and out of the district and from grade to grade. Council of the Great City Schools 92 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Year Two Scenario 2009-2010 Grade 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 Test Totals Reading 87% 78% 71% 82% 79% 84% 88% 82% Mathematics 81% 73% 66% 78% 75% 80% 81% 76% Writing Science Social Studies 63% 62% 63% 72% 66% 58% 74% 65% Grade Totals 84% 78% 65% 80% 82% 71% 81% 77% 83% 92% 91% 88% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 58 87 114 69 60 53 72 73 75 68 75 102 96 66 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 426 432 0 513 555 0 SS 8 80 0 23 65 0 0 0 0 0 238 403 331 263 381 271 325 84 202 0 0 0 2212 53 57 0 0 0 # Students Affected 51 62 51 71 67 74 56 Scien Untested to Tested Grade Totals 56 69 98 48 64 48 43 Untested to Tested Untested to Tested Limited to Basic Basic to Proficient Basic to Proficient Writing Untested to Tested Limited to Basic Grade 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 Test Totals Math Limited to Basic Basic to Proficient Reading Untested to Tested Numbers of Students Affected in Year Two Scenario 2009-201023 119 134 83 132 127 68 65 727 23 Numbers could change slightly because of student mobility in and out of the district and from grade to grade. Council of the Great City Schools 93 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Year Three Scenario 2010-2011 Grade 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 Test Totals Reading 91% 83% 77% 87% 84% 88% 91% 86% Mathematics 86% 79% 73% 83% 81% 85% 85% 82% Writing Science Social Studies 63% 62% 63% 72% 66% 58% 74% 65% Grade Totals 88% 83% 69% 85% 87% 74% 83% 80% 87% 95% 94% 92% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 51 77 101 61 53 47 63 82 94 95 88 109 101 80 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 377 514 0 453 649 0 46 7 67 73 SS 0 0 0 0 245 422 357 270 378 271 328 0 2271 0 0 20 65 0 0 0 73 205 0 0 # Students Affected 63 77 75 78 79 80 62 Scien Untested to Tested Grade Totals 49 61 86 43 57 43 38 Untested to Tested Untested to Tested Limited to Basic Basic to Proficient Basic to Proficient Writing Untested to Tested Limited to Basic Grade 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 Test Totals Math Limited to Basic Basic to Proficient Reading Untested to Tested Numbers of Students Affected in Year Three Scenario 2010-201124 123 141 89 135 126 68 66 747 24 Numbers could change slightly because of student mobility in and out of the district and from grade to grade. Council of the Great City Schools 94 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools APPENDIX C. SUMMARY OF QUESTIONS POSED TO TEAM General Accountability and Instruction 1. In what ways can the District Improvement Plan be enhanced (for example, the inclusions of more specific dates) to ensure that there is adequate implementation, monitoring and reporting of the DPS curriculum and instructional delivery? 2. What academic outcomes are realistic for the district to establish in order to make it competitive with other high performing urban districts around the country? 3. In what ways does the organizational structure in instruction need to be changed to enhance responsiveness in terms of decision making and innovation? 4. Are data being used across schools and within classrooms to drive instruction and enhance instructional decision making? 5. Are the curriculum guides in reading and math being used by the teachers and does the district have effective professional development mechanisms in place to ensure that both new teachers and experienced classroom professionals are delivering the content prescribed by the district? 6. In what ways can the Comprehensive School Improvement Plans (CSIP) be enhanced to ensure that they are a vital part of the school planning process? 7. Do inconsistencies occur in the instructional programs of the different schools because of administrators are not systematically using data to achieve district goals? 8. To what degree has the impact of professional development been monitored and assessed? Preschool Education 1. What steps need to be taken to enhance the quality of the preschool programming provided by the district? 2. In what ways should the preschool education opportunities within the district be expanded especially at neighborhood schools initiative sites? Low Performing Schools 1. Is the current approach to supporting low performing schools working? 2. Are the district curriculum audits adequately used to help staff with monitoring and accountability at the school and central office levels? Council of the Great City Schools 95 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools APPENDIX D. INDIVIDUALS INTERVIEWED • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Kurt Stanic, Interim Superintendent Jane McGee-Rafal, Chief Academic Officer Yvonne Isaacs, School Board Member Nancy Nerny, School Board Member Jeffrey Mims, School Board Member Patricia Lynch, President, Dayton Education Association Marlea Jordan-Gaskins, Executive Director, Employee Development and Secondary Education Rebecca Lowry, Assistant Superintendent, Pupil Services Jennifer Smith, Executive Director, Special Education Soammy Feliciano-Hurst, Program Manager, Preschool Programs Caroline Smith, Preschool Programs Charlie Graham, Executive Director, School Improvement and External Resources Betsy Apolito, Director of School Improvement, Montgomery County Educational Service Center, Eric Bradley, Parent Randy Faison, Parent Tonita Hudson, Parent Donna LaChance, Parent Robin Profitt, Parent Karen Wick, Parent Erin Dooley, Principal, Stivers School for the Arts Delores Evans, Principal, Valerie PreK-8 Glenn Faircloth, Principal, Patterson Career Center Holli Gover, Principal, Franklin Montessori Wyetta Hayden, Principal, Belle Haven PreK-8 Lisa Minor, Principal, Kemp PreK-8 Mitzi Sanders, Principal, Rosa Parks PreK-8 Aaron Smith, Principal, Cleveland PreK-8 Sharon Babb, Teacher, Wogaman, Teacher, PreK-8 Sonja Block, Teacher, Horace Mann, PreK-7 Jennifer Brown, Teacher, Charity Adams Earley Steve Crichton, Teacher, Thurgood Marshall High Tracy Polk, Teacher, Fairview Elementary Susan Selig, Teacher, Patterson Kennedy PreK-8 William Steinmetz, Teacher, Stivers School for the Arts Jeanine Quigley, Teacher, Wilbur Wright Middle School Joanne Faler, Mathematics Instructional Teachers, Meadowdale Pre-K-8 Karla Goins, Mathematics Instructional Teacher, Charity Adams Felicia Greene, Literacy Instructional Teacher, Edison pk-8 Margaret Hartline, Mathematics Instructional Teacher, Kemp pk-8 Patricia Johnson, Literacy Instructional Teacher, Kemp pk-8 Stephanie Leonhardt, Literacy Instructional Teacher, Franklin Council of the Great City Schools 96 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Elizabeth Painter, Mathematics Instructional Teacher, Franklin Montessori Julie Rose, Literacy Instructional Teacher Melanie Walter, Mathematics Instructional Teacher, Patterson Carol Nance, Mathematics Instructional Specialist Jodi Martin Puterbaugh, Literacy Instructional Specialist Michelle Payne-Jones, Literacy Instructional Specialist Jacquelyn Pope, Mathematics Instructional Specialist David Ponitz, Retired President of Sinclair College Rev. Robert E. Baines, Jr., Pastor, Macedonia Baptist Church and dormer president of Dayton NAACP Thomas (Tom) Breitenback Joseph Coleman Marsha Froelich, Clothes That Work Tom Perry Gillispie, AT & T Susy Himelhoch, United Way Tom Lasley, University of Dayton Don Vermillion, Director of Public Projects, University of Dayton Jonathan Brown, Associate Superintendent/ STEM Curriculum and Instruction Ann Snyder, Coordinating Teacher, Gifted Program Teresa Troyer, Coordinating Teacher, High School Studies, Foreign Languages, English Language Learner Program John Swan, Director of Assessment Council of the Great City Schools 97 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools APPENDIX E. DOCUMENTS REVIEWED Briefing Book • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Dayton Organization Chart A New Day is Dawning: A Reform Plan for Dayton Public Schools, Approved December 6, 2005 District Improvement Plan Framework The Teacher’s Guide to the Four Blocks: A Multilevel Framework for Grades 1-3— Dellosa Publishing Company, Inc. Table of Contents DPS Mathematics 3-Blocks Framework Elementary Science Pacing Chary Dayton Public Schools Third Grade Language Arts Curriculum Guide Dayton Public Schools 3rd Grade Math Instructional Calendar Dayton Public Schools Fourth Grade Language Arts Curriculum Guide Dayton Public Schools 4th Grade Math Instructional Calendar Dayton Public Schools 8th Grade Math Instructional Calendar Dayton Public Schools Earth and Space Science/Physical Science Pacing Calendar 8th Grade 10th Grade Literacy Instructional Calendar Dayton Public Schools Geometry Instructional Calendar 10th Grade Gifted Services Goals 2008-2009 Identified Gifted Student Data 2008-2009 AP Course List of Offerings Title III Limited English Proficient (LEP) and Immigrant Program Overview, mission, and 2006-2007 Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAOs) Patterson Kennedy Curriculum Audit Final Summary, March 29, 2007 Curriculum Audit Summary Meadowdale High School, January 23, 2008 Curriculum Audit Summary Edison K-7 School, December 5-6. 2007 Career-Technical Education Fast Facts Dayton Public Schools Response to Council for the Great City Schools Survey on Uses and Outcomes of Title III of No Child Left Behind 2003-2004 Survey Math Matrix of Core Program, Assessment materials, Technology, and Professional Development (not dated) Dayton Public School untitled list of contests and events for 2008-2009 Number of Students (percentage of student) Participating I Special Education Programs by Ethnicity Dayton Public Schools Preschool Overview Preschool Program Non-Categorical Preschool FY08 Non-Categorical Preschool Program Philosophy Initial Entry Year Evaluations Form and Selected Professional Development Staff Evaluations Dayton Public Schools- Classroom Observation Scoring Rubric (based on Charlotte Danielson and Pathwise Classroom Observation System, Educational Testing) Building Administrator Performance Excellence Appraisal Instrument Council of the Great City Schools 98 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Dayton Public Schools Building Administrator Performance Excellence Rubric School Improvement Reform Models 2009Primarily (sic) Data Additional FY08 Support Provided Through Title I to Schools Identified for Improvement for Low-Performing students Secondary School Reform Models Professional Development Calendar Administrator/Principal/Assistant Principal Meetings 2008-2009 2008-2009 DPS Math Professional Development Release Days Staff Development Plan/Proposal Draft on-line template Public School Choice (August 20, 2008) Memo to Elementary Principals from Charlie L. Graham dated August 2, 2008, regarding NCLB Public School Choice Procedures No Child Left Behind Parent Newsletter, August 5, 2008 (En glish/Spanish) 2007-08 List of SES Providers by School Supplemental Educational Services (SES) 2007-2008 Overview FY08 Head Start Student Demographic (sic) Dayton Public Schools Preschool Overview: Great City Schools Review: Franklin Montessori School’s Preschool Program Dayton Public Schools Preschool Overview: Great City Schools Review: Head Start Head Start enrollment Dayton Public Schools Head Start Program 2008 Self-Assessment Report Dayton Public Schools Head Start Program Annual COR Gains Comparison & Head Start Outcomes Dayton Public Schools Preschool Overview: Great City schools Review State Early Childhood Education Program Outcome Report 2008-2009 Testing Schedule FY 2009 State Ranking Status Listing FY09 Classification of DPS Schools by Improvement Status District Preliminary 2007-2008 ODE Report Card Data FY98 Listing of Ed Choice Voucher Eligible Students for 2009-10 School Year Dayton Public Schools Preliminary OAT OGTR Results by grade level District Results by Grade Level plus Overall (graphs) May 2008 Advanced Placement (AP) Scores achieved by Subject Area May 2008 Number of Students Achieving Each AP Score (by school) Number of tests Administered and % of Grades 3 or Higher by School Number of Students Qualifying for College Credits on the Advanced Placement (AP) Exams 5-Yr. Comparison Metrics (August 11, 2008) Board Meeting Agenda, July 15, 2008 Board Meeting Agenda, August 5, 2008 Board Meeting Agenda, August 19, 2008 A Diagnostic Review of Dayton Public Schools Final Report: Evergreen Solutions, LLC, April 28, 2008 Alignment Analysis of Dayton Public Schools Mathematics Curricula to the Ohio Academic Content Standards for Mathematics for Grades 4,5, 6, 7, 8 (University of Dayton) Council of the Great City Schools 99 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools • • DPS Literacy/Mathematics Coaching Model/Intervention Evaluation of Dayton Public School’s Middle School Science Curriculum (Wright State University) Other Documents Reviewed • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Superintendent’s Newsletter, Week Ending: August 22, 2008 (report to Board) Strategic Plan Initiative: Literacy and Mathematics/Student Achievement Board draft Overall Summary Statements for ECE ECEERS 2006-2007 Early Childhood Collaborative Dayton Public Schools Title I Early Childhood Education Parent Handbook Teaching Early Language & Literacy: A Core Curriculum for Educators (Preschool), 2004 Entry Year Teacher Program Pacing Guide & Activities, Department of Employee Education, 2008-2009 Professional Development Activities: Course Description for the 2007-2008 School Year Dayton Summer Professional Development Institute, June 9-13, 2008 Listing of Professional Development offerings by building Employee Education and Development Professional Development Offerings 8/6/0810/16/08 Professional Development Needs Survey—All Schools April -07 summary sheet Eastmont Pre-K-8 Comprehensive School Improvement Plan 2007-2008 Disability Child Count Data by Race/Ethnicity, December 1, 2008, Ohio Department of Education Management Information System ECE Brigance Screens Summary 2007-2008 SY ECE ECERS Average Subscale Ratings Summary 2007-2008 FY 08 CCIP Consolidated Application Classroom Walkthrough Feedback form 2007-2008 Supplemental Educational Services Family Survey Summary 2007-08 SES Family Survey Comments Master Contract between The Dayton Education Association and The Dayton City School District 2008-2009 Student Code of Conduct PreK-12 2006-2007 Discipline Data Dayton Public Schools 2007-08YTD Discipline Response Summary Council of the Great City Schools 100 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools APPENDIX F. STRATEGIC SUPPORT TEAM MEMBERS Michael Casserly Michael Casserly is the Executive Director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of 66 of the nation’s largest urban public school districts. Dr. Casserly has been with the organization for 29 years, 14 of them as Executive Director. Before heading the group, he was the organization’s chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and served as its director of research. He has led major reforms in federal education laws, garnered significant aid for urban schools across the country, has spurred major gains in urban school achievement and management, and has advocated for urban school leadership in the standards movement. In addition, Dr. Casserly led the organization in the nation’s first summit of urban school superintendents and big-city mayors. He has a Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland and a B.A. degree from Villanova University. Robin Hall Robin C. Hall has worked for the Atlanta Public Schools for more than 25 years, and in that time has served the district in a variety of roles. From 1998 until 2005, Dr. Hall was a language arts coordinator for the district. In this position, she planned, developed, and wrote a systemwide curriculum in language arts for grades K-12, coordinated staff development and in-service training in integrated language arts, and worked collaboratively to provide instructional support to schools. Dr. Hall has also served the Atlanta Public Schools as an English teacher at the elementary and secondary levels, as well as language arts chair, curriculum writer, and instructional specialist. She is currently the principal of Beecher Hills Elementary School in Atlanta. Under her leadership, the school has consistently met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmarks under the No Child Left Behind Act. Dr. Hall received a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and M.A. and Doctor of Arts degrees in English from Clark/Atlanta University. Ricki-Price Baugh Ricki Price-Baugh is the Director of Academic Achievement of the Council of the Great City Schools. Formerly, she was the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Professional Development and Alternative Certification in the Houston Independent School District. There, she led strategic planning and the design, implementation, and evaluation of the district’s curriculum and instructional initiatives in eight content areas and was responsible for professional development for teachers and administrators, alternate routes into teaching, and new teacher induction. During her 35 years with the Houston schools, Dr. Price-Baugh served as a teacher, department chair, software resource coordinator, project manager, and director of curriculum services. Her major accomplishments included a districtwide effort to define precise district expectations for students at every grade level and to ensure that there was a clear progression of concepts and skills across grade levels. The new curriculum included suggestions for instruction, Council of the Great City Schools 101 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools explicit information about where each adopted textbook needed to be supplemented to meet standards, advice on how to assess student learning, a system of model lessons that demonstrated how a teacher might approach the teaching of difficult concepts, and a series of benchmark tests in the four core content areas. The district made substantial increases in student achievement scores, while narrowing the achievement gap across subgroups. Dr. Price-Baugh has a doctoral degree from Baylor University, a master’s degree in Spanish literature from the University of Maryland, and a B. A. degree from Tulane University. Nancy J. Timmons Dr. Nancy Timmons is a national consultant specializing in urban education. In this role, she has served as Executive Advisor to the School District of Philadelphia, and as a consultant to numerous school districts across the nation. Formerly, she was Associate Superintendent for Curriculum/Chief Academic Officer for the Fort Worth Independent School District, Fort Worth, Texas. In the Fort Worth ISD, she has also served as Associate Superintendent for Instruction for Area I (more than 60 schools), Executive Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Staff Development, Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services, and Director of Curriculum. Before joining the Fort Worth ISD, Dr. Timmons served as Director of Curriculum, Supervisor of English Language Arts and Social Studies, and a middle school and high school teacher of English language arts and social studies for the Temple Independent School District, Temple, Texas. Dr. Timmons has extensive experience in curriculum design and development, campus and district planning, school improvement, and staff development. She has been an adjunct professor at Tarleton State University (Texas A&M System), Stephenville, Texas and has contributed to several textbooks in the area of English language arts. In addition, she has been listed in Who’s Who in American Education and is a certified auditor with Curriculum Management Systems, Inc. She has served on boards for numerous community, civic, and educational organizations and institutions, including the advisory board for the Baylor University School of Education and the Board of Visitors for the School of Education, Texas Christian University. Dr. Timmons earned a B.S. Bachelor degree from Prairie View A & M University and M.S. and Doctor of Education degrees from Baylor University. Council of the Great City Schools 102 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools APPENDIX G. ABOUT THE COUNCIL The Council of the Great City Schools is a coalition of 65 of the nation’s largest urban public school systems. Its Board of Directors is composed of the Superintendent of Schools and one School Board member from each member city. An Executive Committee of 24 individuals, equally divided in number between Superintendents and School Board members, provides regular oversight of the 501(c)(3) organization. The mission of the Council is to advocate for urban public education and assist its members in the improvement of leadership and instruction. The Council provides services to its members in the areas of legislation, research, communications, curriculum and instruction, and management. The group convenes two major conferences each year; conducts studies on urban school conditions and trends; and operates ongoing networks of senior school district managers with responsibilities in areas such as federal programs, operations, finance, personnel, communications, research, and technology. The Council was founded in 1956 and incorporated in 1961, and has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Council of the Great City Schools 103 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools History of Strategic Support Teams Conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools City Albuquerque Area Year Facilities and Roofing Human Resources Information Technology Special Education Legal Services Safety and Security 2003 2003 2003 2005 2005 2007 Finance Communications 2004 2008 Organizational Structure Operations 2007 2008 Information Technology 2000 Superintendent Support Organizational Structure Curriculum and Instruction Personnel Facilities and Operations Communications Finance Finance II 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2003 Facilities 2004 Special Education 2005 Human Resources 2007 Curriculum and Instruction 2004 Curriculum and Instruction 2007 Anchorage Birmingham Broward County (FL) Buffalo Caddo Parish (LA) Charleston Charlotte-Mecklenburg Cincinnati Christina (DE) Cleveland Student Assignments Transportation Safety and Security Facilities Financing Council of the Great City Schools 1999, 2000 2000 2000 2000 104 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Facilities Operations Transportation Curriculum and Instruction Safety and Security Safety and Security 2000 2004 2005 2007 2008 Superintendent Support Human Resources Facilities Financing Finance and Treasury Budget Curriculum and Instruction Information Technology Food Services 2001 2001 2002 2003 2003 2005 2007 2007 Procurement 2007 Superintendent Support Curriculum and Instruction Finance Communications Curriculum and Instruction Budget Curriculum and Instruction 2001 2001 2001 2002 2005 2005 2008 Superintendent Support Personnel Curriculum and Instruction Bilingual Education Curriculum and Instruction 2001 2001 2005 2006 2008 Budget and Finance 2003 Curriculum and Instruction Assessment Communications Curriculum and Assessment Communications Textbook Procurement Food Services Curriculum and Instruction Facilities Finance and Budget 2002 2002 2002 2003 2003 2004 2007 2008 2008 2008 Columbus Dallas Dayton Denver Des Moines Detroit Council of the Great City Schools 105 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Information Technology Procurement 2008 2008 Bilingual Education Information Technology Special Education Facilities Human Resources 2002 2003 2003 2004 2007 Transportation Procurement 2005 2005 Transportation 2007 Bond Referendum 2006 Organization and Management Operations Human Resources Finance Information Technology Finance 2002 2002 2002 2002 2002 2006 Human Resources Information Technology Finance Operations Purchasing Curriculum and Instruction Program Implementation 2005 2005 2005 2005 2006 2006 2007 Budget and Finance Organizational Structure Finance Information Technology Human Resources Business Services 2002 2005 2005 2005 2005 2005 Management Information 2005 Information Technology 2007 Construction Management 2003 Greensboro Hillsborough County (FLA) Indianapolis Jackson (MS) Jacksonville Kansas City Los Angeles Louisville Memphis Miami-Dade County Council of the Great City Schools 106 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Milwaukee Research and Testing Safety and Security School Board Support Curriculum and Instruction Alternative Education 1999 2000 1999 2006 2007 Curriculum and Instruction Finance Federal Programs 2004 2004 2004 Curriculum and Instruction 2007 Personnel Transportation Information Technology Hurricane Damage Assessment Curriculum and Instruction 2001 2002 2003 2005 2006 Special Education 2008 Testing and Assessment 2003 Curriculum and Instruction Federal Programs Food Service Facilities Transportation Human Resources Finance 2003 2003 2003 2003 2003 2004 2008 Curriculum and Instruction Technology Finance 2005 2006 2006 Business Operations MIS and Technology Personnel Human Resources 2001 2001 2001 2007 Transportation Curriculum and Instruction Federal Programs 2003 2003 2003 Minneapolis Newark New Orleans New York City Norfolk Philadelphia Pittsburgh Providence Richmond Council of the Great City Schools 107 Next Steps in the Improvement of the Dayton Public Schools Special Education 2003 Finance and Technology Transportation Food Services Special Education 2003 2004 2004 2008 Finance Food Service Transportation Procurement 2006 2006 2007 2007 Technology 2001 Special Education Curriculum and Instruction Federal Programs Textbook Procurement Human Resources 2003 2004 2004 2004 2005 Human Resources Budget and Finance Information Technology Bilingual Education Transportation Facilities Procurement 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 Curriculum and Instruction 2005 Finance and Procurement Personnel Communications Transportation Facilities Management Special Education Legal and General Counsel MIS and Technology Curriculum and Instruction Budget and Finance Transportation Curriculum and Instruction 1998 1998 1998 1998 1998 1998 1998 1998 2003 2005 2005 2007 Rochester San Diego San Francisco St. Louis Seattle Toledo Washington, D.C. Council of the Great City Schools 108