Student Portfolios

Near the middle of last year, our administrative team decided to begin implementing showcase portfolios for our students in grades 4 through 8 during the 2009-2010 school year. The reason for implementing this new project was our belief that students need to become more active participants in the assessment of their own learning. We hoped to begin changing student perception of assessment from something done to them to something done with them.

In September, we introduced this project to our staff. As part of a full-day training on best practices in assessment, we explained the implementation process to our staff members. As with anything new, there was concern regarding how students would complete the project and how much time it would take. Having completed their portfolio for the third trimester, we can now say that the project was a success. The following are just a sample of comments provided by parents on their feedback forms.

" I love that you have the kids put these portfolios together. I think it is exceptionally beneficial for all concerned. It is a great opportunity for the kids to see and celebrate their successes and it focused them on what needs to be improved."

" I believe it is a great idea because it allows children to assess themselves and monitor their own progress."

" It is nice to see what ____ can do and where he still needs work. Great idea for the portfolio."

" We are glad to see _______ reflection on his accomplishments this year particulary pointing out the reading speed increases this year. We spoke to _____ about his writing skills and he agreed this is the area he needs the most practice to improve."

" I really enjoyed reading these. I think it is an excellent way for kids to self-reflect"

Comments like these lead me to believe we are on the right path with our assessment program. We will continue to refine this project based on the feedback we received from staff, students and parents this year. We hope to find additional ways to ensure that our students understand how grades are determined and to involve them as much as possible in all phases of learning and assessment.

Leadership Beliefs

In my masters level graduate education courses, I learned about school finance, school law, curriculum and instruction, staff supervision and many other valuable topics. In my doctoral studies, I expanded this knowledge to include understanding how to evaluate and then produce original research in education. One thing they do not teach you in preparation for school administration is the development of your own leadership style.

Honestly, I am not sure this is a topic that can be taught in a college course. Much of what I have come to believe about leadership has been developed over time. Particulary valuable has been adverse circumstances. They really can teach you a great deal about who you are and what you value.

Since my childhood, I have always been a person who took charge in group situations. My mother thought my future would be as a social director. I naturally gravitated towards being the captain of the sports teams I played on. I have struggled with my role as a leader as I have grown older. Sometimes I wish that I could be a follower. It would be easier, but it is not who I am.

As I have struggled with issues over time, I have consistently sought out advice and information on the topic of leadership. Besides consulting with leaders I have come to respect, I am an avid reader of literature on this topic. In particular, I have read as many biographies of leaders as I could. While I am sure that this will be a never ending effort, I have learned a few things that I use to guide my actions.

First, I believe in modeling the way. I have spent many hours reflecting on what I value and believe in as a person. While it is hard to put into a short list, at this point in my life, I believe in:

Perseverance - Almost everything worth accomplishing in my life has been achieved through extended amounts of hard work. Nothing really has come easy to me. I was not a gifted athlete or student. I believe that I have achieved what I have accomplished because I have been willing to work harder for longer periods of time than others. I value people who are willing to work hard to achieve the results they seek.

Be honest but tactful - I have learned that sugar coating the truth can be a disservice. I never want to hurt someone's feelings, but there are times when the news you have to deliver is not pleasant. I believe that you must say what you mean and mean what you say, but you do not have to say anything in a mean way.

Do what you believe is right - Above all else, I have learned that you must be true to yourself. At the end of the day when you look in the mirror, you need to be proud of what you see. I strive to have a clear conscience by acting in a manner consistent with what I truly believe to be best.

Grow yourself and others - Perhaps because I was never particulary gifted in any area, I learned the value of working hard to get better. It is a constant in my life that I must challenge myself to do and be better tomorrow than I am today. I get great pleasure out of helping others to do the same.

Work hard but lead a balanced life - My dad worked two jobs when I was growing up. He was part of a generation of men who believed their primary purpose was to put food on the table. He did a great job doing that considering my mother was a stay at home mom and I am from a family of six boys. Yet, I know now that in his later years he wishes he had more time with us as we were growing up. I am certain that he has no regrets as he did what he had to do. On the other hand, I have made a conscious decision not to do the same thing with my children. I truly believe in what I do and will work hard and make sacrifices when necessary. However, I will not allow work to dominate my life. I value the time with my family and want to be an active part of my own children's lives. This is the hardest of the values for me to maintain in my life. I must consistently remind myself of what is most important in the long run.

Take calculated but thoughtful risks - Nothing great has ever been achieved without some degree of risk. Risk and experimentation go hand in hand with personal and professional growth. I do not believe in failure. To me, everything I have ever failed at is really just a learning experience in disguise. I have "failed forward" many times in my life and am better for it. I do not seek to fail, but I know that it is a possibility when I embark on something new.

This has been a tough year to be a school leader. Circumstances at both the local and state levels have presented me with challenges I have never faced before. As a result, I have been the subject of criticism and some degree of hostility. While I find some comfort in talking with colleagues who tell me I am not alone, I would be lying if I said that it never gets to me. I frequently drive home and reflect on what I am doing or not doing. I am not blessed with teflon coated skin. However, I always find that if I stay true to the principles I have shared in this blog, I may get more gray hairs and gain a few more pounds, but I will always sleep well at night.

Assessment & Grading Part 3

In 2009, the Board of Education adopted a new policy and regulation for student grading. This policy and regulation were based on research and best practice in the area of student assessment. Provided below are the major aspects of the regulations and the rationale supporting each of them:

1) Non achievement factors (behavior, effort, attendance, etc...) shall not be included in the academic grade.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when they mix achievement and non-achievement elements. Grades are inflated for some students when desired behaviors are exhibited and grades are deflated for others because of their failure to exhibit these same behaviors. The fix is to report variables such as behaviors separately from achievement, there by ensuring that the grades reflect student achievement as accurately as possible.

2) Care should be taken to ensure that penalties (if used) do not distort achievement or decrease motivation.

Rationale: Penalties distort achievement and can actually reduce motivation for completing the assignment. The fix for late student work is a positive, supportive approach that directly affects student behavior, leaving the scores and the resulting grades as pure measures of achievement.

3) Zeros shall not be used for incomplete work.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when zeros are used; zeros distort the actual achievement record and can decrease student motivation to learn. Zeros represent very extreme scores and their effect on the grade is always exaggerated.

4) Criterion-reference standards shall be used to distribute grades and marks.

Rationale: Grading students by comparing their performance to one another distorts individual achievement. Far superior is clear, criterion-referenced achievement standards that describe a student's proficiency level. The grade is assigned to the student based only on that student's achievement in relation to the applicable standards.

5) Teachers shall make and/or provide quality feedback on formative assessments. Mark from formative assessments shall not be included in grades.

Rationale: Grades are flawed if scores for everything students do find their way into report card grades. The fix is to include, in all but specific, limited cases, only evidence from summative assesments intended to document learning, that is designed to serve as an assessment of learning. By their very nature formative assessments are intended to serve as feedback on progress towards the learning objectives.

6) When repetitive measures are made of the same or similar knowledge skills or behaviors, the more recent mark or marks shall replace the previous mark for grade determination.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when learning is developmental (likely to improve over time with practice and repeated opporunities) and the final grade does not recognize the student's final level of proficiency. The fix for this flaw is that for any developmental learning we must emphasize the more recent evidence and allow new evidence to replace, not simply be added to, old evidence.

7) Consideration shall be given to the use of statistical measures other than the mean for grade calculation.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when they result only from the calculation of the mean (average) in contexts where extreme scores distort results. This can be fixed by considering other measures of central tendency (median and mode) and using professional judgment. We should think and talk about not the calculation, but rather the determination of grades.

8) Teachers shall base grades on quality assessment instruments.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when they arise from poor-quality assesment because the evidence is not accurate. The fix is to check every assessment for quality--clear purpose, clear learning goals, sound design, and avoidance of bias. Assessments that do not meet these four standards of quality will mismeasure student achievement and thus will lead to inaccurate grades.

9) Individual achievement of stated learning goals shall be the sole basis for determining grades.

Rationale: Grades are flawed if they involve the use of group scores from cooperative learning or group activities. This is so because the group scores may not accurately reflect the achievement of each student and therefore would be unfair for some group members.

Grades are summary symbols that should communicate only about student achievement at a point in time. To be effective, they must be consistent, accurate, meaningful, and should support student learning. Unfortunately, because grading has often been an unexamined and private practice, grades have frequently not met these standards and as a result are very often flawed. Our policy and regulation are meant to improve this situation.

Alumni Social and Staff Changes

Last evening, (Wednesday June 8th) we held our first Alumni Social. Thanks to the efforts of our staff members, this event was a huge success. We had over 30 former students and staff members attend. This event was so successful, we intend to host it again next year. During this event, we also dedicated the "Honoring Our Past" plaque. This plaque will contain the names of staff members with 25 or more years of service to the school district who are selected by a committee to join the Alexandria Faculty Hall of Fame. Five individuals were inducted during this first year. The plaque will be placed outside of the Superintendent's office for all to see.

This is the time of year when many positive culminating events are occurring in the school district. One of these events that can be viewed as being either positive or negative is staff assignments for the next school year. The assignments for 2010-2011 will be available early next week on each school district's webpage.

Our administrative team holds many meetings to consider the best way to arrange our staff to meet the needs of our students. We consider staff member's input and expressed wishes, the mix of personalities and dynamics among teams and departments, and our impressions of a staff member's strengths and talents. Ultimately our administrative team makes a decision that we believe is in the best interest of the overall school district. Each person who is being assigned to a different position is met with on a one-on-one basis. During this meeting, they are provided with the rationale for the move. We express and will continue to provide support for staff members who are unsure if they can meet the expectations of their new assignments.

The decisions we make are not taken lightly and are thoroughly discussed and debated. Some of our staff members are ecstatic with their new assignment, others accept it, and some express strong emotions related to the change. It is difficult to have any staff member upset that they did not get placed in the position they desired. Yet, our administrative team must always strive to achieve our primary mission of serving the students in the best way we think we can with the legal and budgetary constraints we have.

As part of our past experience, we have learned that while change can feel painful at first, it presents individuals with the opportunity for personal and professional growth. We hope that this year's changes will accomplish this goal.

Assessment & Grading Part 2

As was mentioned in my previous post, there are three underpinning issues we must consider before addressing the specifics of how to determine grades. They are fairness, motivation, as well as objectivity and professional development.

In education, we have tended to think of fairness as uniformity. All students have been required to do the same assessment in the same amount of time, and their grades have been calculated in the same way from the same number of assessments. But students are different in many various ways. So treating them the same can actually be unfair. Fairness is much more about equity of opportunity than it is about uniformity. For example, some students need to wear glasses and for equity of opportunity they wear their glasses when they need them. For fairness, we do not say, "You are doing a test today, but you cannot wear your glasses because everyone is not wearing glasses." I believe that all students should be given an equal opportunity to demonstrate what they know and can do as part of the assessment process. Adaptations should be available for all students when they are necessary for demonstrating their individual knowledge and skills, provided those adaptations do not jeopardize the integrity of the content of the assessment.

Grades are often extrinsic motivators, meaning that their power to influence student behavior derives from outside the student. Many teachers, parents, and other adults have used grades as extrinsic motivators. "If you get an A on this test, you will have no homework" or "If you get all A's on your report card, I will buy you a new Gameboy game." There are at least two problems with this approach. First, extrinsic motivators increase students' focus on the reward or punishment rather than on the desire for lifelong learning. Second, they give rise to the need to continuously increase the amount of the reward or punishment to elicit the desired behavior. I believe that the primary reward for learning should be intrinsic - the positive feelings that result from success. Success at learning is the single most important factor in increasing intrinsic motivation. However, it is important to recognize that success is relative--it is seeing oneself make significant and meaningful improvements.

The only aspects of learning that can be assessed objectively are such elements as the correctness of factual content like spelling and arithmetic. Assessments by their very nature are subjective. We need to acknowledge this fact. The question is not whether an assessment is subjective, but whether it is defensible and credible. We need to have assessments and grades that are accurate and consistent. One method for doing this is shared understanding of performance standards. Another is a unified approach to determining grades. In my next post, I will describe our grading policy and how it is designed to achieve this objective.

Grading

Every state in the U.S. (except Iowa) has educational content standards. These standards define what students are expected to know, understand, and be able to do. The primary goal of a standards-based system is for all students to "meet standards"; that is to be proficient in every aspect of the curriculum. One important strategy for meeting this goal is the evaluation of every student's achievement using similar criteria that is consistently applied at all levels.

The two essential questions all educators should ask about the grades they assign are, "How confident am I that the grades students get in my class are consistent, accurate, meaningful and support student learning?" and "How confident am I that the grades I assign students accurately reflect the district's published content standards and desired learning outcomes?"

In most of the schools and districts I have worked in or consulted with, the answers to these questions (especially at the middle and high school levels) range from "not very" to "not at all". As a school district, we are working to make sure our grades meet a higher standard.

As the first "essential question" indicates, effective grades need to meet four overarching criteria. They must be consistent, accurate, and meaningful and must support learning.

Consistent - the grades students' receive should not be a function of whether they are in teacher X's or teacher Y's class. Students achieving at the same level should get the same grade regardless of context.

Accurate - Inaccurate grades lead to poor instructional decisions being made by and about any student whose grades are used as the basis of those decisions. Inaccurate grades most commonly occur because teachers determine them by blending achievement with behaviors (effort, participation, adherence to class rules), poor quality assessment and inappropriate use of the mean(average) in combining data.

Meaningful - Grades must communicate useful information to students and to everyone interested in or needing to know about their learning.

Supporting Learning - Students and parents need to understand that achieving in schools is not about only "doing the work" or "accumulating points". When teachers assign a point value to simply turning in work, or put a mark or number on everything students do and use every number when calculating the grade, the message sent to students is clear: success lies in the quantity of points earned. Any intended message about valuing the quality of the learning is blurred. We want students to understand that school is about learning. Grades are simply artifacts of that learning; as such they should reflect student achievement only.

In this blog, I have provided the overarching principles for developing sound grades in schools. Because this issue is one that is frequently controversial, I intend to devote my next two blogs to addressing this topic. In my next post, I intend to discuss three philosophical issues that we must consider before addressing the specifics of how grades should be determined. They are fairness, motivation, and objectivity and professional judgment. In the post following that one, I will discuss our district policy and how it relates to improving the accuracy of grading.