Get Students Writing in 7 Easy Steps
As a high school principal for over twelve years, I continually promoted the virtues of writing. Additionally, I constantly encouraged teachers to engage their students purposefully in writing during class on a daily basis. Only, I didn’t have to grade all those...
3 Essential Components of Educational Data Tools
Educators today are continuously bombarded with data about their schools, classrooms, and individual students. State assessment data is reported for up to 32 tests. Vendor assessments such as M.A.P., DIBELS, TerraNova, AIMSWEB and the suite of tests from ACT are just...
The Moving Target May Be Moving Again
The Ohio State Board of Education has been discussing changing new state graduation requirements…that have not gone into effect yet! After a 30 plus year career in education as a teacher, principal and superintendent it seems the educational targets from the Ohio...
Academic Triage Before an Academic Autopsy
The standards era in education which was ushered in with the full force of a tropical hurricane under No Child left Behind (NCLB) has leveraged "accountability" into compliance with the common core, state testing, school "improvement" requirements and the inevitable...
ESSA Requires Non-Academic Accountability Measures
The standards era in education has produced a plethora of "accountability measures" enacted by the federal government and state legislatures that have relied heavily, if not exclusively, on standardized test scores. Educators across the country have long yearned for...
Making the N Size Small is Big!
State departments of education across the country are engaging their constituencies in the concept of "N" size. N size refers to the minimum number of students required in a group before the group is used for accountability and reporting purposes. The opportunity for...
Will State Assessments be Replaced by the ACT or SAT?
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed into law by President Obama in December of 2106, states have a much greater degree of flexibility in order to meet federal requirements for accountability. State departments of education across the country are...
Changes on 2016 Ohio Report Card
When the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) releases the 2016 Local Report Card (LRC) in mid-September we will see a few changes that have been planned for several years. The biggest change will be that the 2016 LRC will assign A-F letter grades to the six (6) major...
Every Student Succeeds Act Requires States to Rewrite Requirements
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)is the long awaited re-authorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002. ESSA, signed by President Obama in December of 2015, returns a great measure of decision making along numerous measures of school success to state...