DISTRICT PUBLIC
A Bronx Middle School
Identifying the patterns
The Challenge
1) Identifying and addressing the gaps that led to the school's decline.
2) Getting the most out of the Quality review.
This school had been an A school until two years ago, when its performance begun to decline following the introduction of the Common Core. The school's founding principal needed to understand why, so she could start the process of putting in place systems and structures to address the causes. Beyond introducing long term changes, she was also juggling the many day-to-day priorities of a school leader - preparing for her upcoming quality review being the most immediate.
The Approach
Through a school-wide comprehensive data analysis of Department of Education school assessment data - District Public was able to provide the school's principle with key metrics and trends that allowed her to better understand her school's challenges. These metrics aided her in making budget and personnel decisions on where to best allocate resources to address weaknesses. DP also provided her with an analysis of student-by-student performance on the ELA and Math State Assessments, in addition to her school's overall performance on those assessments. This allowed her to identify key standards that were tested more frequently on the exam, and also see which specific standards her students were struggling with.
District Public also provided the principle a Comprehensive and Item Skills Analysis. These packets featured reusable content that she could use to support her school's story through data.
In addition, District Public put together an analysis of the school's Datafolio to more clearly show how the school's curriculum, assessments, and lesson plans impact student achievement as measured by citywide benchmarks.
The Results
The school's principle was able to show the process which she went through to identify gaps and challenges that her school faced, as well as how she put in place systems and structures in her school to address those gaps.
The datafolio analysis provided her with the tools to more effectively illustrate her school's efforts with respect to Instructional Core - the biggest component of the Quality Review. Additionally, the Comprehensive Data Packet and resulting efforts to turnkey the information supported the school's efforts to improve School Culture and Systems and Structures, the other two critical areas of the Quality Review process.
The school earned a "Proficient" grade - a huge relief to the principle and her team. With the Quality Review behind her, she was now ready to tackle the broader challenge - sharpening her school's instructional focus.