Assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning process. Its purpose is to inform students regarding their learning progress and teachers regarding ways to adjust their instruction to better respond to the learning needs of students. Further, it communicates the growth and competence of students to parents, school officials, and the public. The results of student learning must be continually discussed and used to develop short-term and long-term strategies for improving curriculum and instruction.
Conclusions
Assessment procedures to determine student knowledge, skills, and competencies are in various stages at Georges Valley High School. Local assessments and mapping have helped teachers to move forward with the task of assessment and rubric development. The school has created clear expectations for student learning and has developed a set of rubrics to measure student achievement of these expectations. These have been widely distributed throughout the school and community, but as yet, little measurement of achievement has taken place. Also, while a number of teachers have tied their curricula to the standards of the Maine Learning Results, this is not a universal practice with all teachers. Rubrics to measure student achievement of the standards of the Maine Learning Results are not in place in all courses and content areas. Therefore, there exists no consistency from teacher to teacher in the equitable measurement of student work. Teachers do provide their students with syllabuses at the beginning of each course. These identify what students are expected to know and be able to do in order to be successful in the course but do not always indicate how students will achieve the school’s expectations for student learning or what standards and performance indicators of the Maine Learning Results will be addressed and assessed in the course. Written assignments have clear directions, teacher expectations, and requirements. Many assignments are tied to the school’s expectations for student learning and the Maine Learning Results standards and performance indicators that will be used to determine proficiency in the Maine Learning Results. This connection is especially important to Grade 9 students as failure to meet proficiency by 2008, their year of graduation, will deny them a high school diploma. However, because this alignment is not a universal practice with all assignments, it will be difficult to determine student achievement and proficiency in the specific standards and performance indicators chosen by the faculty as the determinator of proficiency. Thus, having complete alignment for assessment purposes is especially critical for the Class of 2008. (student work, observation, self-study, teachers)
School-wide rubrics to measure student achievement of the school’s expectations for student learning are in place but full-fledged assessment of progress has yet to begin. Some school-wide rubrics to assess achievement of standards and performance indicators of the Maine Learning Results have been created within a few disciplines, but this is not universal. Further, there are no school-wide rubrics that assess cross-discipline student activities such as writing and oral presentation, causing inequities in how students are graded on the same tasks in separate disciplines. Most curricular areas plan to pilot at least one common assessment each this year for the Class of 2008 to begin the measurement of student achievement of the standards and chosen performance indicators of the Maine Learning Results. Most of these common assessments have been taken from the standards pool established by the Maine Department of Education’s Local Assessment Development System (LADS). On the other hand, some departments are working to create their own common assessments. Teacher-made rubrics and examples do accompany many of the assignments students receive but not all of them. Unless this becomes a universal practice within and among all disciplines, accurate assessment of student achievement cannot be measured. Further, students have little input in the development of rubrics. Being a part of rubric development would provide a feeling of ownership to students as well as providing them a voice in their own learning. This may, in turn, lead to improvement in student achievement of the school’s expectations for student learning as well as the standards established by the Maine Learning Results. In some cases, students are given a rubric to guide the work for the assignment yet find that a different rubric is used to grade the work. This practice causes great confusion amongst students and raises questions about the validity of grades. (student work, teachers, students, student shadowing)
Beginning with the Class of 2008, Georges Valley High School has developed an assessment portfolio project known in the school as the expectations portfolio. Contained in this portfolio are directions for use and rubrics by which all the school’s expectations for student learning will be measured. Students in the Class of 2008 are required to submit to their advisor work that the student feels meets each of the expectations. This work is then to be scored using the appropriate rubric and placed in the portfolio. Little work has been collected and scored thus far. There is, however, no link of the portfolio to the Maine Learning Results standards and performance indicators selected by the school upon which to judge student proficiency of the learning results. Without this linkage it will be difficult for the school to track student progress over time relating to both systems of assessment. A review of student work reveals that teachers do employ a wide range of assessment strategies, both traditional and alternative to judge student achievement. While this provides varied ways for students to demonstrate achievement, no school-wide method exists to collect this information to track student progress over time. (teachers, student work, observation, student shadowing)
At Georges Valley High School, many teachers, individually, use the assessment results for tests, reports, presentations, and projects to modify or adjust their own curriculum. However, no school-wide plan exists to compile this data for use in making decisions about either curriculum or instruction. Some departments such as special education, social studies, and math have used the results of standardized testing to review, revise, or adopt new curricula. Students in grades 9, 10, and 12 are assessed annually using the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and grade 11 students are administered the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA). Results from these standardized tests are distributed to all teachers, but there is no formal plan or expectation for the use of these results to inform either curriculum or instruction. The lack of a formal plan to collect student assessment data, be it school-based or standardized testing, results in curriculum and instructional practices that do not meet student learning needs. This, in turn, negatively impacts education equity and rigor. (self-study, teachers, school board, school leadership team)
A number of teachers at Georges Valley High School use results from classroom-based assessment to modify their own curriculum and instructional practices in an attempt to better meet the learning needs of students. However, this is left to each teacher as no formal plan exists to ensure that this practice is uniformly and consistently employed. The absence of such a process greatly hinders the faculty’s abilities to improve instruction of curriculum. (self-study, teachers, observation, school leadership team)
Teachers at Georges Valley High School meet weekly by department to work on assessment, but the bulk of this work has been on the development of the local assessment system required of a school district by state mandate. Some individuals do examine assessment results and make changes in curriculum and instructional strategies, however. Informal conversations among teachers have led to the creation of several new courses such as Junior Journey and Earth Systems. However, there is neither a district nor school-wide plan in place nor time appropriated for teachers to discuss and reflect on student work as a routine guide for revising and improving curriculum and instructional strategies. Lack of clear direction and provision of time to support formal conversation and reflection have led to inconsistent and poorly developed strategies. Such absence of formalized process negatively impacts the improvement of student learning and the heightening of equity and rigor for all students. (self-study, teachers, central office administrators, self-study sub-committee)
At the start of the school year, all students receive a school planner. The planner contains school policies of Georges Valley High School and a daily assignment and project planner section. Each teacher also provides students with a course syllabus that clearly outlines their learning expectations and the student’s responsibilities, as well as the teacher’s grading policies. Parents are informed during the school year about their student’s progress through report cards, interim reports, parent conferences twice a year, newsletters, phone calls, and e-mail. The results of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and those of the Maine Educational Assessment test are mailed home annually. Individual teachers are providing their students with a model or exemplar to indicate the quality expected in order to satisfy assignments. Teachers also use rubrics to communicate to students how their work will be taught and assessed. Parents report that teachers explain to students how work and progress are assessed. In all of the core curricular areas, common assessments are being developed at this time. Some of these assessments were piloted in the 2003-2004 school year. Beginning with the Class of 2008, common assessments will be used to certify that students have met the standards of the Maine Learning Results. Achievement of standards will be reported to students and parents beginning in the 2005-2006 school year in interim reports and report cards. These documents have yet to be developed. However, no district-wide policy or procedure is in place to provide guidance in their development. Numerical grades will also be reported. In addition, beginning in the 2005-2006 school year, parents will be able to access information online. While much communication about student progress is in place, no formal procedure exists for interpretation of the progress to either parents or students. Without such a procedure in place, parents and students have no way to measure true academic progress over time using a multitude of assessment data that give a full picture of student achievement of either the school’s expectations for student learning or the standards of the Maine Learning Results. (self-study, observation, student work, teachers, students, parents)
A number of the Georges Valley High School faculty members have participated in professional development activities directed toward improving assessment strategies. Most of these are off-site and attendance is by teacher request. Forty-three percent of the staff has participated in the Maine Department of Education programs to develop local assessments. Individual departments have attended workshops on assessment development in their particular areas. However, there is no district-wide formal plan or process to provide teachers with the professional development necessary to build skills that would allow them to employ a variety of assessments or to provide them with the knowledge that would allow them to examine, interpret and use test results to improve curriculum and instruction. Classroom assessment strategies are, therefore, neither based in best practices nor used to inform curriculum and instruction. Without needed skills and knowledge, teachers cannot adequately and equitably measure student progress and academic rigor. (self-study, teachers, teacher interviews, observation)
Georges Valley High School has recently instituted the expectation portfolio program for its students. Through this program, students will document their attainment of the school’s expectations for student learning but not achievement of the standards of the Maine Learning Results. Rubrics to measure achievement of the school’s expectations for student learning have also been developed and distributed to students. Prior to the introduction of the portfolio, student promotion, retention, and grading was based on traditional methods. This will remain so for Grade 10, 11, and 12. However, for the Class of 2008, achievement of both the school’s expectations for student learning and demonstrated proficiency in the school’s selected standards and performance indicators of the Maine Learning Results will be a requirement for being awarded a high school diploma. The school is in the piloting stage of the expectation portfolio and thus has not as yet begun to establish a data base to assess student progress in meeting the school’s expectations for student learning. Also, the school has not yet established levels of indicators of success (rubrics) by which to assess student achievement of the Maine Learning Results. While this is not an issue for Grades 10, 11, and 12, it is one for the Class of 2008. Further, as the school has not yet established a plan to collect, interpret, and employ student assessment data to inform curriculum and instruction and to monitor student achievement, public reporting of student progress is limited to traditional grade reporting. As the school is not collecting and interpreting student assessment data from all possible sources, the public and the school have no factual basis on which to judge true student academic achievement. (self-study, teachers, students, parents)
Georges Valley High School has developed a plan to determine success in meeting the school’s stated civic and social expectations. What currently exists is a system where the student provides to his or her advisor written verification that the student has completed twelve hours of community service together with a reflection on that experience; completion of Junior Journey coupled with a report of educational and career goals developed in the class; and records of conferences with the student’s advisor about these expectations. These pieces will be included in each student’s expectations portfolio. However, as this process is new and as no school-wide plan for compiling student data exists, no public reporting is taking place. (self-study committee, self-study, teachers, students)
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