I began last school year with a challenging group of students. The testing I administered in the beginning of the year showed that 0 students were reading at or above proficiency. Zero as in none. Nobody.
Our grade level ended the previous school year with 46% of the students reading at or above proficiency. That number is abysmal but it looks awfully large when compared to 0.
The government, through No Child Left Behind, has set particular standards for schools and their districts to meet in order to be deemed successful. As I have written a number of times in this blog, my school is one of the low performing schools. We need to make significant increases every year or risk a number of changes.
It is a long, complicated set of standards and criteria that I am not looking to detail right now. But it is important to understand the general idea that I have certain numbers I need to reach each year to contribute to this gain as a grade level, school and district.
0 students reading proficiently is a low, discouraging starting point. I walked out of numerous grade level meetings dragging my heart and soul behind me on the ground. Each meeting I stared at a score sheet drowning in red ink. My roster had circled names, question marks and arrows pointing in the wrong direction littered through the list. My colleagues were there looking at it too.
"Mr. Huey, what are you going to do to fix this?" I would hear on the verge of panic. Then I had to look to my colleagues for help. It was humiliating to sit there and depend on the services and assistance of others to do my job.
"What is my plan?"
"What research based strategies do I plan to implement in order to improve my scores?"
"What's my relevance and rigor?"
"Problem of practice."
"Differentiated learning"
"Small group...blah blah blah BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Meanwhile, the kids looked as though they could have cared less. I was busy putting out fire after fire hoping some of them were paying enough attention to get something out of the lessons.
Today I met with the staff to prepare for the upcoming school year. We received raw test results from the Ohio Achievement Test. My colleague put his spreadsheet fetish to work and graphed the scores of each of our classes from the past school year.
My grade level improved our percentage of students who passed the Reading OAT from 46% in 2008 to 59% in 2009. When you look at the same classes scores from 3rd grade, we improved that group's percentage of passers from 42% in 2008 to 59% in 2009.
What about my class with the ZERO proficient readers?
More than 55% of my class ended the year reading proficiently or above. I caught up with the other classes. My class had the most students improve more than a whole grade level in our reading program. This means one could say they grew academically more than a years worth in a school year.
How did I do this you might ask? I put on my hard hat, grabbed my lunch pail and went to work.
Believe it or not, it was not with any more assistance than we normally give each other. After we left the meetings, the three of us would meet together and discuss what we were planning and how things were working and agreed to keep doing what we were doing.
The three of us have worked together in the same grade level for 8 years now. We all know how we tick. We know our strengths and weaknesses, comfort zones and anxious areas. We have consistently shown increases in test scores. When I arrived less than 20% of our students were passing the reading standardized tests at that time. We are the only grade level that can say that.
So when it came down to it, it was me in that classroom with those students making it happen.
I tore up the plan so to speak and I pulled out what mattered most and did it my way. I picked out all the components that actually involved the students reading texts. The more varied the texts, the better. We didn't just do fiction everyday.
Their fluency was horrible. So we worked on fluency directly.
Their comprehension was awful. So I pounded them over the head with extended response questions which required them to write out answers. Everyday they had to answer these questions until they were blue in the face. They had to think the right way and then write the right way.
So I also modeled everything everyday. I modeled how to think when they read. I showed them how to do it over and over again. I read out loud to them so they had an example to follow and we discussed the book the way I think about books when I read. Then I showed them how I applied this thinking to the questions. Then they did it the same way.
I did much more, but these were the big things.
Bottom line...I kicked some ass last year. I'm much better at this than most people or tests scores may think.
5 comments:
First off.. good job.. Unless I'm missing something, I don't understand how your principal can put so much pressure on you, and not take any accountability. It's not your fault that your whole class had a 0% reading proficiency rate. What the hell happened during Kindergarten to 3rd grade? It's not like these kids just migrated to your school over night. And what's going to happen from 5th to 12th grade for these kids.. are they going to slip again. It sounds like you're making such a difference with the same crappy, underfunded resources all the other teachers have.. This just really angers me.. and the principal has the nerve to ask you "how are you going to handle this".. I would ask her back "how are these kids going to be handled once they are out of my reach.. It's your school". 0% - 46% proficiency is such a big difference.. and these increases should be accumulative, so after 3 years or so, the school should be much better.. and you shouldn't need to start at <10% every year.
It's a very tough job you guys do, and it's very commendable.. It just really pisses me off when your principal says "Mr. Huey, what are you going to do to fix this?" in a freaking panic.. OK, just the fourth grade needs to be fixed, that makes sense.. oh wait, that's just when it comes to a head because of the testing. I would not be mad at all if he/she included K - 3rd in her panic.
Maybe I'm way off base here.
-Mike
First off, I can't speak for what she said in the meetings with the other grades. For all I know, she was saying the same things in resposne to their scores.
In her defense, there is a ton of pressure on her from above. I am not about to bash her publicly when she is trying to do her best. My scores were enough to scare the daylights out of the most level headed person on earth.
With that said, I have no idea what happened. While my beginning of the year scores stunk it up like that, 42% of this class was passing the reading OAT at the end of third grade. Granted these passers were dispersed through the third grade but I know some of them ended in my grade.
I don't have my data from last year, but I had a handful of passers if I recall correctly.
So my question is what happened over the summer between 3rd and 4th grade? Or, what happened while I was testing them?
It is the same test I give in the beginning, middle and end of year.
I am mixing some data between our reading programs assessment and the OAT but they usually match up. Someone failing the assessments rarely passes the OAT and vice versa.
Bottom line: apples to apples...0 were scoring at grade level or above with me in september. Over 50% using the same test, scored at grade level or above with me in May.
The benchmark increases from may of 3rd grade to september of 4th grade without instruction so that can account for a minor dip, but not from 42% to 0%!
So I am not sure.
The lesson learned here for me is not to panic over tests in september.
And your question about their scores in 5th grade? There is always a dip from 4th to 5th at my school. Not sure if that is just my school or a general thing, but I anticipate a drop this year.
I may be speaking off base a little then... and I would need to apologize for the harshness. Working in an inner city school can be a daunting task, and I'm sure it's easy for people not accustomed to that work environment (and it's challenges) to make the situation and people easy targets for criticism. If your boss is holding the other teachers accountable as well as taking ownership herself, then that's commendable. I just thought she was singling you out.
-Mike
Mike you are a good friend! I appreciate your intentions. And from your point of view, I can see how you may think that and I would feel the same way. Honestly, you are justified to feel that way.
But no, I don't think I was being singled out or anything. The fact that I was the one with the absolute lowest possible scores calls for some attention.
My point of the post was less about pointing blame somewhere, but celebrating the fact that I was in BAD shape and turned it around and that I felt like I was able to get the students to pull that off with mostly me and them. The students that is.
That comes off as egotistical and there was support from tutors and fellow teachers and some parents and the students were the ones who did the improving, but I am purposely looking to praise myself to offset all the times I beat myself up.
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