One local school district declared its newest instructional initiative a success this week and announced plans to define success at next month's board meeting.
‘We didn't want to delay celebrating students while we waited for a definition,’ the superintendent explained.
The announcement followed a comprehensive progress report showing that 100 percent of schools had received the program, 94 percent of teachers had opened the welcome email, and every principal had submitted the required implementation checklist.
The remaining six percent of teachers will receive targeted support in opening the email.
A board member asked whether students were learning more.
The assistant superintendent said that question would be addressed in a later presentation titled ‘Beyond Implementation,’ once the district had finished celebrating implementation.
The current presentation included photographs of children using the program.
‘You can see the engagement,’ officials said, advancing past a photograph in which a child was looking directly at the camera.
A teacher asked what the district would compare the eventual results with.
Officials said a baseline was being developed using the most encouraging numbers currently available. Collecting it before the program began would have required knowing which numbers the district would want to use afterward.
The teacher asked what level of improvement would justify the time students spent on the program instead of something else.
Her question was added to a parking lot so the group could maintain its focus on student outcomes.
The district has nevertheless developed a clear plan for interpreting the results.
If scores rise, the program is working.
If scores remain flat, the program prevented a decline.
If scores fall, the results demonstrate how urgently students need the program.
The board member asked whether there was a result that would lead the district to stop using it.
The superintendent cautioned against abandoning students just because adults were uncomfortable with the data.
Board members thanked the administration for bringing such a clear evaluation framework.
The renewal deadline is Friday. The evaluation committee meets Monday.
SATIRE ENDS.
A program can be implemented well and still fail to accomplish its purpose. Receiving materials, attending training, logging in, and completing a checklist tell you whether people did what the rollout required. They do not, by themselves, tell you whether students benefited.
Before starting, identify the problem, the evidence that would count as improvement, the time and opportunities the program will consume, and the conditions under which you would change course. The evidence should fit the goal; another test score is not automatically the right answer.
Then ask the question that makes evaluation possible: what result would make us change our minds? If no possible result can count against the program, we have protected a purchase from evaluation.
These are fair questions for a school board to ask before renewal. They are also the kind of questions The Board Interview gives an independent interviewer time to pursue—and the superintendent time to answer completely.
