Infoworks Home

Statewide Analysis Home red-arrow.gif (869 bytes)

III. The Response – Shared Responsibility for Improving Student Performance
Providing Support, Push and Intervention

As the work of SALT and Article 31 continues to unfold, the number of partnerships needed to accomplish it will only grow. The next challenge that lies before RIDE and its partners is to help schools put all of the information and resources that these multiple- partnerships have created to work in ways that improve student performance.

School improvement that dramatically improves the achievement of all kids is an inherently local endeavor. Educators, in partnership with their communities, must use rich and varied approaches tailored to their local contexts to meet student needs in ways that ensure high achievement for all.

At the state level, RIDE and its partners must promote and galvanize these local efforts by fueling them with new and better information, and by providing them with additional support and assistance where necessary.

For its part, RIDE has reallocated its own resources to provide maximum support for the Article 31/SALT agenda. RIDE’s Field Service Teams are primarily focused on assisting schools and districts with the implementation of Article 31 and SALT. This focus will support the analysis and use of local data.

Consistent with Article 31, RIDE will negotiate performance targets (also known as Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP targets) with schools starting in fall 1998. RIDE will calculate these targets using 3-5 year averages. Using averages will mediate the single year gains or drops in school test scores that unusually high or low achieving groups of students may cause.

Negotiations will be informed by at least the following factors:

  1. Standard and equity gaps in student performance.
  2. Student performance in the school compared to the performance of similar students statewide.
  3. The financial capacity of the school and its district.
  4. The knowledge that the ultimate goal is to have every student meet the state standards.
  5. Estimates of targets that will require schools to focus and stretch, but that are not unrealistically high in the short term.

Establishing these targets communicates the necessity of improving student achievement.  The targets will engage schools in a process that helps them to identify necessary changes in practice and organization, and/or additional support that they may need, to reach the targets identified.

In cases where additional encouragement and support fail, RIDE, in accordance with Article 31 will intervene to improve education for students. It is the state’s responsibility to step in where local communities cannot or will not for whatever reason.

"Effective data collection and analysis in all areas of education reform will enable policymakers, educators, teachers, and students to take the pulse of the system and measure what their responsibilities are in order for true reform to occur."

Cristopher T. Cross, Amy Rukea Stempel. (1996). "Where are we going? Policy implications for data collection through 2010," in From Data to Information: New Directions for the National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, p. 2-17.

Return to the Statewide Analysis Home Page ||  Return to the Information Works Home Page