A Superintendent Asks... Prominently Posted Goals

A LYS Superintendent requests the following:

SC,

I need some examples of posters other schools have put up to show their goals for the STAAR tests.  I’ve heard you talk about this and I’m looking for new ways to promote achievement.  Thanks for the help!

SC,

I don’t have any pictures to show you.  The one’s I did have I took so long ago I can’t find them.  The problem of the modern smart phone. But I can give you some guidelines to consider.

The best examples of prominently posted goals have five things in common:

1. They are big (the poster).

2. They are easy to understand.

3. The people who need to see them can’t avoid them (teachers and students at the high school / teachers at the elementary). Meaning they are placed in high traffic areas.

4. They actually track campus / district assessment progress towards achieving state testing goals.

5. They post the charts at the beginning of the year and update them as soon as they get new data.

I’ve attached an example.

Some schools track at the 3-week common assessment interval and some at the district assessment interval (usually 9 weeks).

And some only track their most fragile student population. Which give you a more accurate performance picture than tracking entire campus performance.

What is important is that the purpose for posting the charts is to serve as a score board.  A score board isn’t meant to shame or embarrass.  It’s meant to focus and to keep the main thing the main thing.

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