A Reader Asks... Common Assessment Reflection

A LYSer asks the following:

SC,

I have attended a number of your conference sessions over the past several years and always feel that your information is very pertinent and valuable.  Our campus will be conducting 3-week common assessments this year and I am curious about your thoughts on the reflective process following these assessments. 

What are your recommendations on what to include: weak TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills); plans for re-teaching; etc.; to help drive future instruction and fill gaps from previous teaching?

Thank you for your time and advice.

SC Response

Thank you for your kind words and great question!

Short-term data analysis and reflection is a quick process.  Think halftime adjustments in football.

A. What’s working? Let’s take advantage of that.

B. What’s not working? What will we do different to slow down the damage?

Most schools get hung up spending all their time either hating the assessment and/or sorting students into “can do/can’t do” groups.  Both of these actions are counter-productive.

In terms of immediate adjustments and actions, what the instructional team should do is identify the two deepest holes (the SE’s the students as a whole did the worst on) and re-teach those two elements as they continue to stay on pace with the curriculum.  Those identified deepest hole concepts should be added to the next checkpoint and then after the students take that checkpoint, the new deepest holes are identified and the process continues.

Do what works, quit doing what doesn’t work and re-teach the deepest holes as you continue teaching forward. That’s it in a nutshell. 

For more direct support, just call.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TMSA Winter Conference; ASCD Annual Conference; TEPSA Summer Conference 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Not Bad and Not Great are the Same Thing

It was a busy day yesterday.  I was working with a Principal and a Superintendent confounded with the same problem – average student performance.

Here are the facts.  After observing 27 teachers (all of the teachers on the campus), only one teacher was observed doing things wrong. That represents 4% of the teaching staff.  Which means that 96% of the teaching staff was doing nothing wrong. Most people would consider this to be good news. 96% of the teachers were not engaged in bad instructional practices.

However, only 3 of the teachers were observed doing things significantly right.  This means that only 11% of the teachers were using identified best instructional practices in their classroom.

The reality on this campus was that 4% of the staff were delivering poor instruction, 85% of the staff were delivering average instruction, and 11% of the staff were delivering superior instruction. And the quality of instruction was not driven by content or student ability. This simply was the quality of observed adult practice.

What this means is that on the observed campus a primary driver of average student performance was overwhelmingly average adult practice.

Not bad and not great are the same thing... average.

What I reminded the Principal and the Superintendent is that as a school leader, your staff is comfortable if you accept, “Not bad.”  Your students are short changed if you accept, “Not great.”

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TMSA Winter Conference; ASCD Annual Conference; TEPSA Summer Conference 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Only Interview If You Are Serious

Last week, I wrote about the need for Superintendents to be serious and committed if they are pursuing a tried, tested, rock star principal.  Now principals, it’s your turn for the uncomfortable conversation.  This past summer too many principals were simply playing at being candidates for new jobs.

Do not interview for a job you are not willing to take.  Districts are too busy providing for students and operating schools to serve as your personal ego enhancer.  Nothing will damage your reputation faster (and that of your references) than being known as someone who is willing to waste someone else’s time just so you can feel loved. 

If you don’t like the offer, provide a counter offer.  If the district can’t match or get close, then it’s just business.  But to sit for multiple interviews and then deciding that the grass just isn’t green enough is bush league.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TMSA Winter Conference; ASCD Annual Conference; TEPSA Summer Conference 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of January 4, 2015

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now Twitter users.  If you haven’t done so yet, we want you to join us.  To let you see what you are missing, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of January 4, 2015.

1. If I had to choose between taking a punch or listening to someone complain about "unmotivated" students, then I'd fill up my own ice pack. (BY @BluntEducator)

2. Young children growing up in poverty often hear 30 million fewer words than their more affluent counterparts. (By @tgrierhisd)

3. Excellence requires clarity of purpose. (By @blitzkrieg607)

4. If you evaluate a 1st year teacher the same as a 20-year veteran, you're not embracing a system of growth and progress. (By @millerg6)

5. Despite the rhetoric, voucher programs will likely subsidize private school for those who can already afford it. (By @RYHTexas)

6. If being retained increases the risk of dropping out of school, why do so many state plans base promotion on a single test and favor it? (By @Snowmanlearning)

7. Suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret. (By @CoachKWisdom)

8. Ones leadership skills are strengthened when quiet reflection is followed by effective action. (By @blitzkrieg607)

9. Texas school start date debate pits educators against tourism industry. (By @JWalshtxlawdawg)

10. Consider this: If schools started earlier in August, they would have more days to teach content before the STAAR test. Good for teachers and kids. (By @LYSNation)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TMSA Winter Conference; ASCD Annual Conference; TEPSA Summer Conference 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Hiring Experienced / Successful Principals

It is no secret that Lead Your School is approached on a semi-regular basis to conduct a principal search.  The typical request is, “We need an experienced principal.  One with a significant track record of success that will lead a particular campus that for any number of reasons is undesirable to this type of principal.  And salary won’t be an issue.”

So we bring a slate of principals that meet these qualifications and the Superintendent is happy until the salary discussion begins.  Now the Superintendent realizes that the salary that will get the principal she likes the best to move is higher than what the current salary schedule in the district suggests.  So they low-ball the salary offer and the principal declines the new job.  And the Superintendent is shocked.  Because no one ever tells a Superintendent “No.”

So, here is what the Superintendent forgot.

• For the rock star principal, your district isn’t better than where the principal is coming from.
• For the rock star principal, your campus isn’t better than the one the principal is currently leading.
• For the rock star principal, your campus represents new problems to solve.
• For the rock star principal, your district represents new systems to navigate.
• For the rock star principal, your district / campus represents new personalities to learn, manage and avoid.
• For the rock star principal, your district/campus represents risk.  Risk that you are inviting them to take.

Which means Superintendents, if you are serious about poaching another district’s rock star principal, you are going to have to open your checkbooks.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TMSA Winter Conference; ASCD Annual Conference; TEPSA Summer Conference 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Principal Writes... PowerWalks 2.0 is Awesome!

An old school LYS Principal shares the following:

SC,

As you are aware, I have been using PowerWalks since it was first introduced.  It was a pretty exciting instrument then, but nothing compares to the new version that was launched this school year.  PowerWalks 2.0 is amazing! 

I love how you can see the scoreboard for schools and users right when you open the program.  This has been very motivational for my team of observers.  They have been working hard to get their classroom visits completed and keep us in the top schools.  The benefit of this is that we began sharing data with teachers by the first week in October.  This is the earliest, by far, that we have collected enough data to begin sharing. 

In addition to the scoreboard, the quick reports that I am able to run for observers, teams, and teachers are terrific.  And the enhanced e-mail features have made it possible to send the administrative team the counts for each of us every Friday afternoon.  No one wants to be the one that didn’t get his or her observations done!  What a great use of positive peer pressure!  We use the reports for our counts, observers inter-rater reliability reports, and department level reports as a regular part of our administrative meeting each week.  It is making a huge difference not only in the number of observations being done, but our understanding of what is going on in each classroom.

Now the best part of the program has to be the survey instrument itself.  The changes are brilliant.  You have trimmed down the indicators being monitored without sacrificing the critical items that help identify great teaching practices.  The cleaner version is easy to understand and makes it less likely that those doing the observations are rating indicators differently.  Lastly, the reports for teachers are so much easier to build and run.  The charts are clear and concise, making them easier for teachers to pinpoint areas that they want to focus on for improving their craft.

If it is not already clear, I love PowerWalks 2.0.  I appreciate your dedication to education and providing us with a quality program that helps us do our job better.  I am a lifelong fan.

SC Response

Wow!  Thank you very much.  And you aren’t alone in your observations.  The feedback on the new version has been 100% positive.

And for everyone else in the LYS Nation who is stuck using a lesser system for classroom observations, the time to change is now.  Either click on the link to set up your subscription or you can always call Jo at (832) 477-5323.

http://www.powerwalks.com/Account/Subscription.aspx

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TMSA Winter Conference; ASCD Annual Conference; TEPSA Summer Conference 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook