STATE SUPERINTENDENT ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPDATES Superintendents’ Quarterly Meeting – March 19, 2013 Measures of Student Learning: Common Exams Common exams, one of the elements of Measures of Student Learning, are a partnership between the Department of Public Instruction and school districts. The common exams are designed to measure student growth in the core contents between grades 4-12 in currently non-tested subjects. When NC submitted our Race to the Top grant, we shared with superintendents the requirement to measure teacher effectiveness. At that meeting the superintendents overwhelmingly requested that the state develop the Measures of Student Learning rather than follow the same path of some states that have required each school district to develop its own. The inclusion of student growth in teacher evaluation is a requirement of Race to the Top as well as for the continuation of the ESEA waiver. If the state is not compliant in both grants, funding at the state and/or district level could be in jeopardy. Growth demonstrated on the common exams will be used to determine the Standard 6 ratings for teachers who administer the assessments. The SAS Institute will be calculating growth on the common exams, just as they do with results of the Endof-Grade, End-of-Course, and Career and Technical Education Post-Assessments. The team at the SAS Institute will study the distribution of common exam results, as well as score patterns within and across districts prior to the completion of value-added analysis. Prior to sending the data from the common exams to the SAS Institute for value-added analysis, the Department's Accountability Services staff will complete item analysis, as well as other reliability checks on the data. The revisions that have been made to the high school assessments are a result of this type of quantitative analysis, as well as feedback from teachers who administered the exams to their students during first semester. Common exams were administered by 39 LEAs, 2 Charter Schools, and the NE Regional School of Biotechnology and Agriscience at the end of fall semester. Following the exams, Department staff closely reviewed teacher feedback. In the face of quantitative and qualitative feedback that some of the 1 Measures of Student Learning: Common Exams (continued) exams were too long, we did decide that it was best for students and teachers if we shortened some of the exams. Before sending the results of the exams to the SAS Institute, the Department's Accountability Services staff will compare the results, reliability, etc. of the first semester results with the second semester results. It is possible that the first semester results will not be used in the determination of Standard 6 ratings if they do not hold up statistically in the same way as the second semester scores. However, without second semester data as a point of comparison, we cannot make a decision about first semester scores at this point. Results from first semester administration show that all but one of the common exams demonstrates reliability of .8, which is generally accepted to be the marker of a valid and reliable assessment. This analysis confirms that the scoring on the constructed response items has also been reliable and in accordance with the rubrics. The Department has also held best practice webinars featuring testing coordinators from two districts that administered the exams. They both indicated that scoring was completed in the course of an afternoon. Between now and the end of the year school systems will be receiving training on a Roster Verification System hosted online by SAS that will allow teachers and principals to ensure that they are being held accountable for the correct listing of students. Pennsylvania, which uses the system, has found the most appropriate time to do roster verification is at the end of the school year. Superintendents will be receiving training information in the near future. NCDPI is currently partnering with some LEAs to pilot both the K-2 reading pre-post assessment and the Student Growth Portfolio process that, if successful, will become the Measures of Student Learning for most of the teachers not covered by a common exam or state test. We hope to be sharing information with you from these pilots at the Summer Superintendent’s Quarterly or at future regional meetings. Summer Institute Summer Institutes this year are held in Greenville, Durham, Charlotte and Greensboro. Factors determining these locations include space for break-outs (as requested by LEA teams last year), technology needs for Home Base integration, and a request by LEA teams to move locations this year. For the last two years, we have held these institutes in the same regions and it was requested we expand locations this year. It 2 Summer Institute (continued) is our hope that next year, we can hold 8 institutes, in all regions, including teacher leaders from your regions. The NCDPI Summer Institutes 2013 webpage features the most current information about Summer Institutes logistics (i.e., dates, locations, registration, team information, and more), for more information, visit http://www.ncpublicschools.org/profdev/summerinstitutes/2013/ TALAS Conference Call If you have a school identified as low performing in the Race to the Top grant, you have received an email inviting you to participate in a brief conference call on Friday, March 22, at 2pm. Please join this call. We will review expectations so that everyone is clear about this portion of the grant for next year. Virtual Public School registration through Home Base North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS), will transition to PowerSchool for its registration process. Schools will continue to use our registration system for summer 2013 course registration and grade delivery, as usual. Fall 2013, Yearlong 13-14 and spring 2014 class registration will be transitioned to the PowerSchool system in June/July. For these affected semesters, NCVPS will begin enrollment in the current registration system on March 1, then all of its registration data will be imported into PowerSchool during the Year-End-Transition (YET) process. After July, schools will begin using PowerSchool to enroll for NCVPS courses. The PowerSchool system will include enrollment and reporting features for NCVPS registration. NCVPS is working closely with Power School administrators to assure the initial NCVPS data requirements are met to make the transition as seamless as possible. We will send updates in the days ahead to include training information from the PowerSchool team. NCVPS is excited by this partnership and the enhanced registration processes and data management of NCVPS enrollments. 3 Small Group Regional Meetings Small Group Regional Meetings (continued) Roster Verification Four dates in April have been identified to hold superintendent small group regional meetings. Please make plans to attend one of these meetings. April 24, 2013 – Northeast & Southeast – 1:00-4:00pm Washington Civic Center 110 Gladden Street Washington, NC 27889 April 25, 2013 – Piedmont & Central – 1:00–4:00 pm Durham Staff Development Center 2107 Hillandale Road Durham, NC 27705 April 26, 2013 - Northwest & Western 10:00 am - 2:00 pm Burke County Schools Staff Development Center 509 West Concord Street Morganton, NC 28655 April 30, 2013 – Southwest & Sandhills 12:00 noon – 4:00 pm (lunch provided) Richmond County Board of Education 118 Vance Street Hamlet, NC 28345 The NCDPI is working with SAS to finalize the EVAAS roster verification process for Educator Effectiveness. The roster verification window, enabling teachers, principals, and district-level administrators to verify students are correctly assigned to teachers for the purpose of EVASS analysis, will open in mid-April and conclude June 28. NCWise data will pre-populate the SAS roster verification system. Having accurate course information for students in NCWise will minimize the need for corrections to the rosters, thus requiring only 10-15 minutes per class roster (a class roster is all of the students taught by one teacher per content area). If there is misinformation in NCWise, the verification process will take more time. Information on the available training will be provided prior to the opening of the roster verification window. 4 China Opportunity for Teachers The Global Classroom Alliance is offering North Carolina educators the opportunity to teach in English immersion summer camps this summer in China. While the program requires a deposit to participate, most or all of the money will be refunded depending on whether teachers complete one camp (partial refund) or two camps (full refund). Teachers are needed for camps serving students ages 6-12 (elementary) and ages 14-17 (high school). Non-teaching cultural travel opportunities for teachers are included as part of the camp package. Please visit www.gcpaproject.org for information. 5