Dr. Christina Chambers, Assistant Director Office of Special Programs
Nancy Cline, Coordinator Office of School Improvement

Schools Across West Virginia Get a Snapshot of
Student Growth as Part of State's New
Accountability System
Posted: September 04, 2013
"It is important for our schools to understand that the new accountability system is not about comparing one school to another," added Phares. "The system is about keeping your eye on the finish line despite where a student starts and moving that individual student forward to proficiency ."

Grade
3
4
5
6
9
10
7
8
11
WESTEST 2 Mathematics All
Percent Proficient
2009 2010 2011 2012
38%
42%
42%
39%
39%
35%
33%
37%
44%
42%
45%
43%
47%
37%
36%
39%
41%
46%
45%
45%
44%
40%
39%
42%
49%
47%
50%
48%
51%
42%
41%
43%
37% 41% 44% 48%
2013
42%
48%
46%
48%
47%
43%
43%
42%
44%

Grade
3
4
5
6
9
10
7
8
11
2009
40%
39%
40%
40%
40%
40%
40%
40%
35%
WESTEST 2 RLA All
Percent Proficient
2010 2011
44%
40%
43%
43%
43%
42%
40%
43%
46%
48%
46%
50%
51%
49%
47%
47%
35% 44%
2012
49%
44%
51%
51%
49%
47%
48%
48%
45%
2013
44%
47%
42%
53%
50%
50%
52%
51%
47%

How Student Groups Overlap

Percentage of WV Students with Disabilities
Who Belong to Other Groups

The West Virginia Board of Education will provide a statewide system of education that ensures all students graduate from high school prepared for success in high-quality postsecondary opportunities in college and/or careers.

The future quality of life for the citizens of West Virginia is directly linked to the performance of our students. Today's students are tomorrow's wage earners and tax payers. Low student achievement levels, decreasing graduation rates and ranking among the nation's lowest levels of post-secondary transition are all bleak predictors of West Virginia's future. We must strive to prepare our graduates to meet the requirements of high quality jobs needed within West Virginia and nationally. In addition to career preparedness, many systemic public issues like obesity, drug dependence, teen pregnancy, and crime are statistically linked to the overall level of education. Thus, unless our education system improves and our young people are prepared to be productive and responsible members of our society, the state will have decreasing resources to support the infra-structure and services essential to attracting economic growth and elevating the overall quality of life of its citizens.

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Subgroup Intervention for Low SES
Subgroup Intervention for SWD

The West Virginia Support for Personalized
Learning (SPL) framework is a state-wide initiative that suggests flexible use of resources to provide relevant academic, social/emotional and/or behavioral support to enhance learning for ALL students.
SPL is designed to improve outcomes for students with a variety of academic and behavioral needs.

SPL incorporates and builds on processes formerly implemented as RTI.

SPL, at its strongest, will look different for each student.
SPL, at its strongest, will be customized for each district, school and classroom.

SPL is characterized by a seamless system of high quality instructional practices allowing all students to make significant progress:
• at-risk,
• exceeding grade level expectations
• or at any point along the continuum.

The SPL framework supports shared responsibility between general and special education teachers for the learning outcomes of all students.

Standard 3: Standards-Focused Curriculum, Instruction and Assessments
Function C: Instructional Planning:
Teachers design long and short term instructional plans for guiding student mastery of the Content Standards and Objectives based on the needs, interests and performance levels of their students.

CORE
• Provides foundation of curriculum and school organization that has a high probability (80% of students responding) of bringing students to a high level of achievement in all areas of development/content
• Choose curricula that has evidence of producing optimal levels of achievement (evidence-based curriculum)
TARGETED
• Supplemental curriculum aligned with CORE and designed to meet the specific needs of targeted group (15%)
INTENSIVE
• Focused curriculum designed to meet the specific needs of the targeted group and/or individual (5% )

• Utilizes differentiated and scaffolded instruction to meet students’ needs
• Incorporates small group activities
• Focuses on the most critical standards and objectives
• Utilizes evidence from summative and ongoing formative assessment to make instructional decisions
• Maximizes instructional time ; students are engaged
• Emphasizes 24/7 learning

ESEA Flexibility Waiver
Menu of Interventions
•

“
Architect, Ron Mace

Principle 1
Principle 2
Principle 3
Action and
Expression Engagement Representation
Presenting information and course content in
Allowing students alternatives to express
Stimulating students' interests and multiple formats so that all students can access it or demonstrate their learning motivation for learning in a variety of ways http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/udl/udl_02.html
23

Traditional Goal: The students will read the textbook chapter about and write in cursive a 400-word report on the consequences of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
+
 Clearly stated
 Observable
 Measurable and
 Aligned with gradelevel standards
UDL Questions
 Representation barriers?
 Action and expression barriers?
 Engagement issues?
24

How often do we create learning goals that limit the means by which students can achieve the goal?
The new UDL goal becomes: The students will learn about and present information about the consequences of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
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TARGETED Support
SPL endorses the value of instructional supports at the
TARGETED level including:
– Differentiating, scaffolding and using multi-modal strategies to engage students
– Providing explicit instruction that emphasizes skill building as well as contextualized instruction that emphasizes application of skills
– Peer interaction to scaffold student understanding
– Teacher use of learning progressions within the standards and objectives as guidance for constructing scaffolding
– Accommodations that affect how a student learns, not what they are expected to learn

ESEA Flexibility Waiver
Menu of Interventions
•

DI involves
• Giving students a range of ways to access curriculum, instruction, and assessment;
• Interacting and participating in the classroom; demonstrating and expressing what they learn; and
• Understanding and taking in information.

Differentiated instruction is based on the assumptions that students differ in their
learning styles, needs, strengths, and abilities, and that classroom activities should be adapted to meet these differences.

• Front end and back end scaffolding
• Presenting information and course content in multiple formats so that all students can access it
• Allowing students alternatives to express or demonstrate their learning
• Stimulating students' interests and motivation for learning in a variety of ways
• Utilizing Bloom’s Taxonomy based on learner level of understanding
• Assigning activities geared to different learning styles and interests

Providing Access to the Core

INTENSIVE Support
SPL endorses the value of instructional supports at the
INTENSIVE level including:
– Intensified scaffolding and time: suggested to occur 3 to 5 times per week for class sessions of 30 to 60 minutes
– Smaller groups of similarly-skilled and needs-alike students or one-to-one
– Most likely to occur outside the general education classroom
– May occur before, during or after the school day dependent on available resources and personnel.

SPL does not promote:
– INTENSIVE support replacing opportunity to receive instruction in science, social studies, physical education and the arts
– Isolated skill drill requiring students to independently make generalizations and connections back to the CORE content.

ESEA Flexibility Waiver
Menu of Interventions
•

An instructional technique, in which the teacher breaks a complex task into smaller tasks, models the desired learning strategy or task, provides support as student learn to do the task and then gradually shifts responsibility to the students. In this manner, a teacher enables students to accomplish as much of a task as possible without adult assistance.

• Picture of the path students typically follow as they learn.
• The college and career readiness anchor standards are the focal point for the learning trajectories embedded in the
RLA NxGCSO document.
• The grade-specific standards provide guidance to all K-12 teachers regarding the special role that each grade level teacher holds in establishing the building blocks for the more complex learning to come.
• The learning progressions articulated in the RLA NxGCSOs are useful verbal descriptions of how learning is expected to progress over time.

• Learning progressions are the picture of the path students typically follow as they learn.
• The learning progressions in mathematics are not vertically aligned by anchor standards as in RLA but are vertically centered on individual topics.
• Learning progressions move from one topic to another, objectives need to be mastered, and standards are interwoven and interdependent.
• One objective impacts many and many objectives impact one.

In SPI, Cognitive Strategies Instruction is described as a specific form of scaffolding that supports learners in using thinking processes that are typically overt and even sub-conscious for highly skilled users.
While many learners independently work their way to successful management of these cognitive processes, others have been found to benefit from instructional supports, customized to their personal needs.

ESEA Flexibility Waiver
Menu of Interventions
•

 According to W. James Popham
– “ Formative assessment is a planned process in which teachers and students use assessmentbased evidence to adjust what they’re currently doing.”
 According to FAST SCASS (
State Collaboratives on Assessment and Student Standards)
– “Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.”

Audio
Digital text

• WV Data
– WESTEST2 Read Aloud Accommodation 2013 - 18,926
– August 2011- 292 students AIM served
– August 2012- 611 students AIM served
– August 2013-749 students AIM served
 Physical Disability: 38%
 Visual Disability: 16%
 Learning Disability: 47%
• National Studies
– Statistical Probability 2% - 4% – 5,643 - 11,285

WVDE AIM Website http://wvde.state.wv.us/osp/accessiblematerials.html

Practice Profiles may be used as:
– An informational resource
– A way to measure implementation
– Tools to assist with planning and school improvement

Based on the six components of SPL
– Leadership
– School Climate and Culture
– Teams and Processes
– Family and Community Partnerships
– Assessment
– Curriculum and Instruction

Thank You for Your Attention!
If you need further assistance you can contact the Office of Special Programs.