Palm Beach County:
Extending Proficiency to the
‘Less Advantaged’
In 1999 Dr. Alison Adler, Chief of Safety and
Learning Environment, introduced Efficacy to
the School District of Palm Beach County,
FL. At the outset,
two schools
adopted it as their
primary reform
model. Based on
the early impact of
Efficacy on student
achievement, Dr.
Adler contracted
the Efficacy
Institute to certify
Rose Backhus as an
in-house Efficacy
trainer. After an
intensive train-thetrainer process,
Backhus
immediately
engaged a third school in implementing the
Efficacy concepts and tools.
Palm Beach County is known as a place of
great wealth; what is less known is that it's a
place where many people also struggle
financially. Traditionally, its public schools have
shown the same pattern, with some schools
dramatically outperforming others. Dr. Adler
and others decided that situation needed to
change-that proficiency should indeed
characterize both sides of the tracks. Using
Efficacy, they proved it could be done.
The following pages show the data that got
the attention of Dr. Alison Adler; they
describe what educators were taught in
Efficacy training
and how they
implemented it
back in their
classrooms; and
they explain
where the
School District
of Palm Beach
County has now
decided to take
Efficacy-to an
additional 39
schools in the
district.
The Impact of Efficacy
on Student Achievement
Three schools have already proven that the
Efficacy approach works. After two years of
implementation, the three Efficacy schools
have demonstrated significant improvement
on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment
Test (FCAT)-the state's primary tool to
measure students' achievement of its
Sunshine State Standards. It was these results
that spurred the school district to use Efficacy
as the core of an innovative and
comprehensive approach to accelerate the
achievement of Palm Beach County's children
to state standards.
©2004 The Efficacy Institute. Inc.
Based on FCAT performance, the state of Florida
gives a letter grade to each of its schools. Efficacy
schools accelerated student achievement and
thus dramatically improved their gradesSeminole Trails Elementary moved, in one
academic year, from a state grade of 'C' to an 'A'.
Seminole Trails is a Title I school, serving a student
population who speak at least 33 different
languages/dialects.
C.O. Taylor/Kirklane
Elementary moved from a "C" to a "B" after
two years, and is also a Title I school with 71% of
its students receiving free and reduced lunch.
The table below shows the percentage of
students who achieved proficiency or higher on
the FCAT. Gains in the Efficacy schools exceeded
the district's improvement, most dramatically in
Math. From 2000-2003, Efficacy schools achieved
an average 25-point gain in the percentage of
students scoring at or above the proficient level in
Math, compared to the district's 3-point gain in
the same period. Each Efficacy school also
exceeded the district's gains in the percentage of
students achieving proficiency or higher in
Reading and Writing.
Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test1
(FCAT)
Percentage of Students Proficient & Above
(Scoring Level 3 or Higher)
20002 2003 Change Dist.
r
C.O.Taylor/Kirklane
Gr. 4 Reading
35%
52%
+17
+10
Gr. 4 Writing
78%
93%
+15
+14
Gr. 5 Math
54%
50%
-4
+3
At Village Academy Center, Backhus trained
her first group of educators in the Efficacy
approach, making it the third Efficacy school
and the first to be trained by a certified inhouse Palm Beach County trainer. Village
Academy Center, where 99% of students
qualify for free and reduced lunch,
demonstrated strong gains in student
achievement after the first year. In one year,
third graders achieved a 15-point gain in
Reading, and a 12-point gain in Math in the
same time period.
Village Academy Center
Percentage of 3rd3 Graders Scoring
Proficient & Above
2002
2003
Change District
Change
Reading
17%
32%
+15
+3
Math
13%
25
+12
+7
20002 2003 Change Dist.
r
Seminole Trails
Gr. 4 Reading
40%
55%
+15
+10
Gr. 4 Writing
60%
90%
+30
+14
Gr. 5 Math
38%
60%
+22
+3
1
FCAT categorizes Reading, Writing and Math scores into five achievement levels, with Level 1 being the lowest. We have chosen to
highlight Grade 4 Reading, and Grade 5 Math because students also complete performance tasks, an important component of the FCAT
demonstrating that proficient children also have application skills.
2 2000 is baseline year for the Efficacy Initiative. Data taken from the "Gold Report."
3 Village Academy Center began as a K-2 school in 2000. It is now a K-5, adding on a new grade level each school year. 2002 FCAT data
is available for select grade levels/subject areas at this school, and the school has not yet been given a state grade (no fourth/fifth grade
2002 data is available).
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©2004 The Efficacy Institute. Inc.
don't, then I have to go at it a different way."
She also tells her kids, "If I teach it to you the
first time and you don't get it; it's okay. I just
have to figure out a different way to teach it
to you."
The results were achieved using the Efficacy
approach. Specifically, educators:
u Embraced the Efficacy belief-Effective
Effort controls learning,
u Met in weekly teacher team meetings
using the Data/Feedback/Strategy Method
to direct their strategies, and
Principal Agartha Gragg at Kirklane believes
that Efficacy has greatly reduced the number
of teachers who "associate their class list with
the makeup of how much the kids are going to
know this year." At the beginning of the year,
it's now rare to hear 'Look at my class list; I
have the lowest kids.' Dawn Reeves, the
Exceptional Student Education (ESE)
Coordinator, at Kirklane, recalls, "Some
teachers didn't want to accept it [the Efficacy
belief] at first, but analyzing the data and
developing goals, then seeing the outcome, is
what has won them over." The attitude that
'it's the kid, not me' no longer exists among
"efficacized" educators.
u Taught students Efficacy concepts and
tools to empower them to manage their
own learning process.
Efficacy Training
The Efficacy Belief
During initial Efficacy training, educators wrestle
with the question, "Is 'smart' a fixed characteristic,
or can people 'get smart'?" Educators examine
how their answer to this question influences the
practices they use to educate children; do their
curriculum and instructional practices "rank and
sort" them, or are they designed to "accelerate all
children to a high standard?" In the Efficacy
approach teachers embrace the mindset that
what they do has a direct impact on the results
students get; this mindset has a profound impact
on their actions.
Data & Feedback: The Navigation
Tools
Efficacy's
Self-Directed
Improvement
System™ (SDIS™) gives teachers a method
for putting the Efficacy belief into action. The
SDIS puts the work of improvement directly
in the hands of educators and students, so
they demonstrate to themselves that
constructive beliefs about learning capacity,
plus clear objectives and the powerful use of
data, lead to improved results in student
achievement of proficiency.
According to Dr. Adler, "Staff learn to accept
the research that virtually all students have
the cognitive skills to perform at high levels
and that if they are not, it is not the students,
it is the instruction." Kathleen Hartman,
fourth grade teacher at C.O. Taylor/Kirklane
Elementary, agrees with the research, "Some
kids will get it the first time and for those who
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©2004 The Efficacy Institute. Inc.
The (Self-Directed Improvement System)
SDIS is a proven tool to accelerate student
achievement. The SDIS requires three essential
components:
Efficacy
Implementation in the
Schools
1. Clear academic targets for each
subject (what students should
know and be able to do by the
end of the year).
In Palm Beach County, the Grade Level
Expectations for the Sunshine State
Standards are the targets.
2.
Teacher Team Meetings:
the Real Work Gets Done
Where
With the belief that virtually all children have
enough intelligence to develop at high levels,
teachers develop their skill at using data to
accelerate student achievement. Specifically,
they use Efficacy's Data/Feedback/Strategy
Method to make their instructional decisions.
A set of tracking devices to assess
whether they are actually on course
to hit the targets.
Palm Beach County periodically administers a
variety of assessments that track students'
progress against the Grade Level
Expectations.
Recently in Palm Beach County, Efficacy
Institute staff had the opportunity to sit and
listen as a team of teachers engaged in one of
their weekly scheduled meetings-Learning
Team Meetings. What follows is a description
of a teacher team meeting, taken from
Institute staff notes, which was organized to
use the D/F/S Method on data from a
quarterly test aligned to the year-end targets.
3. A tool for making mid-course
corrections throughout the year's
journey toward the targets
(Efficacy's Data/Feedback/Strategy
(D/F/S) Method).
Efficacy Schools in Palm Beach County use
the D/F/S Method in Learning Team Meetings
to drive their strategies for continuous
improvement toward the targets.
There was a slight pause when Efficacy staff
entered the meeting, but the teachers
seamlessly resumed their focus and
discussion. A fourth grade team of teachers
sat together to examine their class results
on the first quarterly test of the school
year. With the actual test and classroom
data report in hand, these teachers engaged
in a thoroughly professional discussion of
instructional strategy.
Using the Self-Directed Improvement System,
adults and children alike learn that success in
the improvement process, now and for the
rest of their lives, is based on the quality of
their own effort-and is therefore under their
own control.
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©2004 The Efficacy Institute. Inc.
The Efficacy observers saw teachers openly
sharing their students' scores, and studying
their classroom data to discover patterns.
The youngest teacher in the group assumed
a leadership role, at times clarifying the
concept or skill being assessed by a test
question-with acquiescence from the rest
of the team. These professional educators
accepted student scores as evidence of the
effectiveness (or current lack thereof) of
their own instructional strategies and were
open to exploring different strategies.
Efficacy staff was impressed by the team's
trust and their sustained focus-each
teacher performed an in-depth analysis of
the data, shared teaching strategies, and
most importantly, demonstrated ownership
of student results.
Once a week at the elementary level, and
every other week at the secondary level,
educators use the D/F/S Method in Learning
Team Meetings to refine and adjust their
strategies. Teachers work together to make
meaning of the data-to formulate feedback
about the underlying patterns in what
students got right and wrong, and hone in on
what students need to work on to improve.
Feedback then directs their strategies for
improving student achievement.
Principal Jan Starr at Seminole Trails, describes
the effect, "Efficacy makes teachers look at
what they're doing…when you analyze data,
and see where your weaknesses and strengths
are, and you adjust your strategies to meet the
needs of teaching that skill or that individual
child, you achieve." Not as simple as it might
sound.
Many teachers have years of
experience in which data was used to label,
compare, evaluate and even to blame them;
therefore they resist it. Rather than feeling
judged by the data, or afraid of being
compared or labeled by their colleagues,
Efficacy helps teachers understand that data is
a tool to improve their skills and consequently,
student learning.
Nancy Pullum, Assistant Principal at Seminole
Trails, says just a few years ago her teachers
were not finding where students were making
mistakes, nor talking about strategies, and now
they "can't imagine teaching without this
information." During team meetings, teachers
zero-in on students' weaknesses (specific
concepts and/or skills students missed), and
then share instructional strategies (best
practices), i.e., if one of the classrooms were
otherwise strong in the identified areas of
weakness, that teacher explains how s/he
actually taught it to their class. This exchange
often takes the form of 'here's what I did to
teach that,' followed by 'oh, I'll try that'.
During team meetings every team member's
contribution is wanted and valued; mutual
respect crosses age and years of experience.
The former principal at Village Academy, Gale
Fulford, recalls that some staff members at
first resisted Efficacy. However, they agreed to
come to teacher-team meetings, administer
common assessments across the grade levels,
and just as important, be respectful to each
other. After one-year of making instructional
decisions using the Data/Feedback/Strategy
Method in 90-minute weekly team meetings,
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©2004 The Efficacy Institute. Inc.
Village Academy made improvements in
student achievement. "These meetings once a
week is sacred time," according to Backhus,
and are central to the process of accelerating
student achievement. The school's present
principal, Tammy Ferguson, is continuing the
change process started by the former
principal, and says her job is to make sure
"teachers know they can make student
achievement happen" and that's evident when
they move from saying 'what do you expect
[with these kids]' to 'what do we do about it.'
According to Patricia Bagan, Assistant Principal
at Kirklane, Efficacy has totally changed the
team meetings. They are no longer about
teachers' issues, concerns or chats about
lunchroom duty, school supplies or other
unrelated issues. "The team meetings now
have a student achievement focus…teachers
are sharing teaching strategies with each
other." The focus on data has also impacted
parent-teacher conferences at this school;
they use only data, not subjective information
about the student. Principal Gragg shares that
the typical approach with parents sounds like
'this is where your son is right now. This is
where we want him to be. This is how we are
helping him.'
Efficacy for Students
Teaching Efficacy to students puts strategies
for success directly in their hands; like their
teachers, they too learn how to become selfdirected. Efficacy builds students' confidence
that their effective effort will pay off-when
they work, they will learn.
One fourth grade teacher at Seminole Trails,
Kristina Carmichael, tells her students that in
videogames, when they fail, they don't quit; in
school, when they fail a test, they must not quit
either. She helps her students turn their test
scores into valuable feedback, and describes
the change, "When my students would get a
test with a bad grade, they would rip it up and
throw it away, and my heart would break. My
students will not rip it up anymore; they don't
rip it up anymore because they have had
Efficacy. I say 'if you rip it up, you are throwing
away the most valuable learning tool you have
because it tells you what you already
know…and we're gonna work together to find
out what you don't know.'
Linda Froehlick, kindergarten teacher at
Seminole Trails, has instilled in her children the
Efficacy concept of Strong Side/Weak Side. "I
taught them that they have a Strong Side that
allows them to make choices, and that
behavior is a choice. Now if the kids see
someone off task or doing something they
shouldn't, they'll say, 'let your Strong Side do
the thinking; let your Strong Side do the
thinking.'
Efficacy helps students find answers to serious
questions such as: "Am I smart enough to do
this work?" "How do I get smarter?" "How
do I handle peer pressure?" The Efficacy
concepts
and
tools, including
the
Data/Feedback/Strategy Method, puts students
in control of their own learning-they become
self-directed learners.
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©2004 The Efficacy Institute. Inc.
Launching a DistrictWide Initiative
The Efficacy approach is expanding to 39
additional schools in the School District of Palm
Beach County. In addition, Efficacy will be a
central component of a training process being
offered to other Florida school districts through
a new state-of-the-art training facility slated to
open in summer 2004.
Going district-wide, the beliefs and practices of
Efficacy are at the heart of a process called Single
School Culture for Academics. Dr. Alison Adler,
Chief of Safety and Learning Environment,
developed the Single School Culture process and
is putting this multi-faceted, strategic approach
for getting results in the hands of Palm Beach
County educators. The Single School Culture
process ensures that the same high levels of
relationship building, and consistent and ethical
enforcement of rules (behavior) happen across a
whole school; that rigorous and motivating
practices are supported by the true belief that
students can develop and get smarter
(academics); and that all students believe that all
adults on their campus care about and for them
and are places of opportunity and promise-an
ethos of caring and inclusivity (climate).
"Efficacy is at the heart; it was the piece that
launched us, and we've added other pieces,"
says Dr. Alison Adler. The other two
components are Assessment Literacy, and
Standards in Practice. Assessment Literacy, an
approach developed by Dr. Rick Stiggins of the
Assessment Training Institute, focuses on
classroom assessments. Using his approach,
teachers learn how to assess for learning, i.e.,
how to create high quality assessments that
motivate students to learn, including student
involvement in the assessment process.
Standards in Practice, from Education Trust,
helps teachers develop more challenging
classroom assignments. Using its approach,
teachers strengthen the rigor of their
classroom assignments to prepare students to
meet the demands of local and state
standards.
This powerful process, called Single School
Culture for Academics, has many proponents
in the state of Florida and together, these
approaches are expected to help the
educators of Palm Beach County (and
beyond) achieve the mission of moving their
children to proficiency-or higher, over the
next three years.
To Be Continued…
Described in her own words, "Single School
Culture for Academics is not a program, but
rather a set of practices. These practices lead to
the development of students, staff and
administrators. Each person becomes stronger
academically through a relentless focus on
academic targets and sound strategizing."
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©2004 The Efficacy Institute. Inc.