Idaho Ed News recently published an article titled Horseshoe Bend Buys into Data-Driven Approach to Instruction. In it reporter Clark Corbin shared how Horseshoe Bend Elementary invested in Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®), a growth assessment that they administered to students three times a year – fall, winter, and spring – to help them improve their two-star rating on Idaho’s five-star accountability system. When school administrators realized they didn’t have any real measure of growth, they concluded that they needed MAP and the actionable data it provided to achieve an educational transformation.
Using data from the first two MAP tests, educators were able to determine where students were in their learning, and perhaps more importantly, where their skills deficiencies were.
As the article states:
Two of the biggest roadblocks [educators] observed were a reluctance to deviate from the status quo and uncertainty about data. So they flipped their perception of data on its head. Instead of looking at data as a way to punish or a way to quantify where schools fall short, folks in Horseshoe Bend look at data as a strategy guide to the areas where they can help students improve.
We talked to Superintendent Dennis Chesnut, who shared that this new approach to data use required a cultural change. “When data suggests that students are not growing and achieving the way that we had hoped, it’s uncomfortable. We tried to emphasize that this isn’t a stick. We need to find out what’s going on here – is it curriculum, is it instruction, or is it both?”
Chesnut also noted that school leaders “had to eliminate that fear of repercussions when the data isn’t where we would like it.”
Idaho Ed News reported on this new approach:
Based on new MAP test data, teachers [like Cora Larson] provide ‘surgical level intervention’ on specific skill gaps.
The article also noted that during the 2015-2016 school year, the school’s second graders recorded median conditional growth in reading in the 97th percentile nationwide. The first graders scored reading growth in the 92nd percentile, and the third graders in the 94th percentile.
While data can often seem daunting and sometimes intimidating, actionable assessment data from the MAP assessment delivers valuable insights. Educational transformations, such as the one Horseshoe Bend Elementary achieved using MAP growth data, can come about through various strategies. Some of the ways that schools and educators use actionable assessment data include:
- To compare and predict student achievement
- As a universal screener and for RTI placement
- For differentiated instruction (like what Horseshoe Bend did)
- For student goal setting
- To predict proficiency on state and national assessments
Teachers depend on MAP data to help them streamline teaching strategies and provide differentiated instruction, and to create flexible grouping across the classroom. School and district leaders use MAP data to evaluate programs and monitor school and student performance relative to growth, proficiency, and norms. District decision makers rely on MAP data to aid in resource management, help determine performance trends by grade and school, and compare local student achievement to the national scale. MAP data can help all of these stakeholders make the tough decisions necessary to improve student learning.
As Chesnut pointed out, reliable data helps “find out where we funnel our scarce resources to fill gaps.”
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