Episode Details

Happy Thursday!

We have a short week and a long weekend due to Good Friday. I hope you have had a good week despite the sadness that came from the loss of one of our students. Amanda Tolbert’s funeral was today. Despite the somber mood, it was very good to see many of our school staff attending to offer support and condolences to the family. Many staff members have poured their time, energy, and emotion into that situation, and the district thanks them for that effort. Even though we are suffering heartache over losing a student, it does not deter our mission that is set for so many more students now and in the future.

According to our district goals data, our efforts in the classrooms and offices continue on the same trends as they were before Spring Break. Attendance and discipline have been updated to include the weeks before and after Spring Break. Attendance rates remain close to the same and we are continuing to beat our goal for discipline. Our reading goal will be updated by the 18th, which is when our next board meeting will be.

In this week’s Wrap-up, I will continue with more of the vision for the state from Secretary Oliva and update you on further developments with our salary schedule and the new minimum.

Vision for Education in Arkansas

Secretary of Education, Jacob Oliva, spent a couple of hours with superintendents and business managers at the coop to outline his vision for the state. Last week, I wrote about what he plans for ELA. This week, I will share his message about math and the new Value-Added Growth report.

Math

Many of us remember how Common Core Math created a lot of controversies and how much of that was related to how math instruction changed to meet the new standards. The strategies used to teach math have evolved to become more conceptual in order to help students understand how numbers work. There were some side effects to this. First, parents did not understand the strategies because, in the past, we were taught procedures for math. Our new strategies were confusing and many parents could not help their children. Second, the focus on concepts decreased math fluency practice and many basic math skills have been diminished. Our students are not as capable of using math facts as quickly and accurately as they need to in order to be prepared for work and life.

Based on this information, the Secretary has charged our state department staff with rebuilding math standards and, just as with ELA, assessing those standards according to what students should have learned and constantly progress monitor. The standards will have a balance between math concepts and fluency and they will be expressed in a way that is easily understood by parents.

Value-Added Growth

The Secretary had the data scientists and code writers at the department create a data dashboard for schools to use. The dashboard is much more robust than the reports we have from the ACT Aspire even though it uses the same data. After the ACT Aspire, the dashboard will use the data from the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System (ATLAS).

The dashboard will display data in graphs and tables to help us understand the academic growth of a school, a student, and a teacher. We will be able to pinpoint areas of excellence and areas of need at every level. It will be a powerful tool for data-based decision-making. Here are a few slides with examples of the data display and types. I also think that based on the way this system is designed that it will be what the state uses to pay its performance bonuses