Debate over Leveling Continues

The Board of Education held a one-hour workshop on leveling on Tuesday, June 2, before its regularly scheduled meeting. The discussion centered on a few key points that Board members kept coming back to: what does the research say; how does discipline fit into the picture; are our teachers properly trained; and what is the connection between CMT scores, tier I, II and III intervention, and the current leveling policy.

Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, John Hennelly, advised the Board that his research has demonstrated that “the longer we delay leveling, the better.” Board member Jay Keiser asked for clarification on what the Superintendent was proposing for next year for sixth grade: “so you’re recommending that we remove leveling for Language Arts, and keep Math as it is until the teachers are trained.” “Yes,” answered Hennelly.

Sally Boske commented that when she was President of the Middletown Schools Association (MSA) several years ago, the parents involved with that organization did their own research and concluded then that de-leveling was the way to go. She thanked Hennelly and the rest of the administration for their leadership efforts in this direction, saying she supports the effort to de-level for 6th grade.

Sheila Daniels asked about discipline: specifically, what program is in place to address discipline consistently from pre-K through high school? “Behavior sets the tone for learning,” she commented, and “behavioral issues affect everyone in the classroom.” Keigwin Principal Tracey Koff spoke of the social skills class that all students take, but Daniels commented that social skills are not the same concept as general behavior, and that we should want “willing and ready learners” who don’t disrupt the rest of the classroom. Principal Koff then commented that one of her summer projects is to look at the school climate model to see how it can be improved. Later on in the discussion, Board member Corinne Gill returned to the discipline topic by asking why Keigwin’s suspensions have increased dramatically from last year, and why Koff believes discipline will improve if classes are mixed and not leveled. Koff answered that she will work on the school climate model, and that when teachers are trained to differentiate better, the students will have better engagement with their peers and this will improve behavior overall. Principal Koff also stated that there are several opportunities for parents to partner with the school in behavior management/development.

Bill Boyd asked if last year’s improved CMT scores for 5th graders have resulted in better class performance for current 6th graders, or if there was even a way to measure this relationship. He was told that there is some correlation to the benchmarks measured 3 times during the school year, but that the state’s measurements don’t necessarily correspond to where the curriculum is at. Assistant Superintendent Barbara Senges stated that last year, there was an 11% increase district wide from the 4th grade scores to the 5th grade schools (i.e. 5th graders scored 11 points higher than they did in 4th grade). Since the CMTs measure how well students are learning the curriculum, the interpretation of those results is that our district is improving as required by No Child Left Behind: better scores mean students are learning the curriculum better, so teachers are doing a better job instructing, so students have a better and deeper understanding of the material. When this year’s results come out in July, the important questions will be: are those same students continuing to improve and are they improving at the same rate? However, since there are many variables between 5th grade and 6th grade that change, it will be hard to make a straight comparison. What the front office will probably look at is 1) the percentage of students who improve, who stay the same, and who decrease their scores from the previous year, and 2) has the percentage of kids scoring in level 5 (advanced) increased and the percentage scoring in level 1 decreased (below basic).

Corinne Gill asked for an explanation of the terminology used to describe CMT results, tier I, II, and III interventions and leveling (FYI – everyone else in the audience has been wondering that for a while…). Here it is, and the important thing to get is that one has nothing to do with the other:

The CMT (Connecticut Mastery Test) “is designed to measure student performance in the areas of mathematics, reading and writing. The assessment focuses on content that is reasonable to expect students at each grade to master. On the CMT, students are not compared to one another in terms of performance; rather, student performance is compared to an absolute standard of specific learning goals and objectives. These goals and objectives are identified by the Connecticut curriculum frameworks. The frameworks guide educators throughout Connecticut in designing instructional programs across all grades to bring about continued improvement in student achievement. Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation now requires states to administer a statewide assessment to all public school students in Grades 3 through 8 in reading and writing. To meet this mandate, Connecticut will expand the CMT test population from Grades 4, 6 and 8 to Grades 3 through 8 in the spring of 2006.” (From the Connecticut Mastery Test Fourth Generation Language Arts Handbook, published by the CT State Dept of Education).

• There are five levels of CMT scores to distinguish how a child is doing: Level 1 is below basic, Level 2 is basic, Level 3 is proficient (or APY, appropriate yearly progress), Level 4 is goal, and Level 5 is above goal.
• Middletown has chosen to cooperate with the CALI Program: Connecticut Accountability for Learning Initiative. This state-run program is designed to “to support the process of continuous school and district improvement and to accelerate the closing of Connecticut’s achievement gaps.” (Click here for more information on CALI.) Tier I instruction is the basic instruction that every child receives. If a student has scored at level 3, 4 or 5 on his or her CMTs, Tier I instruction is all that is required. However, for students who have scored Levels 1 or 2 on their CMTs in math and/or language arts, Middletown is mandated to provide additional instruction time in language arts and/or math. This additional instruction time is referred to as Tier III or II intervention, respectively. Tier III intervention requires an additional period of instruction daily and Tier II requires 2-3 additional periods of instruction per week. So, for example, if a student has scored Level I in both math and language arts, he or she would have to take 10 math periods of instruction and 10 language arts periods of instruction per week, while a child scoring at level 3 or above in both subjects would only have 5 periods of each subject in a week.
• On the subject of leveling, as it currently exists, the advanced 6th grade classes have children who have scored between a 3 and a 5 on their CMTs. According to Mr. Hennelly, only 5 of 30 advanced math students scored a 5 on their CMT and 6 of 30 in language arts scored a 5 on their CMT. Ideally, the eligibility criteria for “advanced classes” would be that a student scores a 5 on his or her CMT. This standard is currently not in place for the “advanced classes” designation.
• Keigwin and Woodrow Wilson are working on a new schedule that allows for two contiguous periods of instruction in math and language arts with the same teacher per day. This class period would last 85-90 minutes, and would focus on leveled reading (meaning each students reads material appropriate for the level at which they read, so everyone isn’t reading the same book, etc.), working in small groups, etc. Students who have to have Level II or III intervention in math and/or language arts will take the same 5 core classes as everyone else, but will not be able to take a world language, and possibly not music and/or educational technology to allow for the additional instruction time required by CALI.
  
  The workshop ended at 7pm, and there were still lingering questions from several BOE members. There will be another workshop on June 16th at 6pm to continue the discussion on leveling.

Still no easy solution for Moody School

Assistant Superintendent Barbara Senges began the regular BOE meeting with a report on the District Data Team. Because Middletown is one of 15 districts identified as needing improvement under CALI, there are mandated District, School and Instructional Improvement Plans, and the State monitors the progress of these plans twice a year. Middletown just met with State representatives, presentations were made on the school improvement plans at all three levels (elementary, middle and secondary) and a report will be sent to the Commissioner of Education on Middletown’s progress. “I sit in awe when I listen to the work going on in our schools and how much has been accomplished in such a short time,” commented Senges. The State report essentially qualifies Middletown’s progress as “amazing” and “an example for other districts.” There will be some revisions to the Year 2 Plans just because items from Year 1 were not finished, and Senges invited all interested parties to attend the final District Data Team meeting of the year on Thursday, June 11, from 9am-3pm.

During the public session, parent Kevin Smith commented that he still hasn’t heard the Board discuss how de-leveling benefits the advanced students. There has been much discussion about how under-achieving students improve, but nothing about what happens to the advanced kids. Mr. Smith asked for more information on how the “advanced” students are currently performing: what are their scores? How are they performing in class? What will a “de-leveled” day look like? What will the small groupings look like and what will they do? Has the administration actually talked to the advanced students and asked them what they think about the proposal? Is it OK that in 5th grade, “advanced students” didn’t actually have homework because they did it in class while the teacher was working with other students? Should advanced students be required to tutor other students for part of a class instead of receiving a full period of instruction? What is the District’s plan to improve discipline so that class interruptions are minimized?

Izzi Greenberg, Executive Director for NEAT (North End Action Team), spoke for the many NEAT members in attendance, and again worried that the Board would make a poor decision in its haste to find a solution for Moody’s overcrowding by the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year: “No child should be moved twice…don’t be pressured into a decision until the final [JCJ Architecture] report is due…if doing nothing is not a good solution, move as few children as few times as possible…disjointing a disjointed neighborhood is not OK…be thoughtful…all schools will be better off if you’re patient.”

Christine, a parent at Bielefield Elementary School, thanked the BOE for including parents in its visioning study, and commented that parents generally have a lack of knowledge about the District as a whole. She urged the Board to use “best practice” standards to make its decisions, and hoped that all parents would have a chance to take the surveys that JCJ handed out at its public outreach sessions. She also commented that she was surprised at BOE Chair Ted Raczka’s behavior at the last meeting: “I’ve never seen a Chair so angry at his colleagues, and I didn’t think that was very professional.” Finally, she argued that behavior is a real issue and that schools who are successful “expect children to behave.”

Another parent, Ellen, who had participated on the committee on leveling expressed her frustration over the committee’s dissolution without any concrete results. She specifically asked her daughter, who is in special education for reading, what she thought about the end of leveling, and her daughter replied, “why would they do that? There are already behavior problems, and the smart kids would also be a problem because they would just be bored.” Ellen also asked how a teacher has enough time in the period to effectively differentiate for ALL students to challenge ALL at the same time, adding that it was NOT OK for the brighter students to spend half the period tutoring their classmates instead of receiving a full period of instruction.

Pete Gordell, a 20 year Middletown resident, asked why the Board’s discussion hasn’t focused on how the district is going to raise the rigor of its curriculum. Since the Superintendent commented at the beginning of the meeting that 22% of Middletown students don’t go on to post-secondary instruction, what is the District doing to encourage more kids to go to college, and providing advanced classes as soon as possible to get kids to make this decision? Gordell also stated that very few teachers can span effectively the very large gap between below basic learners and advanced learners, so why is that approach our focus?

The final speaker in the public session was a special education teacher at Keigwin who touched on the implications of the new schedule for next year. While she supports the data team process and the team concept as an effective model, the new schedule gives teachers the opposite of what they asked for, and makes their job for next year impossible. Instead of frequent meetings (1-2 times per week) for Instructional Team time, Data Team meetings are scheduled for every day and Instructional Team time is scheduled for 3 times per month. “This new schedule will eliminate team progess.”

Mr. Smalley from JCJ Architecture gave an update on the district utilization study, but he had little to recommend that would substantially relieve the burden on Moody School. “If the goal is not to move students in the short term just to move them again for the long term solution, then there is not much to do in the short term.” There are two neighborhoods that stand out as likely candidates for a move this next school year that would match what the long term suggestion would be: Rose Circle and Grand Street. Essentially, 24 students could move from Moody to Macdonough, and 12 students would move from Macdonough to Spencer (but these moves would not address the racial imbalance issues at Macdonough). Several BOE members immediately rejected that suggestion as not dramatic enough to relieve Moody’s overcrowding issues, and expressed their disappointment that there wasn’t a solution that could relieve Moody’s overcrowding AND address the racial imbalance issues at Macdonough. This discussion was then tabled until the June 16th meeting to give the Superintendent time to consider what staffing changes could be made at Moody to solve some problems for next year.

The rest of the meeting dealt with by-laws changes and committee reports. As of Friday, May 29th, the State of CT had yet to apply for Federal Stimulus funds, and June 16th is the next important date in that process. Superintendent Michael Frechette commented that he has long list of things to spend the stimulus money on if it ever gets handed out.

There was a decent scuffle about whether or not the Superintendent could spend down surplus funds without the BOE’s specific approval. There is a workshop scheduled for this summer to develop a policy on how line-item transfers are accomplished, but until then, the Superintendent argued that he didn’t need specific BOE approval to spend down the surplus because time was of the essence and he didn’t have to ask for such permission in the past. BOE member Ryan Kennedy asked about purchasing some of next year’s budget line items NOW, with surplus funds, to free up money for new staff at Moody next year. Assistant Superintendent Barbara Senges asked to be able to meet with Moody’s principal about changing staff around instead of just throwing money at the problem. In the end, the BOE allowed the Superintendent to spend down the surplus as he proposed (I didn’t get to see that paper, but I heard afterwards that at least $100,000 went to pay for athletic uniforms, etc. that were not part of next year’s budget).

The School Budget was not on the agenda, and several BOE members wondered why not. Since the Town Council only finalized its budget last Friday, Frechette didn’t have enough time to put the budget on the agenda before the meeting (the BOE wants meeting agendas finalized 1 ½ - 2 weeks ahead of a scheduled meeting). The Board voted to have a special meeting on June 9th after the District retirement party to discuss and/or vote on the budget.

Sally Boske asked the Board to correct an illegal action it took at the last meeting. Since that last meeting was a special meeting, no action could be taken or voted on. Technically, the 2 1-hour workshops on leveling are therefore illegal, so the Board voted to recind its motion from last week. However, several board members also complained that the public expects the meeting, so a motion was passed to have a special meeting on leveling on June 16th.