"Teach" Documentary

Please join SLI in tuning in this Friday September 6, 2013 at 8pm to CBS to watch the documentary, "Teach" by Academy Award winning director, Davis Guggenheim.  The documentary follows four teachers in the journey to uncover, "What does it take to be a teacher?"

Focused Instruction Process: The Road to Success

Check out this video about how teachers transformed their schools using the Focused Instruction Process, lead by Strategic Learning Initiatives:

The Road to Success

SLI Model Recognized by CTU

The Chicago Teachers' Union issued the following press release today:

Parents and Community to blast CPS’ “turnaround model” at AUSL headquarters as school closings loom

Group to release proven alternative can save CPS and taxpayers millions while improving schools and scores

 

CHICAGO – On Thursday, May 16, parents and community members from the schools slated for ‘Turnaround’ by the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) are going to Chicago Academy High School/Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) Headquarters, 3400 N. Austin, at 12:45 p.m. to question why the district uses a program that causes instability for their children and costs millions for taxpayers is better than a less expensive, research-proven transformation with the teachers they know and trust. 

 

In the past month, four CPS Schools slated for “Turnaround” at the estimated cost of more than $1 million dollars per campus/per year have voted to ask the CPS to use an alternative model proven to be highly effective, research based, and costing only one-fifth as much as AUSL, the most frequently used option.  The turnaround strategy that the four schools are asked CPS to approve is called the CPS-SLI School Transformation Process.  It can be used as an alternative to an approach used in recent years by AUSL in which the entire faculty and leadership of a school is terminated and a new staff hired.  It costs approximately $1 million to implement the AUSL approach.

 

“Research has demonstrated the qualities that schools need to succeed,” said Jesse Sharkey, vice president of the Chicago Teacher’s Union.  “CPS has already invested in a transformation plan developed by Strategic Learning Initiatives (SLI) that embraces that research.  It is highly effective, already proven in CPS schools, and can save an enormous amount of money.  We urge CPS to embrace this option.  It will be excellent for the children, their families, their schools and their neighborhoods.”

 

CPS itself – with the help of the Chicago non-profit Strategic Learning Initiatives (SLI) – developed, funded, and demonstrated a viable alternative to the CPS-AUSL model during an eight-school, four-year demonstration project, over 2006-2010, with  high-poverty, low-performing schools.  These scores demonstrated significant turn around and showed sustained improvement.

 

One of these schools, Willa Cather Elementary on Chicago’s west side, was recognized as CPS’s most improved school out of 473 elementary schools based on ISAT Composite Score.   Cather received national attention when the US House of Representatives held a “Congressional Hearing on Turnaround Schools” in May, 2010. The Lead Witness featured the results of Cather and seven other schools that were part of the CPS-SLI Demonstration Project.

 

Schools chief executive Barbara Byrd-Bennett recently visited Willa Cather School Elementary in Garfield Park.  She cited Cather as an example of a high-performing school that had been chosen to become a “welcoming school” for some of the 51 schools CPS was closing because of excess capacity.

 

The six schools facing CPS-AUSL turnaround for next year are Barton, Carter, Dewey and O’Keeffe on the South Side and Chalmers and Lewis on the West Side.   The faculties at Barton, Carter, Dewey and Lewis have voted overwhelmingly use the CPS-Strategic Learning Initiatives rather than doing a AUSL turnaround plan.

 

Financially, the CPS-SLI model costs just one-fifth of the cost of the CPS-AUSL model and has shown as good or better results.  Additionally, this model provides children with continuity and stability at school by keeping the teachers who are often like second parents, especially to young children. It also produces creates more school leaders and is not disruptive for communities, students and families.  It empowers school staffs to improve instruction and to involve and engage parents.  It requires buy-in to the process from the bottom to the top of the CPS, from the teachers to the CPS leadership.  School staff become empowered to continuously improve their core processes, from classroom instruction to parent engagement to the leadership provided by the principal and leadership team.

 

For the cost of one CPS-AUSL school, CPS can fund five CPS-SLI schools. That would be five high-poverty, low-performing schools which could be leading their own turnaround strategy, and gaining all the related skills, rather than being fired and their valuable experience lost. 

 

The annual cost for the CPS-AUSL model is more than $1 million per school. (Designs for Change,“ Chicago’s Democratically-Led Elementary Schools Far Out Perform Chicago ‘Turnaround Schools,’” 2012  page 20. (www.designsforchange.org).  For Six Turnaround schools over three years the cost  totals $18 million. The CPS-SLI model is less than $200,000 a year. For six schools over three years the cost totals $3.6 million (www.cps.org  Board Reports, 2006-08). Over three years, the CPS-SLI model would save the CPS and taxpayers $14.4 million.

 

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Exercise Improves Memory

Did you know that there is a link between exercise and memory? Educators may have noticed a decrease in funding for sports teams, intramural activities and physical education. Perhaps this is related to standardized test scores?

This fascinating article from the NY Times sheds some light on the situation: Getting a Brain Boost through Exercise.

Noncognitive Measures

At SLI, we pride ourselves on our commitment to sharing research-based tools and strategies with our clients. 

Today we'd like to share a recent post from Education Database Online about noncognitive measures.  Author Alan Boyle offers information about alternative assessments and what we might expect to see in the future.

Read more about his research at the following link: Noncognitive Measures: The Academic Trend that Could Change Everything.

Job Opening - Family Engagement Team Member

Strategic Learning Initiatives, a not for profit education agency based in Chicago, who provides professional services to schools, is looking for a Family Engagement Trainer-Facilitator to provide workshops, modeling, leadership and support to parents/families in schools and organizations serviced by Strategic Learning Initiatives.

SLI is seeking a facilitator with excellent verbal and communications skills.  The candidate should have knowledge and skills related to delivering workshops and related services to families, the ability to work as a team player, skill in the use of personal computers and related software.  Bilingual Spanish or other second language proficiency is desired. Some travel is required. A high school diploma and one year of experience directly related to the duties and responsibilities is required.

Please email resume and a short cover letter indicating your qualifications and minimum salary requirements by March 18, 2013 to kmorris@strategiclearning.org No resumes will be considered without a salary history/minimum salary requirements

 You may learn more about SLI at www.strategiclearning.org.

NOW HIRING

Seeking: Professional Development Facilitators

Strategic Learning Initiatives is a not for profit educational consulting agency based in Chicago. We provide professional development to school staff, school administration and parents.  We are looking for professional development facilitators to assist in providing educational workshops, coaching, modeling and lesson design in current best practice educational strategies and processes that enhance student achievement.

Candidates must have excellent verbal and communication skills and the ability to work as a team player.  They must have a minimum of a Bachelors Degree in Education, five to seven years of classroom teaching/school administration experience, and experience in the design and delivery of workshops for educators. Some travel within Chicago, downstate Illinois and out of state will be required.  This is a part time position of approximately 8-12 days per month.

Please email a resume and short cover letter indicating your qualifications, salary history and minimum salary requirements to kmorris@strategiclearning.org.  No applications will be accepted without a salary history and minimum salary requirements.

Learn more about Strategic Learning Initiatives at www.strategiclearning.org

Our Results: AIR Report on FIP

Please read about our success via a report from the American Institute on Research: Validating the Impact of Strategic Learning Initiatives' Focused Instruction Process (FIP) Model by: Steven Leinwand and Sarah Edwards, 2009

Introduction

 

This report arises from discussions between John Simmons, President of Strategic Learning Initiatives (SLI) and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to provide an external validation of the impact data in ten Chicago Public Schools elementary schools that participated in SLI’s Focused Instruction Process between 2006 and 2008. 

 

AIR agreed to complete two tasks: 

• Rerun and validate the ISAT-Reading data for the 10 FIP schools; and
• Compare the ISAT scores between the 10 FIP schools and a matching set of 10 non-FIP schools.

 

The results that SLI has achieved, and that AIR has validated, are very impressive and suggest that well before decisions are made to reconstitute schools under the mandates of NCLB, school districts would be wise to consider far less drastic, but clearly powerful, interventions such as the Focused Instruction Process.

 

Findings 

1. How well did the 10 FIP schools do during the first two years of intervention when compared with the Chicago city average?

 

Figure 1 shows that for the two-year period from 2006 to 2008 all but two of the 10 FIP schools had ISAT Reading gains in the percent of students at or above proficient that exceeded the Chicago city average and that as a group, the gains in the FIP schools were nearly twice the city average (11.4 percentage points vs. 6.3 percentage points).

 

Figure 1

Two-Year Gains in Percent of Students Meeting/Exceeding Reading Proficiency for 10 FIP Schools During FIP (2006-08)

 

School	Gains
Cather	16.1
Faraday	14.2
Goldblatt	10.8
Morton	2.1
Tilton	14.2
Cardenas	18.7
Castellanos	6.0
Finkl	15.3
Gary	8.3
Kanoon	8.5
10 FIP Schools	11.4
Chicago City Average	6.3

Figure 2 shows the annual average gains in the FIP schools during the two-year period (2006-2008) during which the intervention was in place when compared with the annual average gains for the four-year period (2001-2005) prior to the intervention. Once again, the gains made during the period of the intervention are impressive relative to the gains prior to the invention and relative to non-FIP schools.

 

Figure 2

Annual Average Gains in Percent of Students Meeting/Exceeding Reading Proficiency Before (2001-2005) and During (2006-2008) the Intervention

 

	Before FIP (2001-2005)	During FIP (2006-2008)
5 Area 7 FIP schools	0.8	5.7
5 Area 10 FIP schools	3.6	5.7
10 FIP schools	2.2	5.7
Non-FIP schools	2.1	3.2

 

 

2. How well did the 10 FIP schools do when compared with a set of matching schools?

 

AIR asked SLI to identity a set of ten matching schools to the ten FIP schools. SLI used the following process to make these matches:

1. Data from publicly available data bases from Chicago Public Schools and Illinois State Department of Education was extracted for the 10 FIP schools and all other elementary schools in Chicago, Illinois.  This data included:

a. Percent low income as indicated by participation in free or reduced price lunch program.

b. Percent of enrolled students who were identified as being in any of six specific racial/ethnic groups:  White, Black, American Indian, Asian, Hispanic, Multi-Racial.

c. ISAT Percent Meeting or Exceeding Proficiency in Reading for grade level in the years 2001-2008.  It should be noted that standards of proficiency were altered between academic years ending in 2005 and 2006.

d. From the ISAT data, Average Annual Gains/Losses in Percent Proficient were calculated for the 2001 to 2005 (4 year) difference and separately for the 2006-2008 (2 year) period.

2. A computer program was written to initially screen for matches to the 10 FIP schools.  The program ignored a criterion that was originally considered:  No consideration was given to whether the schools matched were in the same city neighborhood (“Area”).

3. The program initially searched for schools that had a Low Income Percent within 1.0 percent of the Low Income Percent of the FIP school to which they were to be matched.  In some cases, this resulted in short list of schools which would be difficult to match to the FIP school using the additional criteria to be applied.  Accordingly, a second run of the program was performed to select schools that would match within 2.0 percent of the Low Income Percent of the FIP schools.  This resulted in a longer list.  In subsequent matching, preference was given to schools that appeared on the “within 1.0 percent” match list.

4. Using the schools that matched on the Low Income criteria, a statistic designated as “stress” was calculated consisting of the sum of squared differences in racial/ethnic percentages between the FIP school and each potential matching school.

5. The list of matching schools for each of FIP schools was sorted low to high on this statistic.  The lower the “stress” statistic, the closer the match on racial/ethnic composition.

6. Further matching was performed manually with the following criteria:

a. Percent Meeting or Exceeding Proficiency in 2005 was roughly equal in FIP school and matched school.  This criterion was applied because improvement due to interventions will depend upon starting point prior to the intervention.

b.Average Annual Percent Gain/Loss for the period 2001 to 2005, prior to FIP intervention, was roughly equal.

7. Finally, some schools which would otherwise be considered as possible matches were excluded because they had participated in other Strategic Learning Initiatives programs.

 

Figure 3 shows the results of this matched pair analysis of FIP vs. non-FIP schools prior to and during the intervention.  As would be expected given the selection process, before the intervention there is a very small difference in the average annual increase in the percent of students meeting or exceeding reading proficiency between the FIP and non-FIP schools (2.24 percentage points vs. 2.45 percentage points respectively for the period 2001-2005).  However, during the intervention there is a significant difference in the average annual increase – 5.71 percentage points for the FIP schools vs. 1.14 percentage points for the non-FIP schools – for the period 2006-2008.  (See Appendix, Tables 1, 2, and 3 for summary statistics and p-values for the t tests.)  Before the intervention, the mean difference in the average annual increase of percent of students meeting or exceeding reading proficiency between matched FIP and non-FIP schools was -0.21.  The mean difference in average annual increase between matched FIP and non-FIP schools during the intervention (4.57) was significantly greater.  (See Appendix, Tables 4 and 5 for summary statistics and p-value for the t-test.)

 

Figure 3

Average Annual Increases and Differences in Test Scores

for Matched Pair FIP and Non-FIP Schools Before and During FIP

Pair	FIP School	Non-FIP School	FIP School: Average Annual Increase Before FIP (2001-2005)	Non-FIP School: Average Annual Increase Before FIP (2001-2005)	FIP School: Average Annual Increase During FIP (2006-2008)	Non-FIP School: Average Annual Increase During FIP (2006-2008)	Difference in Average Annual Increase in Matched FIP and Non-FIP School Before FIP	Difference in Average Annual Increase in Matched FIP and Non-FIP School During FIP
1	CATHER	DEPRIEST	2.78	2.90	8.05	2.40	-0.13	5.65
2	FARADAY	O'TOOLE	1.25	2.23	7.10	-1.40	-0.98	8.50
3	GOLDBLATT	HERZL	-0.13	0.45	5.40	3.70	-0.58	1.70
4	MORTON	O'KEEFFE	0.10	0.05	1.05	0.25	0.05	0.80
5	TILTON	OWENS	0.20	-0.93	7.10	1.65	1.13	5.45
6	CARDENAS	LARA	2.78	2.45	9.35	2.50	0.33	6.85
7	CASTELLANOS	COOPER	7.30	3.65	3.00	-0.55	3.65	3.55
8	FINKL	STOWE	3.15	4.33	7.65	2.10	-1.18	5.55
9	GARY	MCCORMICK	2.90	4.55	4.15	-2.15	-1.65	6.30
10	KANOON	WHITNEY	2.08	4.85	4.25	2.90	-2.78	1.35
	All FIP schools	Matched non-FIP schools	2.24	2.45	5.71	1.14	-0.21	4.57

 

Figure 4 shows the average change in the percent of students meeting or exceeding reading proficiency between each year in the 10 FIP schools and the 10 matched non-FIP schools for the entire 2001-2008 period and reveals graphically the apparent impact of the FIP intervention.  

 

 

Figure 4

 

 

Note: The test format changed significantly from 2005 to 2006 so the 2005 to 2006 test score change is not included

 

Conclusion

 

It is clear, on the basis of the ISAT Reading scores for the percent of students meeting or exceeding proficiency in ten Chicago elementary schools for the period 2001-2008, that the Focused Instruction Process intervention has had a positive and significant impact on student achievement in the cohort of ten schools that participated in the FIP model from 2006 to 2008.  Whether compared to pre-intervention achievement, or to the entire set of Chicago elementary schools, or to a carefully selected set of matched schools, the data suggest that FIP has resulted in gains that are very unlikely to have occurred without the intervention.  

                       

APPENDIX

 

 

Table 1: Mean Average Annual Increase in Scores Before and During FIP

 for 10 FIP Schools

Variable	N	Mean	Std Dev	Minimum	Maximum
Average annual increase before FIP (2001-2005)	10	2.24	2.18	-0.13	7.30
Average annual increase during FIP (2006-2008)	10	5.71	2.58	1.05	9.35

 

 

Table 2: Mean Average Annual Increase in Scores Before and During FIP

for 10 Matched Non-FIP Schools

Variable	N	Mean	Std Dev	Minimum	Maximum
Average annual increase before FIP (2001-2005)	10	2.45	2.01	-0.93	4.85
Average annual increase during FIP (2006-2008)	10	1.14	1.98	-2.15	3.70

 

 

Table 3: t-test for Mean Average Annual Increase in Scores Before and During FIP

for 10 FIP Schools and 10 Matched Non-FIP Schools

Statistics
Variable	FIP	N	Lower CL	Mean	Upper CL	Lower CL	Std Dev	Upper CL	Std Err	Minimum	Maximum
			Mean		Mean	Std Dev		Std Dev
beforeave	0	10	1.01	2.45	3.89	1.39	2.01	3.68	0.64	-0.93	4.85
beforeave	1	10	0.68	2.24	3.80	1.50	2.18	3.98	0.69	-0.13	7.30
beforeave	Diff (1-2)		-1.76	0.21	2.18	1.59	2.10	3.10	0.94
afterave	0	10	-0.28	1.14	2.55	1.36	1.98	3.61	0.63	-2.15	3.70
afterave	1	10	3.86	5.71	7.56	1.78	2.58	4.72	0.82	1.05	9.35
afterave	Diff (1-2)		-6.73	-4.57	-2.41	1.74	2.30	3.40	1.03

 

 

T-Tests
Variable	Method	Variances	DF	t Value	Pr > |t|
beforeave	Pooled	Equal	18	0.23	0.8235
afterave	Pooled	Equal	18	-4.44	0.0003

 

 

Table 4: Mean Difference in Average Annual Increase

in Matched Pair FIP and Non-FIP Schools Before and During FIP

Variable	N	Mean	Std Dev	Minimum	Maximum
Difference in Average Annual Increase in Matched FIP and Non-FIP School Before FIP	10	-0.21	1.74	-2.78	3.65
Difference in Average Annual Increase in Matched FIP and Non-FIP School During FIP	10	4.57	2.59	0.80	8.50

 

 

 

Table 5: Paired t-test for Mean Difference in Average Annual Increase

in Matched Pair FIP and Non-FIP Schools Before and During FIP

Statistics
Difference	N	Lower CL	Mean	Upper CL	Lower CL	Std Dev	Upper CL	Std Err	Minimum	Maximum
		Mean		Mean	Std Dev		Std Dev
afterdiff - beforediff	10	2.56	4.78	7.01	2.14	3.11	5.67	0.98	-0.10	9.48

 

T-Tests
Difference	DF	t Value	Pr > |t|
afterdiff - beforediff	9	4.87	0.0009