 | Out with stars and in with the new
 | | P. Fred Storti, MESPA Executive Director |
December 2007 --
Report from MESPA Executive Director P. Fred Storti
“The primary purpose of a school report card should be to educate and inform, focusing on achieving excellence for all students...Schools are complex learning communities that require multiple but clear measures to tell the story.”
Revising the school report card and blending assessments
Our 53rd annual MESPA Institute, “Changes, Challenges, Connections,” is only about a month away. As busy school leaders you live those three Cs daily and I might add courage and compassion to the list of what great principals frequently demonstrate.
Speaking of challenges, one of the details buried in the 2007 Legislative session is Statute 120B.36, a revision of the school report card to replace the star system. Subdivision 1. School performance report cards of the statute states: “a) The commissioner shall use objective criteria based on levels of student performance to report at least student academic performance, school safety, two separate student-to-teacher rations that clearly indicate the definition of teacher consistent with sections 122A.06 and 122A.15 for purposes of determining these ratios, and staff characteristics, with a value-added component added no later than the 2008-2009 school year. The report must indicate a school’s adequate yearly progress status, and must not set any designations applicable to high-and low-performing schools due solely to adequate yearly progress status.”
We welcome the change! To help guide development of a truly useful school report card, we researched the assessment and accountability statutory language, and with our secondary colleagues developed a position paper on Report Card Development. We need to help legislators move beyond thinking that a single number or symbol will adequately inform the public of any school’s quality.
The primary purpose of a school report card should be to educate and inform, focusing on achieving excellence for all students. The guiding principles of a new school report card should articulate academic excellence, whole school evaluations, and multiple performance measures that are clear and informative for the public. To that end, we believe all required academic standards should be reflected on the new report card: including (re: statute120B.021) language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, health and physical education, and the arts -- dance, music, theater, and visual arts.
Assessment data should focus on growth for all students and include multiple measures of formative, diagnostic, and summative data within the year and across years. Other states are reporting more immediate feedback of test results in the spring by “blending” currently used diagnostic testing with a summative assessment used for adequate yearly progress in NCLB. (Note: Blended assessments are one of the five MESPA 2008 Legislative priorities; for a copy of the MESPA Legislative Priorities brochure, visit the Legislative Advocacy Center in the Members Only section of the MESPA Web site at www.mespa.net.)
MESPA President Dick Oscarson, MASSP President Pat Schmidt, and I had the opportunity to testify to the Legislative Report Card Committee regarding the above principles. We recommended that the new report card ought to:
- focus on the whole school, all students, and academic excellence;
- emphasize student growth not just AYP;
- incorporate all required education standards;
- use multiple measures and blended assessment; and
- take note of special characteristics of social economic status, mobility, special education students and special education programs, and ELL.
For more information on the MESPA-MASSP Position Paper on Report Card Development, visit Minnesota Legislative Issues in the Members Only section of this Web site.
Schools are complex learning communities that require multiple but clear measures to tell the story. The public will make the connections when they view the data.
We are looking forward to seeing you at Institute 2008! Happy New Year!
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