Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
Florida Educational Leadership Standards
Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment – High Performing Leaders monitor the
success of all students in the learning environment; align the curriculum, instruction, and
assessment processes to promote effective student performance; and use a variety of
benchmarks, learning expectations, and feedback measures to ensure accountability for all
participants engaged in the educational process.
Knowledge
I have the knowledge and understanding of:
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Student growth and development
Applied learning theories
Applied motivational theories
Curriculum design, implementation, evaluation, and refinement
Principles of effective instruction
Measurement, evaluation, and assessment strategies
Diversity and its meaning for education
Adult learning and professional development models
The change process for systems, organizations, and individuals
Technologies in promoting student learning and professional growth
School cultures
The purpose of education and the role of leadership in modern society
Global issues and forces affecting teaching and learning
Dispositions
I believe in, value and am committed to:
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Developing a school culture that focuses on collaborative assessment of student
learning
Using data to help improve teaching and learning
Using a systems approach to collecting and analyzing data for improvement in
curriculum and instruction
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Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
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A school vision of high standards of learning
Continuous school improvement
Ensuring that students have the knowledge, skills, and values needed to become
successful adults
Student learning as the fundamental purpose of schooling
The proposition that all students can learn
Lifelong learning for self and others
Professional development as an integral part of school improvement
A safe and supportive learning environment
Preparing students to be contributing members of society the ideal of the common good
The principles in the Bill of Rights
The right of every student to a free, quality education
Education as a key to opportunity and social mobility
Skills
Throughout my internship experience and coursework at FGCU I have learned and evidenced
through integrated essays and artifacts the following list. As an administrator I will facilitate
processes and engage in activities ensuring that:
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The vision for learning is developed with and among stakeholders
Progress toward the vision and mission is communicated to all stakeholders
The school community is involved in school improvement efforts
The school community is regularly appraised of student learning through multiple forms
of assessment
The vision shapes the educational programs, plans, activities, and actions
Existing resources are used in support of the school vision and goal
Curriculum and assessment implementation plans are regularly monitored, evaluated,
and revised
Diversity, multiculturalism, and global perspectives are integrated into the curriculum
appropriately
Professional development promotes a focus on student learning
Barriers to student learning are identified, clarified, and addressed
Diversity is considered in developing learning experiences
Lifelong learning is encouraged and modeled there is a culture of high expectations for
self, student, and staff performance
Technologies are used in teaching and learning
Multiple opportunities to learn are available to all students
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
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Curriculum decisions are based on research, expertise of teachers, and the
recommendations of learned societies
Knowledge of learning, teaching, and student development is used to inform
management decisions
Emerging trends are recognized, studied, and applied as appropriate
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
Everyone can learn. Education is the key to opportunity and social mobility in our world
today. Amendment XIV of the United States Constitution states no person shall be deprived of
“life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. While education is not a right
guaranteed in the Constitution, it is considered to be the vehicle that presents opportunity,
provides knowledge necessary to be an active member of society, and teacher skills needed to
obtain resources which will lead to the possession of property (Legal Information Institute,
2009).
The primary responsibility of school leaders is to provide a high-quality education for
students and guarantee student learning. A school leader works with the school organization
to develop a vision for learning, that is, aspirations for what the institution wishes to become.
This vision directs the organizational culture, the norms, beliefs, and values that are shared by
the stakeholders in the organization. At the core of a school’s vision is student learning, as this
is the ultimate purpose of schooling.
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Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
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Current educational practices are far different today than they ever have been in the past.
Where once the educational landscape focused on inputs such as resources and materials,
today’s forum focuses on outputs, specifically equality of performance. It is no longer enough
to show that students have been taught from a particular appropriate curricula, today we must
show that a defined level of student learning has been achieved (IBM, 2002).
In effective organizations, four internal dimensions of the organization are aligned. Each of
the four components: ecology, structure, culture, and milieu, are dynamically interactive within
the organization. A change in one component will result in a change in all other components as
they are directly linked. The organization as a whole interacts dynamically with it external
environment, including social, political, and other systems (Owens & Valesky, 2007).
Aligning the learning environment, is going to be a necessity of the future. Learning
alignment is an ongoing process for delivering continuous improvement in the classroom so
that all students achieve at higher levels and meet achievement standards. Learning alignment
focuses on four factors that most directly impact learning results in the classroom: standards,
curriculum and instruction, assessment, and professional development. In order to provide this
learning alignment in schools, standards must be clear and measurable, curriculum and
instruction must provide students with the skills and competencies identified in the standards,
assessments must be based on skills that are measured in the standards, and professional
development opportunities must provide teachers the tools necessary to help students gain
those skills and competencies (IBM, 2002).
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
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Standards are a balanced, coherent articulation of expectations for student learning.
Standards include accurate, high-quality content and skills. They provide the structure from
which deep and rich curriculum can be built (Carr & Harris, 2001).
Standards –based education is the belief that all students, regardless of diverse
backgrounds, are capable of meeting high standards. Since the 1990’s, curriculum
development has focused increasingly on SBE. In response to this movement, state
departments of education, school districts, and schools underwent numerous curricular
reforms. “Higher standards” was typically interpreted by the public to mean that teachers
should expect more from their students. This resulted in a series of macro-level mandates
which included the writing of detailed statements of the knowledge and skills students were to
acquire, higher test scores to receive passing grades or be promoted, and more teaching of
English, science, and mathematics. Currently all 50 states have adopted state standards
(Anctil, Hass, & Parkay, 2006).
Standards are typically referred to as two types: content standards and performance
standards. Content standards refer to the agreed upon knowledge and skills that students
should attain from different content areas. These standards often include benchmarks, or
indicators, which are presented as specific statements of what a student should understand
and be able to do at a specific grade level or developmental stages. Performance standards are
used to assess the degree to which students have attained the standards in a particular
academic area. These standards require teacher judgment on the quality of performance
(Anctil, Hass, & Parkay, 2006).
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
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The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002 was an education initiative like no other
before in the United States. A key component of NCLB is high standards. NCLB required that all
states create their own standards for math, reading, and science within a specific time frame.
With standards in place, states are required to test every student’s progress toward those
standards by using standards-aligned assessments. Each state, school district, and school are
expected to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) towards meeting state standards. This
progress is measured for all students by sorting the test results into subgroups for racial or
ethnic minority, economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities, and students with
limited English proficiency. School performance is publicly reported through district and state
report cards. Any district or school that continually fails to meet AYP is held accountable, and if
necessary goes through a restructuring process (Anctil, Hass, & Parkay, 2006).
As part of my educational leadership practicum I worked on a large-scale project that
compared school performance & AYP data of schools to both the school’s performance in the
previous year as well as the overall performance of the district. It is interesting to note the
number of schools who received a grade of “A” but did not make Adequate Yearly Progress.
Judging by what is known about the location and communities of each school, it I s
disappointing to see that most school’s making AYP have predominately white and affluent
student population. In completing this comparison project I used these two artifacts. The first
Artifact 8-1 AYP
Information.xls
, is a spreadsheet provided by the state that outlines AYP data for every school
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
in the county. The second,
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Artifact 8- 2
Performance Data with DA.xlsx
is a spreadsheet that shows school grade and AYP
status over the past seven years, as well as the Differentiated Accountability status of the
schools for the 2008-2009 school year.
Curriculum and instruction encompasses what teachers teach, and how they teach it.
Curriculum and instruction are connected as they are both a part of teaching and each
influences the other. Various aspects of the curriculum are better suited to different
instructional strategies. Effective administrators recognize this and build on the human
resources of the organization through collaboration, mentoring, and staff development.
An effective learning environment will have appropriate instructional methods and
meaningful curriculum. Teacher’s instructional methods should be used to meet student’s
individual performance goals. There are several models of teaching including models based on
behavioral psychology, human development, cognitive development, and social interactions
which I discussed in depth in the integrative essay “Standard 2: Instructional Leadership”.
Teachers will of course have areas of strength and weakness when it comes to instructional
methods and strategies. However, it is important for teachers to have an understanding of the
variety of methods out there as different areas of curriculum and different students will require
differentiated instruction (Anctil, Hass, & Parkay, 2006).
This is where data-driven instruction comes to play. Data-driven instruction is a current
driving force in the era of accountability. Data-driven instruction gives administrators and
teacher concrete information on the performance of their students in a variety of targeted
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
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areas. Data-driven instruction begins with the setting of performance goals. These are typically
derived from the state standards, however often professional learning communities set their
own independent goals as a component of ascertaining a school vision. With the performance
goals in place a hypothesis is generated to evaluate the links between outputs (instructional
and operational) and student performance goals. Data collection occurs which may come from
a variety of assessment tools, but should be specific indicators of the standards used in
developing the student performance goals. The data should be analyzed for areas of progress
and challenge, and appropriate interventions applied to instruction based on the results of the
data analysis (IBM, 2002).
In the course School Curriculum, I was assigned the task of completing the William Cecil
Golden School Leadership Development Program module “Introduction to Student
Achievement Data”. The activities that correspond with this module are here
Artifact 8-3 -WCG
Data Module.docx
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As part of my practicum experience I spent time working in the Accountability Department
of Collier County Public Schools. The 2008-2009 school grades and AYP data had just been
released to the public. CCPS uses a powerhouse of a technology tool called Data Warehouse
which holds all student and teacher assessment data, both state and local. The project that I
created involved taking the AYP data from the Florida Department of Education and combining
this with the School Performance data collected from FCAT testing. I combined this information
into a spreadsheet for each school with comparisons to both district wide performance and the
school’s own performance in 2008. Using color tools in excel, I detailed areas of progress and
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areas of challenge for each individual school and grade level. The intent is that this report will
be used in the fall when schools and grade levels are planning for instruction. The data could
potentially show that the fourth grade teachers had strong success with word meaning in
reading and was average for other grades. In a vertical reading PLC, this data could be analyzed
and the fourth grade representative may share a new strategy for teaching vocabulary that was
a fourth grade initiative the previous year. This CCPS Progress & Challenges report is
Artifact 8-4 District
Progress & Challenges Report.xlsx
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Assessment of learning is a key element of any model of teaching. Most people think of
a test when hearing the term assessment. In many instances this is the case, but there are a
variety of assessment strategies and tools available to teachers. There is no one “right way” to
assess student learning. Providing student with multiple opportunities to demonstrate their
learning will help students to develop positive view of themselves as learners and they might
just find learning to be a positive experience (Anctil, Hass, & Parkay, 2006).
Assessments must measure expected outcomes as defined in the standards in order for
the data to be a meaningful derivation of student learning. Assessments must also be contrived
in a timely manner as they are the source that provides the feedback loop in the Learning
Alignment process. This provides data to be analyzed, of which the results drive the
modification of instruction to meet student performance goals (IBM, 2002).
Alternative assessments are gaining increasing popularity as more and more teachers
are offering abundant assessment tools to their students to show their learning. Some
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common forms of alternative assessment include authentic assessments, portfolio
assessments, peer assessments, self assessments, performance-based assessments, alternate
assessments, and project-based learning (Anctil, Hass & Parkay, 2006). In the ed leadership
course School Curriculum, I was involved in a group project in which my group was asked to
develop a curriculum for a school using a credible model. Our group chose to create our
curriculum around the Inquiry-based model. I was responsible for compiling the assessment
components of the curriculum and included descriptions of several of these alternative
assessments within the project. This can be viewed as
Artifact 8-5
Curriculum Writing.doc
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Professional development is the final factor in learning alignment. In order to provide
high-quality teaching professionals must continually grow in their own professional
development. Teacher’s skills must be aligned to the standards. It is vital that teacher and
administrators understand the standards, the rationale behind, and the relation to the learning
results and what this means for students (IBM, 2002).
Additionally, administrators and teacher must have an understanding of results analysis
for assessment data. Administrators and teachers need to be able to look at results data and
identify factors that are affecting the student learning both positively and negatively. From
there they must have the skill to adjust the curriculum and instruction, or else the assessments
appropriately. Professional development must be utilized to warrant and accurate
understanding of effective interventions for particular circumstances, as well as how to
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 8: Learning, Accountability, and Assessment
implement these interventions, and finally the impact of interventions on individual student
learning (IBM, 2002).
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References
Anctil, E.J, Hass, G., & Parkay, F.W. (2006). Curriculum planning: A contemporary approach.
(8th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Carr J.F. & Harris, D.E. (2001). Succeeding with standards: Linking curriculum, assessment, and
action planning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision of Curriculum Development.
Cornell Law School, (2009). Legal Information Institute. http://www.law.cornell.edu
Florida Department of Education. (2006). Florida school leaders: The William Cecil Golden
school leadership development program. https://www.floridaschoolleaders.org/
IBM. (2002). Change toolkit. http://www.reinventingeducation.org
Owens, R.G. & Valesky, T.C. (2007). Organizational behavior in education: Adaptive leadership
and school reform (9th ed). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.