Linking School Resources to Strategies to Double Student Performance and Close the Achievement Gap

1
Linking School Resources to Strategies to Double
Student Performance and Close the Achievement Gap

• Every Child Counts
• A Symposium Dedicated to Ending the Gap
• New York State United Teachers
• Albany, NY October 25, 2007
• Allan R. Odden
• Lawrence O. Picus and Associates

2
Prime Education Goal

• Dramatically improve student achievement and
  close the gap
• Rhetoric all students to high standards
• Our definition Double Student Performance and
  halve the achievement gap

3
School Finance Perspective

• Adequacy covers these goals, and adds the
  funding and resource use dimensions

4
Adequacy

• What it costs to educate children to world class
  performance standards and close the achievement
  gap

5
Why Adequacy?

• Odd word for an ambitious goal
• We mean doubling performance and at least halving
  the achievement gap in five years
• Without doubling costs

6
Evidence-Based Approach

• Not just a funding model
• Linked to what it takes to dramatically improve
  student performance

7
It Covers All Aspects of School

• Tough challenges require top talent, so it
  provides resources to staff schools with high
  quality teachers and leaders
• Core academics and electives
• Extra resources for students struggling to meet
  standards
• High quality professional development
• Students personal and social skills
• So all the key resources to respond to
  performance pressures from NCLB and state
  accountability systems to boost student
  achievement and end the achievement gap

8
Three Bases of Knowledge

• How students learn complex materials How People
  Learn
• Resource dimension of individual programs that
  work
• Resources for the strategies schools need to
  double student performance

9
What We Do

• We link state school finance policy with what
  works in local schools.
• We know what works from studying schools that
  have doubled performance and reviewing existing
  research on individual programs that work.
• We turn the results into a new state school
  funding models.

10
Study of Districts that have Aligned Resources
with School Effectiveness

• Our studies in
• Arkansas
• Washington
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming
• Other studies in
• New York, Texas, California, etc.

11
Ten Steps to Double Performance

• Conduct needs assessment
• Set higher goals
• Adopt a new curriculum
• Commit to data-based decision making
• Invest in on-going professional development

12
Ten Steps to Double Performance

• Focus class time more efficiently
• Provide multiple interventions for struggling
  students
• Create professional learning communities
• Empower leaders to support instructional
  improvement
• Take advantage of external expertise

13
The Challenge

• Scale up these strategies in all districts
• and
• Develop an adequate funding formula that
  provides all schools with the resources they need
  to deploy strategies to double performance and
  close the gap

14
Our Process

• We work with the broad spectrum of education
  officials
• We develop state specific evidence-based models
• We help states design funding formulas that offer
  equity and adequacy but which are focused on
  improving student performance

15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21

22
What Does the Evidence-Based Model Cost?

• Compared to current expenditures
• Model costs are 2-9 percent above national
  average the same for Wisconsin
• Full funding of NCLB and IDEA would enable full
  model funding on average nationally
• Exceeds current costs in low spending states
• Less than current costs in high spending states

23
Major Implementation Issues

• Would schools use such resources for the most
  effective strategies? NO
• Thus what restrictions should be placed on the
  use of funds, and trade off block grant v.
  categorical program?
• What other implementation and leadership
  strategies are needed?

24
Resources

• Odden, A.R. and Picus, L.O. (2008). School
  Finance A Policy Perspective, 4th edition. New
  York, NY McGraw-Hill. Available April 2007.
• How People Learn (Bransford, Brown and Cocking)
• How Students Learn (Donovan Bransford)
• Mathematics in the Classroom
• Science in the Classroom
• History in the Classroom
• Reading
• Forthcoming book on Doubling Student Performance
• Allan Odden and Sarah Archibald

25
Allan R. Odden

• Professor, and Co-Director, Consortium for Policy
  Research in Education, University of
  Wisconsin-Madison
• Partner, Lawrence O. Picus and Associates
• 608 239 4671
• arodden_at_lpicus.com