March 14, 2010
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Progress Report Vs. Report Card—One District’s Challenge
By Janet Lynne Tassell, Ph.D., Director of Learning and Assessment; Julie Kemp, Literacy Consultant; Dianne Litkenhus, David Turnham Education Center Principal; and Michael Schriefer, Assistant Superintendent—all of North Spencer County (Indiana) School District
With the onset of academic standards in Indiana, school districts were left with two choices. One stance to take was to impress upon teachers to teach to the standards and embrace accountability to level the education quality for all students. This may have been the intent of No Child Left Behind legislation. However, this stance did not work for our North Spencer County (Indiana) School Corporation. We had taken steps to ensure success—curriculum mapping/alignment, improved teacher evaluation tool, ongoing professional development, etc.—but the results were not improving on the statewide ISTEP+ standardized assessment. When we began digging deeper into the cause, it became apparent that our students were not being taught and consistently assessed based on the state academic standards and having their learning communicated accordingly. Therefore, we began the other stance of tightening teaching and reporting of standards, especially at the elementary level. Our goal became to have an understanding of how to communicate to parents and students based on learning of the standards.
Our research into this matter has been designed in part to evaluate our program of communicating student learning, but it also branches into how to consistently assess students based on the academic standards. The focus of the research pulls from all grade levels but has a strong impact in the first stage at the K–6 grade levels. The goals of this research are twofold: The first was to improve student achievement while looking at how to impact the teaching staff to influence the capacity of the teacher to rethink the communication of student “learning,” while not getting bogged down with all of the other factors that cloud this communication to students and parents. The second goal of the district’s research was to have a strong base for evidence in support of the changes that have been implemented and those that are yet to be determined. This study is truly in the public interest of our school community (and that of any district dealing with accountability), and our district strives to inform the stakeholders to allow an understanding of the appropriate steps and research-based foundation of the initiative. We look to this study to build in a layer of accountability to ensure we are implementing standards-based instruction and validly and reliably reporting out the learning of state academic standards.
With our district’s situation and the review of literature, it was clear that the standards-based reporting accountability research was warranted. We had yet to learn how a rural school district could achieve results in this scenario. The following research questions and literature support emerged as we began to strive for answers.
- How can our district design a standards-based report card that provides an accurate correlation to learning assessed on state testing?
In forming our first research question, Marzanno (2000) provided guidance and support for the steps to take in this venture. He states that the use of grades is a sacred part of our American school culture. Throughout the work Marzanno has compiled, he shows how traditional grades have inherent problems associated with them that make it difficult and even inappropriate to transfer to communicating standards-based learning. Not only did our district wish to report out learning based on the state standards, but we also had to tread carefully in overhauling our thinking about letter grades.
Michael SchrieferGuskey (2004) points out how it is difficult to move away from traditional reporting systems toward standards-based reporting. He calls this a “curriculum challenge” and a “communication challenge.” The curriculum challenge has somewhat taken care of itself in that states have developed academic standards. The communication challenge has not yet been frequently traversed, not to mention with any level of success. This has been appearing as a difficult task.
Guskey (2004) suggests that designing a standards-based report card is a multi-step process. First, the standards or goals should be determined. Second, the levels of performance should be established for each of the goals. In addition, meaningful labels need to be created to convey student progress to parents—the communication challenge begins here.
- How can our district ensure that teachers are consistently teaching to and communicating student learning of the state academic standards?
As our district determined that we would pursue standards-based reporting, we had to then consider this question and realize that having the report card to complete still does not ensure the level of accountability of this instruction occurring without “inspecting what you expect.” In other words, teachers need to be able to have the conversations that hold them accountable along with the observations by and expectations of administrators.
Plan
We began with a study to look quantitatively at the correlation between the results on ISTEP+ state test results in relation to the letter grades given at the elementary school level. We researched the letter grades of students in 2001–2002 that did not pass the state test (ISTEP+). Among that pool of 101 failing ISTEP+ scores of students in grades 3–6, we examined what letter grade was earned for both mathematics and English/language arts.
After forming the Report Card Discussion Team, we collected qualitative data from the discussion minutes. To monitor progress, we also gathered both quantitative and qualitative data from surveys of parents after 1.5 years into the timeline of the standards-based reporting initiative. All parents in the K–6 grade levels were surveyed, with a 65 percent return rate.
Our latest data collection incorporated the May 2005 ratings for the 182 students who did not pass one or both of English/language arts and mathematics sections of the Fall 2005 ISTEP+ exam.
Evidence
To establish a need to even consider revising the letter-grade report cards, we believed that we needed to take a strong look at the correlation of success on our statewide testing to the letter grades our students were receiving in mathematics. From the study of the students not passing the Fall 2001 ISTEP+ exam in math and/or English/language arts correlating to letter grades in these subjects for grades 3–6, we found the following:
From this we determined that our letter grades were inflated with too many A and B letter grades being given to students who had failed the state-mandated test.
We utilized the following initial discussion questions starting in summer 2002 in the district-wide Report Card Discussion Team meetings:
- Why do we give letter grades?
- Do you ever stop good instruction to give an assessment to generate a “grade”?
- Why do we have report cards?
- Is it for peer comparison or to communicate individual learning growth?
- How would you describe the shifting of the roles of both teacher and student relating to assessment/grading practices?
- What report card formats have you or others tried throughout the years?
- How have your philosophies about grades/report cards evolved throughout your teaching career?
After going through these discussions, the following comments helped develop the philosophy of the district.
- “Why do we grade? To be able to fill out the report card!”
- “I used to think an ‘A’ meant an ‘A’.”
- “Grades have been used to compare students with students.”
- “Student progress should be compared to expected standards.”
- “Authentic assessment does not always generate enough ‘grades’ for traditional reporting.”
- “Time spent assessing has increased.”
Timeline
After working with the Report-Card discussion team beginning in 2000, we established the following district timeline.
- 2000–2001
- Identification of Need for K–6 Report Card Overhaul
- 2001–2002
- Year of Awareness
- Formation of Corporation Report Card Discussion Team
- Share literature and bring all teachers, School Board, and parents on board
- Survey parents regarding the “old” report card
- 2002–2003
- Focus: Design Standards-Based “Progress Report”
- K–6 Math/Language Arts/Life Skills
- Design Alternate Progress Report for Special Education, English as a New Language (ENL), Home-bound, etc.
- 2003–2004
- Implement Math/Language Arts/Life Skills on Progress Report
- Study Group tour of elementary schools to trouble shoot and improve communication
- Design Standards-Based Progress Report for Special Areas
- Social Studies/Science/Art/Health/PE/Music/Media/Technology
- 2004–2005
- Implement Social Studies/Science/Art/Health /PE/Music/Media /Technology
- Online Progress Report entry for Classroom Teachers
- Survey Parents
- 2005–2006
- Middle School labeling with standards on online grade-book program
- Phasing out letter grades at grade 4
- K–6 teachers begin using target scores on assessments to communicate how close the earned score is to the grade-level expectation
- 2006–2007
- Middle School is continuing conversations about what letter grades mean and how “0” (zero) scores affect a letter grade
The following goals were established by the Report Card Discussion Team for the new Progress Reports for the elementary level.
- Improve communication to Parents and Students
- Skills the student has accomplished
- Skills the student needs to improve
- How parents can help their student
- Improve student learning
- Reflect where the student is in his/her learning
- Evaluate and monitor student progress
- Improve classroom instruction
- Identify specific changes needed to improve student learning
- Identify areas for remediation
The format for the new Progress Reports was standards-based. For the first two years, the format was a tri-fold folder with standards-based reporting for mathematics and English for K–6. In grades 4–6 we had both letter grades and standards-ratings being given for mathematics and English. Social skills are reported as “Characteristics of Successful Students” and can be noted as a strength or weakness.
From these conversations, other stepping stones emerged. It no longer made sense to do a shallow mid-term report when communication was in so much more detail at the time of the Progress Reports. Another difficult challenge was what to do regarding the traditional honor roll at the grade 4–6 level. With the elimination of almost all grades, and the focus transitioning heavily to standards ratings, we wanted the parents to concentrate on student learning rather than on working hard to make Honor Roll status. We had to tread carefully here to ensure that student effort did not taper off as a result of the elimination of the Honor Roll. The focus instead turned toward supporting reward and recognition for social skills and outstanding pieces of work in the content areas.
An unforeseen challenge was how difficult it would be for the teachers to make the transition from the traditional to the new format. We had some very difficult conversations and times of coming back to the research to remind all of ourselves that what we were doing was sound and research-based. However, we needed to be more thoughtful in how we supported the transition. We referred in this situation to the work of Bridges (1991) to recognize this process as natural albeit painful. Managing Transitions helped the administrators empathize with the teachers and take them through the “grieving process” of change.
After 1.5 years of the new K–6 Progress Reports, we surveyed K–6 parents and found the following totals in percent format.
Question Survey 1: Based on reading the Progress Report, do you have a clear understanding of how your child is performing in relation to the standards?
Comments illustrating the response to this question:
- “Much better than in the past. This confirms strengths/weaknesses, likes/dislikes, making a career choice much more clear.”
- “Pretty much so. I feel it gives a better account on how your child progresses, not necessarily if he is holding an ‘A’ average, which really is not that important.”
Survey Question 2: Do you have any areas on the Progress Report that you do not understand?
Comments illustrating the response to this question:
- “I understand the basic idea, but bless the poor teachers who do the ‘evaluation’ of each child.”
Survey Question 3: Based on the student work you have seen, are the standards ratings an indication of where you thought your child was performing?
Comment illustrating the response to this question:
- “It’s hard to admit that your child is below grade level, but the work clearly shows it.”
Survey Question 4: Are you receiving enough information regarding your child’s level of learning throughout the grading period?
Overall comment from the survey:
- “The progress reports seem less stressful, my child needs to know where they are academically not compare themselves to others, and I think this new system does just that. Thank You!”
From the survey of which we had a return rate of 65 percent, we found some challenges and barriers to continue to work on with our parents. However, we were pleased with the results of positive feedback regarding how parents understand how their children are performing in regards to the standards.
The following graph shows the May 2005 ratings for the 182 students that did not pass one or both of English/language arts and mathematics sections of the mathematics portion of the Fall 2005 ISTEP+ exam.
The correlation of ratings rather than letter grades to the success on the state testing has shown an improved connection of communication.
| Letter Grade | ISTEP+ Gr. 3–6 Students not Successful ELA 01–02 |
| A | 13% |
| B | 40% |
| C | 32% |
| D | 15% |
| F | .01% |
| Rating | ISTEP+ Gr. 3–7 Students not Successful ELA 04–05 |
| 4 (above grade level) | 6% |
| 3 (at grade level) | 26% |
| 2 (inconsistently at grade level | 50% |
| 1 ( below grade level) | 19% |
Before our students were receiving letter grade of “A” or “B” 53 percent of the time while “D/F” was at 15.01 percent. The ratings show a drop in this inflation in a rating of 4 and 3 to 32 percent combined total with 1 ratings at 19 percent.
| Letter Grade | ISTEP+ Gr. 3–6 Students not Successful Math 01–02 |
| A | 3% |
| B | 29% |
| C | 39% |
| D | 28% |
| F | 1% |
| Rating | ISTEP+ Gr. 3–7 Students not Successful Math 04–05 |
| 4 (above grade level) | 0% |
| 3 (at grade level) | 17% |
| 2 (inconsistently at grade level | 54% |
| 1 ( below grade level) | 29% |
Before our students were receiving letter grades of “A” or “B” 32 percent of the time while “D/F” was at 29 percent. The ratings show a drop in this inflation in a rating of 4 and 3 to 17 percent combined total with 1 ratings at 29 percent.
Educational Importance of the Study
Districts need to meet the challenge of improving the communication of learning based on standards—not only at the elementary level but also at the secondary level. Marzanno (2000) has offered support in how to realize this change, but every district’s situation has different nuances that affect the success and speed for which to proceed. We believe that we have a “story” to share that has only just begun. The next phases will continue to bridge the gap into the secondary level arena. Through a Reeves (2004) article in Phi Delta Kappan, we learn that teachers at the secondary level need to be rethinking things as simple yet as ingrained as giving a zero for missing work. He challenges us to rethink whether the letter grade in a class reflects student learning or if it is merely an average of the many types of effort, extra credit, participation, and punishments that can comprise a grade in any given class.
Our district is understanding through this ongoing research that the potential to address even more of the pressing issues in education will surface from this initiative. We have been and will be looking further at the achievement challenges and assessment concerns surrounding the goal of standards-based instruction. All things being “public” through our Progress Reports gives us the challenge of how to involve and keep parents and community on our side in improving our district’s focus. It is our district’s role in educational research to have a rationale for change, to support our plan with best practice research, and to communicate how our ideas and improvements are sound.
References
Bridges, W. (2003). Managing Transitions: 2nd Edition. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.
Guskey, T. (2004). The Communication Challenge of Standards-Based Reporting. Phi Delta Kappan, 326-329.
Marzano, R. (2000). Transforming classroom grading. Alexandria, Va.: ASCD.
For more information about North Spencer County (IN) School District’s Progress Reports, contact Dr. Tassell at 812-937-2400. Access information about all of North Spencer County Schools here: http://www.nspencer.k12.in.us/.
Read more about North Spencer’s progress reports from the people who are involved in their use on a daily basis in our Featured Interviews.