Statewide goals have been established by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) with a clear focus on ensuring excellence and equity for all Minnesota students. The goals outlined below require that all students reach a high level of success, but take into account the accelerated improvement that is necessary for some student groups in order to close gaps. While all groups are expected to improve, student groups that are currently achieving at lower levels than their counterparts have the highest expected gains.
Highland School has a couple of subgroups that fell below the targeted index. “Out of the multiple combinations of the three categories with eight in each category, I was very proud of the few areas we fell below. We were above in all of the other categories and it will be inevitable that school will hit some category with the many areas MDE identifies,” said Highland School Principal Chris Trostad. “Highland will work hard to correct the couple categories we fell below, and I am confident we can get those above and we barely missed the target index numbers given.”
399 Schools were identified as Targeted Support and 289 were identified as comprehensive support schools. The smaller schools will be listed more because each subgroup has to have at least 20 students to be measured. Small schools will have many categories that won’t be calculated due to the fact they won’t hit 20 students in a subgroup. “You will see mostly larger schools on these lists,” said Principal Trostad. “The exception to this will be underachieving schools and overachieving schools that don’t make the list. We strive to be an overachieving school every year.”
ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act)
– Last year was a transition year.
– The new law replaced the “No Child Left Behind” law
– This law targets: Achievement Gap Reduction, Grade 3 Reading, Grade 8 Math, English Language Proficiency, Graduation Rate, and Consistent Attendance
Specifically, schools have to achieve:
– Reading achievement rate (Proficiency) of 90% with no subgroup below 85% by 2025
– Math achievement rate (Proficiency) of 90% with no subgroup below 85% by 2025
– English Language Proficiency of all students must be 85% by 2025
– 4 Year Graduation rate of 90% with no subgroup below 85% by 2020
– Consistent Attendance Rate of 95% with no subgroup below 90%. Students will be considered to be “Chronically Absent” if they miss 10% or more days of school. Athletics and Field Trips do not count. Students will not be counted in the calculation unless they attended the same school for more than half the year.
Identification of Schools:
MDE will be looking at Eight Race/Ethnic Groups (All Students, American Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, 2 or More Races & White Students). For each group, they will look at 8 Indicator Categories (All Students, English Learner Students, Special Education Students, Free/Reduced Priced Meals Students, Non-English Learner Students, Non-Special Education Students, & Non-Free/Reduced Priced Meal Students). Each Race/Ethnic group will be evaluated with each Indicator Category for the following areas: Math Proficiency, Math Growth Rate, Reading Proficiency, Reading Growth Rate, Four-Year Graduation Rate, Seven-Year Graduation Rate, English Language Proficiency, and Student Attendance.
There are eight Race/Ethnic Groups, eight Indicator Categories, and eight subgroups. If a school that receives Title funds is below the proficiency target in any of these possible combinations of Race/Ethnicity, Indicator Categories or Subgroups they will be an identified school in one of four categories.
Priority Support – Most intensive comprehensive support. Bottom 5% of lowest-achieving schools.
Comprehensive Support – Will receive intensive onsite technical assistance from MDE. A school improvement plan will be reviewed, implemented and regularly monitored by MDE.
Targeted Support – Will receive targeted professional development and develop an improvement plan for the areas identified as being below the target index.
Enhanced Core Support – Lowest 25% of Title I schools for math, achievement, reading achievement, or progress toward English Language Proficiency will be supported by MDE under World’s Best Workforce.
For the MDE list of ESSA goals, click here.
You can find out more about the Every Student Succeeds Act by listening to the Focus on Education program on Saturday at 8:45 a.m.
Tags:
