Accountability Resources

ESEA Flexibility Waiver approved in July, 2012 created a new accountability system that impacts how we look at global data such as MEAP/MME.  Each year, Michigan public school students in grades 3 through 9 are required to take the MEAP, and 11th graders are required to take the MME.  The state of Michigan uses the scores from these tests to calculate Top to Bottom Rankings and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), a measure of year-to-year student achievement on the MEAP and the MME.  Some schools are further broken down by the Michigan Department of Education into additional designations:  “Reward” schools (Top 5 percent, Significant Improvement or Beating the Odds), “Focus” schools (10 percent of schools statewide with the largest achievement gap between the highest and lowest performing students), and “Priority” schools (Bottom 5 percent of all schools).

Podcast 1 (18 minutes) Overview of Accountability Release (August, 2012)

This podcast walks through the key slides of the 7/30/2012 powerpoint with a brief explanation of AYP pass/fail, EdYES! Letter Grades dropping, Top to Bottom Ranking, Priority, Focus and Reward designations. 
Disclaimer:  In the presentation, there is reference to a Z-scores converted to percentile rankings.  Most conversation tables translate the focus school Z-score of -0.75 as 21st to 23rd percentile.  However, in actuality 358 schools out of 2,866 schools were identified in August as Focus, which represents 12.5%

Podcast 2-a (22 minutes) Achievement and Improvement (posted November, 2012)

Podcast 2-a takes a deeper look at the accountability scorecard and the new proficiency target for each of the 5 core content areas (if tested in Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies and Writing), the goal is for schools to immediately begin an upward trajectory towards 85% (or beyond) by 2022.
Time has also been devoted to giving a brief overview on how to run trend reports to see global data on MI School Data (.org).  In addition, we cover both why and how to look at multiple data points within on set of data, explaining the reason we most close the learning gaps of our at risk students, prepare quality lessons for the 80% who are ready to learn and challenge our top students who already understand the learning target.

Podcast 2-b (< 25 minutes) Achievement and Improvement

Podcast 3 (< 25 minutes) Achievement Gap Focus, Z's