Valley school districts Race to the Top for reforms

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

Canfield

Assessing students’ grasp of concepts and subject areas as work progresses — instead of waiting for a test — is one way that area school districts are using federal Race to the Top funds.

Ten Mahoning Valley districts received the money last year. All but one, Bloomfield-Mesopotamia in Trumbull County, which withdrew, continue into the program’s second year.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education released progress reports of participating states, marking Ohio’s accomplishments and setbacks so far.

Canfield, Jackson-Milton, Sebring, Western Reserve, Columbiana and Leetonia each received $100,000 in the federal funds to be spread over four years.

Crestview, Lisbon and Brookfield received a bit more. Bloomfield-Mespo got the highest award with $268,230.

Canfield Superintendent Dante Zambrini said the program deals with reform that’s also required as part of a recently passed law.

All districts will be required to implement reforms, but those districts that received the federal dollars had help doing it, he said.

Race to the Top paid for the four years of research and development to prepare for those reforms. It also saved the district money.

“By using the Race to the Top funds, it’s saving the general fund from paying for training and professional development activities dealing with this educational reform,” Zambrini said.

The district is working on developing principal and teacher evaluations as well as implementing what’s called formative assessments. It’s a way to determine students’ comprehension as teaching is happening, rather than waiting for a test.

Howard Friend, Sebring superintendent, said the assessments enable a teacher to know when a student needs more help with a particular concept, and also allows instructors to tailor instruction accordingly.

“Some kids are visual learners, and some are more auditory,” Friend said. “A teacher looks and says, ‘What’s the best way to get the material across to the students?’ Some can look at a problem and be able to solve it. Others have to break it down, so a teacher covers the material in a couple of different ways to meet the different types of learners they have in the classroom.”

Kirk Baker, Jackson-Milton superintendent, said that may be done by asking younger students to demonstrate their understanding, for example, while older students may indicate their understanding or lack thereof with a thumbs up or thumbs down gesture.

Race to the Top dollars have paid to train teachers how to do formative assessments. A Columbus company called Align, Assess and Achieve visited the Jackson-Milton district twice, in September and December, to provide the training.

After the September training, teachers applied some of the techniques in their classrooms, Baker said. Company representatives may visit the district again to watch teachers applying formative assessment techniques in their classrooms.

Without the federal grant, Baker doubts the district would have been able to afford to pay for the company’s help.

Ohio is receiving $400 million in education grants over the program’s four-year life. Race to the Top aims, by 2014, to increase high school graduation rates by 0.5 percent annually; reduce graduate rate gaps by 50 percent between underrepresented and majority students; reduce the gap between Ohio and the best performing states by 50 percent on National Assessment of Educational Progress reading and mathematics; and double the projected increase in college enrollment of students aged 19 and younger.

It strives to bolster achievement for all students, not just those in lower-performing districts.

Columbiana also is focusing the dollars received on professional development in formative assessment as well, said Superintendent Don Mook.

Though many teachers have been doing some kind of the assessments already in their classrooms, the professional development is allowing them to fine-tune it, Mook said.

Besides formative assessment, Sebring also is piloting a new teacher evaluation system.

The district’s two principals are attending workshops on teacher and principal evaluation systems, said Friend.

“It will give us new tools to monitor teachers,” he said. “They’ll be setting goals, and we’ll be able to monitor classroom instruction.”

A new evaluation system will be required by the state by 2014 so Sebring will be ahead of the curve.

Sebring also is working with curriculum mapping, ensuring that what’s being taught in a subject area at one grade level jells with that in another.

Charles Swindler, superintendent at Western Reserve schools, said that district will be able to do more with the Race to the Top funds now that students and teachers have all moved into one, new building.

The new facility offers improved technology, for example, which aids in formative assessment and diverse instruction methods.

The district is investigating software that can perform grading. It wouldn’t be used to grade tests but to allow students to determine their grasp of a subject, the superintendent said.

“You can have several lessons going on at the same time,” Swindler said.

At the end of this school year, the second year since the district received the money, the district will determine how changes made and the new technology have benefited students and then determine how to proceed for the third and fourth years.

“This will be a big evaluation year for us,” Swindler said. “We’ll be able to see what happened with the new building and the new technology, and what changes we see in the scores.”