Successmaker Enterprise Software Purchase - Harford County ...

Harford County Public Schools – State Discretionary Grant – AYP FY 10
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is designed to ensure continuous improvement each year toward the goal of 100%
proficiency in 2014. The State of Maryland holds schools, school systems, and the state accountable for adequate yearly
progress of all children enrolled for a full academic year. If our end goal is to improve student achievement to meet AYP,
then a critical intermediate goal is to determine where each of our students is in relation to the state content standards.
While the logic is clear, most schools do not collect evidence of or for learning on an ongoing basis. For this process to
occur schools must understand the AYP targets, have a defined process for how teachers assess for learning and
monitor student progress, and determine how and what data is used to adjust instruction based on student needs.
To accomplish these ends there are specific needs:
1. To understand and communicate student achievement targets;
2. To engage staff in analyzing state assessment data to determine whether there were any gaps between the AYP
targets and their performance;
3. To evaluate school processes to ensure that teachers understand the target and have aligned their teaching and
assessments to those standards they are responsible for teaching ;
4. To structure time to regularly examine student work to inform instruction;
5. To have teachers collect and analyze formative assessment data to monitor student performance on the content
standard indicators on a daily basis; and
6. To keep the school focused on student achievement goals as the primary work of staff (School Improvement in
Maryland, http://mdk12.org/process/index.html).
The overall goal of the grant initiative is to promote maximum achievement for all students by combining the best
principles of classroom management, peer assisted learning, and differentiated instruction into a comprehensive
system focusing on accountability, measurable achievement, and improved access to the general education curriculum
for diverse learners. Changing instructional practice is at the heart of improving learning outcomes for underserved and
underachieving students. To truly improve teaching, schools need to transform their culture of practice from one that
assumes that barriers to learning reside in the students to one that expects teachers to collectively assume
responsibility for making sure all students learn. An emerging body of literature supports the use of learning
communities and teacher collaboration as the kind of professional development that leads to such transformation
(Grossman, Wineburg, & Woolworth, 2001).
Building teacher capacity to implement effective instruction is critical to the success of this proposal. Professional
development and on-going support provide teachers with access to the knowledge and skills essential to quality
teaching instruction; data collection and analysis; problem-solving; lesson planning and implementation.
On-going professional development is necessary to develop and enhance instructional practice. Opportunities for
collaboration, reflection and evaluation are components of this proposal. Teacher training related to the instructional
environment, an explicit cycle of instruction, increased student engagement and the use of data to monitor student
progress are priorities for this initiative. Professional development addressing the specifics of building and sustaining
collaborative co-teach partnerships and high performing learning teams are also an emphasis.
High motivation and engagement in learning have consistently been linked to reduced dropout rates and increased
levels of student success (Kushman, 2000). Teachers are challenged daily to actively involve students in the learning
process. By the time students reach middle school, lack of interest in schoolwork becomes increasingly apparent in
more and more students, and by high school, as dropout rates attest, too many students are not sufficiently motivated
to succeed in school (Lumsden, 1994). Such considerations are imperative to improved achievement for diverse
student populations.
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