BIE 2009-2010 Baseline Data Report Kingsbury-NWEA - Bureau of ...

INTRODUCTIONTHE PURPOSE OF THIS REPORTIn the Fall of 2009, the Bureau of Indian Education started partnering with Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) toprovide professional development and leadership coaching in 46 schools in seven states. The partnership focused ondata derived from the use of NWEA’s interim assessment, Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) to measure studentprogress and improve school outcomes. Due to the number of schools across states and Line Offices using the MAPassessment, the BIE asked NWEA to develop an approach to look at the system of participating BIE schools at once.“Roll-up reporting” was provided for the entire system in a way that BIE, ADD, and ELO leaders, as well as teachers andschool leaders, could look at results and make appropriate choices about curriculum and instruction. Those “roll-upreports” were provided after the Spring 2010 testing season and again after the Fall 2010 term when an expanded groupof 53 schools were participating in the partnership. While 53 schools are included in the professional development andleadership coaching project, 112 BIE schools across the country use NWEA MAP assessments. In Fall 2010, BIEapproached NWEA to commission a report of system-wide performance for their first full school year. This report servesas the first in what we recommend to be a series of ongoing reports on the progress of BIE schools.With only a single year of testing data, certain patterns were able to be identified and are detailed in this report.However, more years of data will deepen the analyses and allow for the identification of trends and change over time.Intervention strategies often take several years for results to be seen at a high level (although teacher-student changescan often be seen very quickly), so a multi-year evaluation is the most appropriate methodology to reflect the result ofBureau effectiveness. However, this report is not an evaluation of BIE effectiveness. Instead, it is a written summary thatshows data for the BIE’s first year of testing with NWEA. As a baseline report, it should be used as a place to gauge thestarting point for the many schools managed by the Bureau.It is important to note this report is a high-level summary of all schools within the BIE. Due to confidentiality, we havespecifically not identified individual schools, teachers, or students, and the results shown reflect only averageperformance for the different groups identified. An average always masks the individual differences seen for particularschools, teachers, and students. Even if average performance falls in a certain range, there are students who arestruggling as well as students achieving far higher than the average conveys. Education is about student learning, notsystem-wide averages, therefore this report is not designed to be used as a reward or punishment system for schools oradministrators. There are other tools available to measure school and teacher effectiveness. This report is a descriptionof first year performance, not of BIE effectiveness. One of our recommendations included later in the report is that theBIE continue annual reporting, but also commission a system-wide evaluation of effectiveness following the third year oftesting with NWEA.THE BUREAU OF INDIAN EDUCATION (BIE)Through the design and execution of effective education programs, BIE contributes to the development of qualityAmerican Indian and Alaska Native communities. Approximately 4,300 full‐time and seasonal BIE employees, includingteachers, serve American Indian and Alaska Native students at BIE‐operated schools located on or near Indianreservations.The BIE supports education programs and manages residential facilities for Indian students at 184 BIE‐fundedelementary and secondary schools and dormitories, 60 of which are BIE-operated schools, and 124 of which are BIEfundedtribally-operated schools. BIE's elementary and secondary school system spans 23 states serving diverse Indian5 | P a g e