Targeted growth for every student: when this district wanted an assessment program with practical applications to teaching and learning, it selected a computerized adaptive test that measures student growth over time.

Convincing your colleagues that testing is a good thing is no small challenge. Trying to convince them that more frequent testing in more subjects will actually motivate students is even harder.

When I assumed responsibility as director of assessment for the Poway Unified School District, this was my personal challenge as our district moved to become a more data-driven organization.

In 23 years as a principal at the elementary and middle school levels and a teacher before that, I had learned how data could help improve the performance of schools and students. I had seen how students respond to clear, measurable targets and continuous feedback about their progress toward those targets. So when the leadership of our suburban K-12 district of 33,000 students announced that it was committed to becoming data-driven, I was excited.

In an era of growing demands for mandated state testing and public accountability, Poway decided it wanted an assessment program with practical applications to teaching and learning. Rather than being yet another burden on teachers or a local report card on schools, our goal was to define and implement an assessment system that complemented the state's summative testing program--one that teachers and students could embrace and apply to focus and guide their work.

What we selected in 2001 was a computerized adaptive test that measured individual student growth over time and delivered immediate results. The first schools to fully embrace the new assessment--some of our lowest socioeconomic (Title I) schools--quickly became some of our highest performing academically. We now have a new culture of collaboration and involvement around the use of data, with students and teachers working together to set and achieve growth targets, and teachers collaborating on best practices based on their students' test data.

From the pilot phase to today, the testing program we chose remains optional--but has become the de facto formative assessment schools choose to use. Teachers who participated in the assessment pilot became champions of the program, communicating to their colleagues the impact it had in their classrooms. In 2005, a joint study committee co-sponsored by the teachers' union and district administration recommended that we adopt this new formative assessment district-wide.

"By allowing the program to remain as an opt-in, it has created the kind of buy-in among those practitioners whom you really need to depend on to use it--the classroom teachers," Poway's Deputy Superintendent John Collins said. "It allowed them to see it, to use it, to play with it and let them get excited about it."

Understanding assessments

When the district's leaders charged me in 2000 with defining a comprehensive assessment system for Poway, the first step was to address our corporate beliefs regarding why we administer tests at all. We asked ourselves, "What is the primary purpose of assessment?" This seemingly simple question provided rich discussion and forced us to examine many of our fundamental beliefs about the roles of teachers and students in the learning process, our grading practices and what comprises effective feedback.

After much discussion, we adopted a draft of what we called the "Guiding Principles of Assessment" (see box above). These principles would become the touchstone for the role of assessment in our organization. They would have to withstand much scrutiny in the years ahead as our district wrestled with the challenges of building a coherent and continuous assessment system.

My initial research to identify a comprehensive assessment program in 2000 uncovered a plethora of assessments beyond traditional norm-referenced tests. Recent advances in technology have enabled formative assessment to provide accurate insights into individual student growth through data that are easy to collect, provide immediate results, and are simple to understand and use to stimulate continued growth in all students.

Excited about the possibilities of computer adaptive testing as a formative tool focused primarily on student growth, Poway partnered with the Portland, Oregon-based Northwest Evaluation Association. NWEA's Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), a computer adaptive testing program that adapts to the student's ability during the testing session, accurately measures what a child knows and needs to learn, and gives educators immediate access to information they can use for instructional planning and school improvement.

The MAP test fulfills our Guiding Principles of Assessment--the data help accelerate student achievement and provide consistent growth measures over multiple years. The tests align with state assessments, and how well students do on MAP correlates with their performance on the California Standards Test and the California High School Exit Exam. They have meaning for students, teachers and parents, and demonstrate high levels of validity and reliability.

Commitment to a new assessment culture

Poway teachers quickly recognized the usefulness of the computer adaptive assessment data, but we laced the challenge that this test was designed to do something very different than anything we'd done in the district before. We had to communicate what we had learned from our research into comprehensive assessment planning--that formative assessments, carefully managed and thoroughly analyzed, pay dividends.

We also had to confront our conventional thinking about testing solely as an accountability measure and embrace a new culture of assessment throughout the district--from the superintendent to the students--that focused on individual student growth.

"As a school district that's always been concerned about increasing student achievement, we knew we needed a good accountability system to go along with that philosophy," Poway's Deputy Superintendent John Collins said. "Oftentimes, we've seen our accountability and assessment programs change. I was very interested in finding something that we as a district could invest in, regardless of the other state or national accountability systems we were required to use, so we could continue to have good, steady longitudinal data to make decisions and improve our programs."

Gaining support among teachers and parents for administering yet another test is always tough. Competition for instructional classroom time is fierce. Our teachers had to believe that this test would offer a positive return on the time investment. So we started the program slowly, piloting the new assessment with a handful of teachers in grades 4-8 in only a few schools during the first year. The following year, six additional elementary schools out of the district's 22 joined the pilot group.

Basic training for the front line

We introduced our new assessment in three stages, beginning with basic training for teachers--the front line of test administration and instruction. Linda Foote, a Technology Teacher on Special Assignment and former Teacher of the Year, helped teachers understand its use as a formative assessment tool, how to administer it and interpret the basic reports.

Next, teachers received training to help them use the test data formatively to modify lessons and instructional strategies during the school year to affect student learning. They also learned about the power of using MAP information to establish classroom, group or department growth goals.

The third phase encouraged teachers to engage students in individual goal-setting activities. The professional development programs Foote developed, as well as her enthusiasm, helped generate interest throughout the district.

The use of this growth assessment has always been voluntary. Nevertheless, as word spread about its unique value, schools chose to adopt it. In 2004, when Poway required that each school incorporate a growth indicator into its school assessment plan, MAP, which most schools were already using, became the assessment of choice.

"Now, every school creates its own assessment plan and writes its own goals around that plan," Collins said. "Taking the results, our principals are working with teachers at different levels and in different departments to evaluate the areas that they need to strengthen. It really is making a difference in program planning for the schools. They use data to address what they're doing, to continually try to increase the level of achievement.

"What's more," he says, "as an administrator, the data allow me to keep an eye on where schools are and to see the kind of growth that they're making. State accountability systems can give you a measure of where the school is at that point in time, but what's important to me is, are these schools taking the kids forward a full year every year? The MAP test allows me to watch that from a district-wide perspective, to see where our schools are making growth over time."

Empowering students and teachers

Poway's assessment philosophy states that "all learners, regardless of age, require feedback to efficiently improve performance." We believe that growth is motivational for kids, teachers and everyone involved in education. Of course, the claim that assessments can get kids excited about learning was tough for some people to accept at first.

But now, students ask when they can take the test again because they think they've mastered their personal or classroom growth goals. Many of our students love the challenge of reaching these goals. As partners in their education, students recognize the connection between effort and learning progress. After taking the test, students write about their testing experience to understand what the test has taught them about their own learning.

Both teachers and students understand that testing to measure growth is not about the score, but what the score informs them about each student's learning and how teachers and students can use it to identify the skills they need to work on.

"Sharing assessment data with students has helped the students focus and motivates them to take more responsibility for and ownership of their learning," says Lynne Harvey, a fifth-grade teacher in Poway. "They recognize the purpose of what they are doing in class. The students know exactly where they are, where they need to be, and what they have to do to get there. Since bringing the students into this loop and making them part of the team, they actually ask, 'When can I take the MAP test?' because they are anxious to see if they are showing growth."

Teachers are empowered by the growth data to inform instruction. We have seen their interest in formative assessment grow exponentially as they recognize that the test scores closely matched their own classroom observations about each child's skill level. Feedback was immediate and informative. Teachers developed goal conference sheets and reflection sheets for students--resources to help them use the data to shape instruction for each student.

Why an assessment on top of CST?

While the current California Standards Test is a standards-based summative assessment that determines grade-level proficiency, we knew we needed something more if we were to affect student performance. For a test to be truly formative, it must assess the skills that underpin each of the standards. Teachers require a complete view of each child's mastery level for every skill and concept related to the standards.

For example, the reading comprehension standard is based on many related skills, including vocabulary, fluency, phonemic awareness and reading analysis skills. Rather than merely report passing or failing on a particular standard, our assessment provides a profile of a child's proficiency within many of these subskills related to reading, allowing teachers to target instruction on specific, appropriate concepts.

Poway also chose MAP as its growth assessment program because of its close correlation to the CST. For reading, language usage and mathematics, the skills and concepts tested align with the content of California's state standards. Using a forecasting table we developed, Poway educators can predict in which of CST's five performance bands (advanced, proficient, basic, below basic, far below basic) the child will fall if he or she achieves targeted growth.

For those students not currently at proficiency, the forecasting chart allows students and teachers to plot a growth path to "catch them up" to the standards.

Teachers have embraced this approach to focus primarily on student growth, which frees them to focus on learning, knowing CST test scores will take care of themselves. The high correlation between the NWEA assessment and the CST relieves pressure to teach to the test. Teachers say they feel empowered to use the data to guide their instruction to promote each student's academic growth.

Many Poway schools use assessment data to provide differentiated instruction both within a class and across teams. For example, our data showed us that some of our high-achieving students were more advanced than we thought. Consequently, we stretched our curriculum upward to provide appropriately challenging instruction for these students. The result--more students than ever achieved the advanced proficiency level on the CST in 2005.

The power of growth measures

Last year, the number of Poway students taking MAP increased 320 percent as many schools expanded testing to grades 2 and 3 and grade 9 English. Poway's continuation high school has used the growth assessment for three years, testing all students through 12th grade as part of California's Alternative School Assessment Model.

Any successful new program requires strong leadership with a clear understanding of why the change is important. The reasons must be communicated to all stakeholders, along with a strategy for implementation. At Poway, we wanted growth measures to serve a key role in our comprehensive assessment program. This recognition was fundamental to making the transition successful.

Looking back over the past six years, we've made great strides to ensure academic growth for all our students. I always believed that accurate data efficiently delivered to teachers and students could improve academic performance, but I never realized how significantly growth assessments could impact learning and help us move ever closer to realizing our mission, "All Students Learning--Whatever It Takes."

The power of growth measures is one significant step toward fulfilling our mission. Student performance in Poway is at an all time high thanks to dedicated teachers, hard-working students, committed parents and the district's ability to provide accurate, timely feedback about every child's progress throughout the school year.

The Poway Unified School District is the third largest school district in San Diego County, with approximately 33,000 students. It is located 26 miles from downtown San Diego.

RELATED ARTICLE: Poway Unified School District's guiding principles of assessment.

1 The essential purpose of assessment is the improvement of student learning.

2 Assessment must provide a comprehensive picture of student achievement.

3 Assessment must measure student growth over time.

4 Assessment must be valid and reliable.

5 Assessment data must be responsibly and efficiently collected and managed.

RELATED ARTICLE: What is computerized adaptive testing?

By Allan Olson

More school districts are recognizing the need for formative measures that provide quality, accuracy, timeliness and utility. More school districts are adopting Computerized Adaptive Testing, applying technology to replace conventional methodologies while harvesting far richer information about student achievement.

While technological delivery of conventional tests ensures fast results, the adaptive component provides a far more accurate measure of a student's proficiency and growth in specific subjects. During an adaptive test, the difficulty level of the questions adjusts in response to the student's performance. A correct answer will trigger a harder question, while an incorrect response leads to an easier item.

Because the test only presents questions that the student can reasonably attempt to answer, the results are an excellent measurement of each child, regardless of age or grade level.

CAT can benefit educators at all levels, from on-demand testing to building-level or district- or state-level testing. It's the most accurate testing methodology known, and results are returned quickly. Without the costs of printing, distributing and scoring of paper tests, CAT is more efficient and cost-effective to administer.

In addition, by shaping the assessment to reflect students' skills and capabilities, children remain engaged. Advanced students remain challenged, yet those with lower levels of proficiency are not overly frustrated.

NWEA's Measures of Academic Progress is a robust form of computerized adaptive testing that includes another significant benefit. The MAP is based on the stable, research-based RIT scale, an equal-interval scale that measures academic growth like a ruler measures height.

Allan Olson is the executive director of NWEA (www.nwea.org).

RELATED ARTICLE: Using growth data: a shining example.

Los Penasquitos Elementary was one of the first schools in Poway to pilot the new assessment and the first to understand and aggressively respond to the data. As a Title I school with 40 percent free/reduced lunch and 27 percent English language learners, it saw the potential impact growth data could have on its diverse student body.

Teachers now discuss the test results with students. Each student has individual learning targets that he or she has developed in consultation with the teacher. You can walk up to children on the playground, and they will jump at the chance to talk about their goals. Parents are informed of the outcomes on all key assessments and are given ways to support their child's growth.

Los Penasquitos became an early champion of this assessment, offering credibility by showing that with growth data to inform instruction, all students can learn and grow, regardless of their background. Incidentally, Los Penasquitos is also the only school in the Poway district to receive a 10-10 ranking on the California Academic Performance Index and Similar School Rank--a remarkable achievement.

Ray Wilson is executive director, Assessment and Accountability, for the Poway Unified School District.