May 26, 2011
News Release
Colorado Department of Education Publishes Improvement Plans For All Districts and Schools Under New Accountability Act
News Release
Commissioner of Education Robert K. Hammond today announced the
publication of improvement plans for all districts and schools in the
state under the first implementation cycle of the Education
Accountability Act of 2009.
To access a district or school improvement plan, visit the performance
tab of SchoolView:
http://www.schoolview.org/performance.asp
“By engaging in a continuous improvement cycle to manage performance,
districts and schools can improve their effectiveness and outcomes for
students,” said Commissioner Hammond. “We strongly encourage parents and
community members statewide to explore these plans and learn more. Every
school is unique and has its own story to tell.”
The Education Accountability Act requires each Colorado district and
school to develop or update an improvement plan each year. In developing
these improvement plans, districts and schools must analyze student
academic data to reflect on their performance strengths and challenges,
and identify the root causes of these issues. Districts and schools also
must develop strategies for addressing low performance and then describe
how implementing these strategies will address the identified issues
during the course of the next school year.
Plans were submitted to the Department for publication on April 15,
2011. CDE reviewed and approved district turnaround plans, and provided
support as requested in the development of all other plan types. The
published plans may reflect revisions districts and schools have made to
their plans following official submission to CDE each year on April 15.
As planning is an ongoing process, these documents reflect a “point in
time” submission.
To date, 179 district plans have been published and 1476 school plans
have been published. School districts with 1000 or fewer students had
the option of submitting one district-level plan that addressed their
challenges and improvement strategies at both the district and school
level, or submitting separate district- and school-level plans.
Plan Components
The Education Accountability Act of 2009 requires the following
components in all plans:
• Trends: Positive and negative trends in the levels of attainment by
the district or school on the performance indicators.
• Root Causes: Root causes for each identified student academic
performance challenge for the district or school that must be addressed
to raise the levels of attainment on the performance indicators.
• Targets: Ambitious but attainable targets that the district or school
will attain on the four key statewide performance indicators (academic
achievement, academic growth, academic growth gaps and postsecondary and
workforce readiness).
• Strategies: Specific, research-based major improvement strategies that
are appropriate in scope, intensity and type to address the district’s
or school’s root causes of areas of low performance.
• Resources: Identification of local, state and federal resources that
the district or school will use to implement the identified major
improvement strategies.
• Interim Measures and Implementation Benchmarks: Interim measures and
implementation benchmarks to assess whether the identified strategies
are having the desired performance results and whether or not the
strategies are being carried out as planned.
In addition, districts and schools on turnaround plans (the
lowest-performing 5 percent of districts and schools) must also include
at least one of the following approaches among their improvement
strategies:
• Turnaround Partner: Employ a lead turnaround partner that is immersed
in all aspects of developing and collaboratively executing the plan, and
that serves as a liaison to other school partners.
• District/School Management: Reorganize the oversight and management
structure of the district or school such that the new structure provides
greater, more effective support.
• Innovation School: Recognize the district’s school as an innovation
school or cluster it with other schools that have similar governance
management structure to form an innovation school zone pursuant to the
Innovation Schools Act.
• School Management Contract: Hire a public or private entity to manage
the district’s school pursuant to a contract with the local school board
or the Charter School Institute.
• Charter Conversion: For schools without a charter, convert the
district’s school to a charter school.
• Restructure Charter: For schools with a charter, renegotiate or
significantly restructure the district’s school charter contract.
• Other Strategy of Comparable or Greater Effect: Includes those
interventions required for low-performing schools under the federal
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Unified Improvement Plan Template
The Colorado Department of Education created the Unified Improvement
Plan (UIP) template to streamline planning efforts. The UIP template
incorporates multiple state and federal improvement planning and
accountability requirements into a single improvement plan, and provides
a roadmap to assist districts and schools in addressing the above
components.
“Prior to the Unified Improvement Plan, districts that were identified
as in need of improvement under the various state or federal
accountability provisions (for example, state accreditation or federal
Title programs or both) were required to submit an improvement plan for
each program area where they fell short of expectations,” said Patrick
Chapman, Executive Director of Federal Programs Administration. “With
the Unified Improvement Plan, districts need only submit a single
comprehensive plan, which meets multiple state and federal
requirements.”
In the 2010-2011 school year, districts and schools on priority
improvement or turnaround plans, as well as any districts requiring
state review due to High Priority Dropout designation or federal No
Child Left Behind improvement designations, were required to use the
Unified Improvement Plan template. All other districts and schools were
highly encouraged to use the template for 2010-11, and will be required
to use the template in 2011-2012.
Improvement Planning Support
This spring, the Colorado Department of Education reviewed and provided
feedback to district and school priority improvement and turnaround
plans. In addition, a State Review Panel of Colorado education experts
reviewed turnaround plans to provide recommendations to the Commissioner
regarding a district or school’s overall capacity to improve.
Between late June and September, the Department will offer a series of
differentiated training opportunities to support improvement planning.
District and school leaders are encouraged to attend any session that
meets their needs.
For more information, including training dates and locations, visit
http://schoolview.org/UnifiedImprovementPlanning.asp#UIPTrainings
The Education Accountability Act of 2009
The Education Accountability Act of 2009 was signed into law by Governor
Ritter on May 21, 2009. Its purpose is to align conflicting
accountability systems and create a common understanding of school,
district and state performance using the Colorado Growth Model as its
cornerstone. The Education Accountability Act holds the state, districts
and schools accountable on a set of consistent, objective measures and
reports performance in a manner that highlights progress towards the
goals of the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids Act of 2008 (CAP4K):
ensure that all students graduate high school ready for postsecondary
education and workforce success.
As a part of the Education Accountability Act, in November 2010, the
Colorado Department of Education accredited districts with one of five
ratings: accredited with distinction, accredited, accredited with
improvement plan, accredited with priority improvement plan or
accredited with turnaround plan. In December 2010, the Colorado State
Board of Education assigned schools to one of four plan types:
performance plan, improvement plan, priority improvement plan or
turnaround plan.
The basis for district accreditation and school plan type assignments
were the district and school performance framework reports. The
performance frameworks measure attainment on the four key performance
indicators identified in the Education Accountability Act as the
measures of educational success: academic achievement, academic growth,
academic growth gaps and postsecondary and workforce readiness.
State-identified measures and metrics for each of these performance
indicators are combined to arrive at an overall evaluation of a
district’s or a school’s performance. For districts, the overall
evaluation leads to their accreditation. For schools, the overall
evaluation leads to the identification of the type of plan schools will
implement.
The Education Accountability Act then requires districts and schools to
develop and implement an improvement plan based on their assigned
district accreditation rating or school plan type assignment.
This accountability cycle of performance reporting, district
accreditation, school plan type assignment, and district and school
improvement planning is an annual process. The next cycle begins again
August 15, 2011, when districts and schools will receive their
preliminary 2010-11 district and school performance framework reports.
For more information on school plan type assignments, visit:
http://www.cde.state.co.us/communications/Releases/20101103spf.html
For more information on district accreditation, visit: http://www.cde.state.co.us/communications/Releases/20101130dpf.html
To access a district or school performance framework report, visit the performance tab of SchoolView: http://schoolview.org/performance.asp
To access additional district or school performance data, visit the SchoolView Data Center: https://edx.cde.state.co.us/SchoolView/DataCenter/reports.jspx
For technical assistance, E-Mail: CDE_Communications_Office@cde.state.co.us