1. 375 students took the number sense common formative assessments this school year. These are their stories. (Please view as a slide show)

2. A Year of Transition: The following data must be viewed with the knowledge that the Valley Central School District was in a period of transition with regard to math instruction this school year. Grades K through 2 adopted the new Common Core State Standards and as a result began to make both content and instructional changes from the very first day of school. Grades 3 through 5 were asked to continue emphasizing the New York State standards used since 2005 as this year’s state-wide assessments continued to be based on the 2005 standards. However, teachers in those grades were also asked to begin considering, and when appropriate, implementing, Common Core Standards to reduce gaps in the curriculum as we move forward. Due to this time of transition, number sense Common Formative Assessments were not necessarily aligned with the new Common Core State Standards, even as content and instruction were gradually changing.

3. A Year of Inclusion: At the end of last year, a decision was made to include numbers sense data for all students, except for those who take alternate assessments to demonstrate proficiency in mathematics. Therefore, there were more special education students included in this year’s data than in the past. This is an improved representation of our student population.

4. In the beginning…

5. All grade level teams delivered instruction followed by post-tests in the fall… A total of 24.33% of our students did not demonstrate proficiency.

6. Building-wide COMMON Strategies Building-wide daily reviews took the overall format suggested during the workshop Five Easy Steps to a Balanced Math Program. Teachers selected the appropriate number sense topics to emphasize during daily reviews based on their students’ needs. Teachers also exposed students to a greater number of problems in a word problem format. But wait…. There’s MORE!...

7. Intervention Strategies first implemented in the fall of 2011: – Teachers completed an “Express” referral form for each student who scored BELOW the “close to proficiency” cutoff on the FALL number sense post-test. (In other words: referrals were generated for our students who had “far to go” in order to reach proficiency.) – The IST team met with teachers and the AIS Math teacher to consider each of these students’ current performance levels and discuss appropriate support structures for improved growth. – Students who scored “close to proficiency,” but demonstrated no growth or a decline from pre-test levels were considered for a referral by teachers on a case by case basis.

8. All students participating in our special education programs, (except those who take alternate assessments to demonstrate proficiency in mathematics,) took the number sense pre-tests and post-tests for their current grade level. This allowed us to: – better gage each student ’ s progress with regard to mathematics, – identify weak areas with regard to test taking skills, – and quickly identify those in need of greater support throughout our school population.

9. Further growth was demonstrated in the spring: Spring – ADDITIONAL Growth Fall

10. Spring – ADDITIONAL Growth Fall

11. 17.3% of our students are still not demonstrating proficiency… But perhaps there was still significant growth…

12. Individualized growth data was provided for all students that completed both the fall and spring CFA post-tests regarding number sense topics for their grade level. Six out of 375 students did not meet this criteria due to changing enrollment during the school year. The following two graphs show growth information for the 59 non-proficient students from this group followed by growth information for the 369 students as a whole.

13. A cause for celebration Who are these 20 students and why do they appear to have made significant losses instead of gains?

14. Some details: Re: the 20 non-proficient students who demonstrated double digit losses 12 were in grades 3 through 5, while 8 were in grades K-2 12 were receiving AIS services, while 8 were not receiving these services. 7 were receiving special education services while 13 were not receiving these services. There do not appear to be any distinctive trends regarding the student profiles.

15. While small losses among proficient students are not unusual, 10 proficient students demonstrated double digit losses. This is worth some consideration.

16. Some details: Re: the 10 proficient students who demonstrated double digit losses None of these losses were for more than 13 points. The 13 point losses still resulted in scores that were above 85. Most of these losses were 10 point losses that reduced a grade of 100 to a grade of 90. These students are still demonstrating a strong proficiency with regard to number sense.

17. Some conclusions: As we embark on a building-wide implementation of the New York State Common Core Curriculum, it will be vital to align all Common Formative Assessments with the Common Core State Standards. This is necessary to ensure the validity of our ongoing data analysis with regard to number sense proficiency. During this year of transition, approximately 83% of our students demonstrated number sense proficiency by the spring of 2012. This is a slight increase from our 82% proficiency level at this same time last year and includes nearly all students attending Berea this school year. Of the students who were unable to demonstrate proficiency, 37% demonstrated growth with 22% of those students demonstrating significant growth from the fall to the spring.

18. The Plan: Berea has continued to move students forward with regard to number sense during a year of significant changes to math curriculum and instruction. In the coming year we will complete our alignment of CFAs to reflect these changes and continue to pursue number sense proficiency building wide.

19. With thanks to all the data teams… …for the prompt collection of both fall and spring data, we are now ready to move into the next school year with a plan to further support ongoing growth in mathematics! +