Transitions: A Vehicle to Exemplary School Improvement : John Woodward

Part of the NCA Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement Journal of School Improvement, Volume 2, Issue 1, Spring 2001

Transitions: A Vehicle to Exemplary School Improvement

John Woodward

About the Author: Dr. John Woodward is the Director of Research and Development for the NCA Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. He can be reached at jwoodwrd@ullinois.edu.

The National Emphasis On Student Performance

The emphasis on improving student academic performance has become a national focus of legislatures, politicians, and local school boards. To address that concern schools have engaged in a variety of school improvement activities designed to improve the performance of students. This article is about a school improvement model that holds the school accountable for the success of every student.

Transitions: A School Improvement Model

Transitions is based upon an eight-phase school improvement framework that takes place during a five-year time frame. Transitions involves the use of data (through a profile) to guide the design of the school improvement plan. A documentation report is created to provide evidence that student performance has improved and that the school is preparing every student to be successful in the next school or life transition.

The Transitions Design

Schools have to demonstrate that they meet the following criteria:

Prepare each student to be successful in the next school or life transition.
Prevent the anonymity of every student and prevent any student from falling through the cracks.
Increase student success in areas that will be meaningful at the next level of school or life's transitions.
Challenge schools and educators to change the system and themselves.
Promote a team effort between sending and receiving schools and between secondary schools and postsecondary non-school entities that receive their students.
Connect school learning to future life directions.

The Heart of Transitions

The heart of Transitions is “credentialing” of individual students. Credentialing requires that schools guarantee that they will prepare every student to be successful in the next level of schooling or beyond. That is, schools must collect data about the skills needed to be successful in the next transition, and they must determine the level of student performance needed to adequately prepare students for the next level of schooling. It is the responsibility of schools to identify these “indicators of preparedness” and to use them in making credentialing decisions in six areas. Elementary schools make credentialing decisions in reading comprehension, writing, math computation, math problem solving, employability skills, and career awareness. Middle and high schools make credentialing decisions in reading comprehension, writing, mathematics, reasoning skills, employability skills, and career awareness/exploration.

Schools must provide individual intervention plans for students who score below the required standard in any credentialing area. It is not enough that schools offer opportunities for students to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful and then leave it up to students. Schools must identify why students are not successful, and they must build appropriate interventions for each student. If one set of interventions is not successful, schools must look for another. Schools must not stop in their attempts to prepare every individual for success.

The Bottom Line

Transitions schools are required to document an average of (.1) of a standard unit of growth for all assessments for at least one goal in the school improvement plan for each group of students considered. They need to document:

(.1) of a standard unit of growth

(.1) of a standard fewer students in bottom quartile

What Support Systems Enable Schools to Implement Transitions?

What capacities must schools have in place to be able to implement Transitions?

A school will need a student information database that contains information about student performance in every credentialing area for every individual student. The database will need to contain data about former students that can be used to the standards to be used in credentialing.
Schools will need formal procedures for making credentialing decisions.
Schools will need formal processes for the construction and implementation of individual intervention plans.
The ability to articulate between sending and receiving schools about the credentialing of individual students will be critical. Sending and receiving schools will need vehicles to share information about: which students are credentialed in which areas, which assessments are used, the standards, the interventions that have been successful and those that have not, and suggestions for assisting individual students as they progress to the next grade or school.
An advising, guiding, and counseling program will be necessary to assist students in learning about themselves and in learning about career possibilities. In the case of middle school students, there will need to be a planning process that connects the high school program to career dispositions, and for high school students there will need to be a planning process that connects the post-high school program to career dispositions.

School staff members who are interested in exploring Transitions should acquire a Transitions handbook from the NCA Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. Introductory sessions on Transitions are offered at the Annual Meeting and special regional workshops. Schools may also examine the information available in the Transitions section on the NCA CASI web site at http://www.ncacasi.org/. In addition, schools may use the Transitions Forum on the web to post questions or make comments about Transitions.