Talking Points for the College Readiness: Michigan Grad Class Data 2013

These slides were assembled for your ease of use and convenience…I suggest using them during a staff meeting to heighten staff awareness of ACT scores from a school, state and national perspective and to keep data as a focus. I would also suggest that you create a data wall in your building and use these charts w/the addition of your schools data for sake of comparison. If you are looking at this and thinking…hhhmmm, I really don’t get it. Please join us for at MASSP for an EPAS workshop where we will walk you through all of this data and give you a step by step plan to best use your data for: school improvement, student remediation, curriculum/instruction improvements and for including all stakeholders in the process.

Title slide Every year John Carroll from ACT presents grad class data to the State Board of Education. The ACT scores reflected in this report include retakes that MI students may take between the Junior year MME/ACT and graduation- so these scores tend to be a bit higher than those taken by our Juniors during MME testing .

During the Data Slides… As you go through these slides at your staff meeting have teachers jot down key data points etc as the slide indicates…use these as discussion points afterwards.

% of 2013 ACT-Tested MI HS Grads Meeting the benchmark by subject Here we see that Michigan students are in royal blue (bar to the left) and the National scores are in the light blue (bar to the right). 57% of Michigan students met the benchmark in English, 64% met this benchmark Nationally. 37% of Michigan students met the benchmark in Reading, 44% met this benchmark Nationally. 35% of Michigan students met the benchmark in Reading, 44% met this benchmark Nationally. 33% of Michigan students met the benchmark in Reading, 36% met this benchmark Nationally. 21% of Michigan students met the benchmark in Reading, 26% met this benchmark Nationally. This is the percentage that gets the most attention in the press- last year 21% of the students met this benchmark and it is the same percentage for 2013- However there are a few factors that keep this from being an “apples to apples” comparison: 1) Over 9,000 extended time test takers (special education students with IEPs) were included in this year’s results. Extended time test takers were not included in previous years. 2) The college readiness benchmark in Reading went up a point. This cut score has not been adjusted since 2006. 3) The college readiness benchmark in Science went down a point. This cut score has not been adjusted since 2006. - All three of these factors have the potential to impact overall scores making a comparison from last year to this year somewhat invalid (statistically speaking).

Why is Michigan below the National average in each area? We test 100% of our students whereas most States only have their college bound students taking the ACT.

My suggestion is that you make a data wall in your school and that you add a bar in for your school and/or another bar for your district (if there is more than one HS).

Turn and Talk It is good for staff to process this type of info, if you do a prepare a slide that includes a bar for your school and/or district you can pop it in after the turn and talk slide to have people see if there perception matches reality.

100% ACT Tested-Class of 2013 As noted previously, not all States test 100% of their students: This is a chart that compares scores in States that DO test 100%. Interesting to note the # of schools tested and the Mean Composite.

ACT products and Use by State Alabama is the first State to use ACT’s Aspire program that provides a yearly assessment 3-12. You also see the States that are using Explore and Plan as part of their State assessments.

Michigan Graduating Class 2007 was the last year only college bound students took the ACT in Michigan. We began using ACT as part of the MME in 2008- hence the dip in scores. What you note is that every year since giving the ACT our composite of students meeting the benchmark in all 4 subjects has gone up a point.

Continuing the Trend Line… Its important to note that we can’t just add a 2013 to the previous slide due to the changes in data factors that were noted in the first slide explanation.

% of 2009-2013 The data for 2013 has been added here but it really needs to be stressed that the 21 posted for 2013 is NOT a “flat line” from the year before…(it is likely that the 9,000 extended time scores that were included brought down this percentage- ACT is working on pulling these out so that we can see “apples to apples”).

% of 2013 HS Grads by Benchmark Attainment Governor Snyder and the news media have gone w/the definition that only those meeting all 4 benchmarks are “college ready”. Although I support high standards, I would argue that students meeting 2 or more benchmarks are likely to be “college ready”…we also need to take into account how many points a student missed the benchmark by. My suggestion is to recreate this pie graph for your school and to make a list of student names for each area. It will help the staff to know who is meeting 1, 2, 3 and all 4 benchmarks. I would do this for Explore and Plan tests that were given as well.

Near Attainment of College and Career Readiness This chart shows that the % of students who met the benchmark in dark blue, then the royal blue is those that missed it by 1-2 points…the light blue is those that missed it by 3 or more. This is an important chart to recreate for your school- especially for Explore and Plan. The kids that missed it by 1-2 points are your “bubble kids” and it is likely that you can impact their scores with minimal remediation/intervention by targeting their areas of weakness as determined by their Explore/Plan item response summary reports.

Slides 12-15: Achievement Gap Slides These slides are by subject and show benchmark attainment by student reported ethnicity. Once again, consider recreating these slides for your school…are there other demographics you might want to include?

“A” Partner to “B” Partner We want to make sure that teachers understand the main points from this data and that they can be key communicators in the community. Have them partner to do this turn and explain exercise to talk through the important pieces.

Slides 17-20: Explore Test Slides If your school/district gives the Explore test you should re-create the Explore pie graph included w/Michigan data for comparison with your school/district. Once again, I suggest this should go on your data wall. You should also identify the students who have met 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 bench marks to share this with the staff. If the students took the Explore test in 8th grade- they are your current 9th and it would be helpful for the staff to have this information. Perhaps even more helpful is the re-creation of the bar graph so that students who missed the benchmark by 1-2 points and those missing it by 3 or more can be identified…what remediation would the staff suggest to help these students before the next test?

Slides 21-24: Plan Test Slides If your school/district gives the Plan test you should re-create the Plan pie graph included w/Michigan data for comparison with your school/district. Once again, I suggest this should go on your data wall. You should also identify the students who have met 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 benchmarks to share this with the staff. If the students took the Explore test in 8th grade- they are your current 9th and it would be helpful for the staff to have this information. Perhaps even more helpful is the re-creation of the bar graph so that students who missed the benchmark by 1-2 points and those missing it by 3 or more can be identified…what remediation would the staff suggest to help these students before the next test?

Note to Self This allows staff to process the previous slides and game plan.