Improving the Implementation of Progress Monitoring Structures to Impact Student Achievement
Improving the Implementation of Progress Monitoring Structures to Impact Student Achievement
Section One: Introduction
In today’s competitive environment, organizations find it difficult to take an edge over competitors. Leaders are required to implement effective change management strategies to run a business successfully. Organizational change is eminent for improving existing business procedures. It is also essential to adopt new and advanced technologies that may help in enhancing product quality. Change is essential for every business, whether it is a profit making or not-for-profit making organization. Businesses are bound to implement change management strategies else their existence in the market would be at risk (Stecker, Lembke & Foegen, 2008). This research study focuses on the significance of implementing CBM (Curriculum-Based Measurement) as a students’ progress assessment tool in the Texas educational institution.
The study focuses on two perspectives: current areas of organizational and individual change; the second perspective is a prospect environment of an educational institution that needs to change. Wagner Change Leadership Framework is used to evaluate these two perspectives. For this study, the selected school is Mark Twain Elementary School Texas. This section includes problem statement which highlights the research issue; rationale of the study; research objectives and demographics of the target market.
In today’s competitive environment, businesses are bound to deliver quality products and services to their customers. Similarly, educational institutions' responsibility is to make sure maximum students' achievement by providing quality educational programs. Students performance only augments if their progress is correctly measured by applying effective progress monitoring tool, i.e., CBM. The students' progress assessment tool help in identifying those who need academic improvements; through which leadership develops and redesign instructional programs according to their students’ needs. Wagner and Kegan suggested in their book called “Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools" that change can be effectively implemented in schools by assessing four Cs, i.e., Contexts, Culture, Conditions, and Competencies. In the educational institutions, culture is an essential element that may create hindrance to implementing a change plan. School leadership requires focusing on attaining maximum students' achievement via CBM implementation. An educational institution can be run successfully only if areas of improvement are identified efficiently. The lack of implementing CBM would result in poor students performance (Shapiro, 2011).
Mark Twain Elementary School Texas uses norm-referenced and non-standardized tests as students’ assessment tool. The scores attain from applied tests depict the success of educational programs. There is not any standard format for creating tests; teachers create tests by themselves which may increase error chances. Each developed assessment tool has a different format from any other educational institution’s designed tool; this is the reason that the outcomes attain from the applied tool are not reliable and accurate. Schools are required to implement standardized progress monitoring tool which helps the leadership to alter existing and adopt new instructional strategies. The more standardize the system gets; the more students’ performance improves. There is a need to explore the institutional possibilities to implement the change plan in students’ assessment process. Schools did not bother to emphasize on quality education rather than on enrollments and admissions. However, in 2001, when the government imposed new educational reform NCLB (No Child Left Behind); a drastic change is observed in a school environment. The cultural shift can be seen in the schools. Schools that initially focused on quantity starts working on the change plan. Numerous school management has taken steps towards transformational change in their monitoring systems. The transformational change in assessment procedures leads to students' performance augmentation and retention. The conditions and competencies for implementing change in Mark Twain Elementary School Texas are not favorable.
The school management confronts with different challenges in implementing new and improved progress assessment tool. Some of these challenges include lack of proper training, change resistance behavior, lack of hard, soft and leadership skills. The most serious issue among them is, change resistance behavior. Many business empires have been wiped out due to change resistance behavior of employees and leadership, one of the best examples is Nokia Telecom Company. Although Nokia observed the changing trend of telecom industry; still then it did not innovate and change its products as per the demand, which led it to fiasco or a complete wipeout from the market. In a business environment, where the enterprise does not adapt change then it will soon wipe out from the market. According to the researchers Fuchs and Fuchs (2002), the use of CBM (progress monitoring tool) helps school leadership to monitor students' progress in various disciplines like maths, writing, reading, and spelling. This tool also assists in identifying and designing effective instructional programs for those who have low academic performance (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2002). Non-standardized assessment methods are not considered as cost and time efficient tools. However, the research conducted by Fuch and Fuchs elaborated that, CBM is a time and cost-effective assessment tool. Through which, leaders can continuously monitor their students’ performance; identify areas of improvements; alter existing curriculum and re-design best fit instructional strategies.
Rationale for the Study
The rationale of this study is that many Texas schools fail to compete with the government required quality standards of an educational system. Majority schools are operating in the region unable to implement CBM because of lack of proper training, expertise, skills and change resistance behavior. Schools fail to follow standard progress monitoring tool which leads to high variation in the result (Steve & Nancy, 2006). As per the research, CBM is a standard assessment tool that has high credibility with low variation in the result. This study evaluates how effective CBM would be in monitoring students’ achievement. The study evaluates the change plan by focusing on school's current contexts, competencies, cultures and conditions. The study employs a mixed methodology which includes qualitative tools, as well as, quantitative tools for conducting organizational research. These tools include telephone interviews, surveys, document analysis and observation. At the same time, in this research, personal biases, competencies, leadership styles, and leadership journeys are also explored. To study the dual focus, i.e., organizational and individual change, helps in comprehending the school environment and creating effective school leadership.
Research Objectives
Following are the objectives of this study:
Demographics
The selected school for this study is Mark Twain Elementary School Texas. It is located in Southwest Houston. It operates as an authorized IB World School. The school has 53 teachers, who have been teaching different disciplines. The average retention rate for teachers is 11 years. The total population of the student is around 954 students. Students belong to various ethnic backgrounds such as Hispanic, Asian, African American, White and Native American. School leadership follows NCLB reform as all the necessities are provided to the students with and without disabilities. The school has nine educational aids employed; three teachers are assisting each educational division. The estimated student achievement rate is around 55 %; the student progress percentage is around 87%. A variation in the result can be observed, which signifies that the school assessment tool is not reliable.
Section Conclusion
The section included a brief introduction followed by problem statement, a rationale for the study, research objectives and demographics of the target market. The next section discusses Wagner Change Leadership Framework and its 4 Cs in detail.
References
Fuchs, L. S., & Fuchs, D. (2002). What is scientifically-based research on progress monitoring?(Technical report). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University.
Shapiro S.E., (2011). “Best Practices in Setting Progress Monitoring Goals for Academic Skill Improvement.” Best Practices in School Psychology V. Chapter 8, Volume 2. Pp. 141-144
Stecker M. P, Lembke S. E., and Foegen A., (2008) “Using Progress-Monitoring Data to Improve Instructional Decision Making”. Preventing School Failure. Vol. 52, No. 2. Pp. 48-51
Steve F. & Nancy S., (2006) “Research Matters / How Student Progress Monitoring Improves Instruction”. How Schools Improve. Volume 62 | Number 5. Pp. 81-83
