Year 3 Evaluation of the Minneapolis Public Schools Literacy Initiative

• In Event: 14.025 - Continuity and Success? Second- and Third-Year Findings for Three Districts' Approaches to Data-Based Literacy Instruction

Abstract

This presentation will focus on the initiative funded in Minneapolis. The corporate funder partnered with Minneapolis Public Schools, a major university, and a community service organization to develop a comprehensive K – 3 instructional model based on a cohesive professional learning framework that makes all educators responsible for student learning and enhances current instructional skills. Features of the model are:

1) Tiered interventions to support students who need extra help
2) Frequent progress monitoring to track students, guide selection of interventions, and inform classroom teachers’ decision making
3) Coaching to support classroom teachers’ core instruction.
4) Professional learning communities to build understanding and using student progress monitoring data and classroom work.
The initiative began in four Minneapolis public schools and two charter schools at the start of the 2011-2012 school year as part of a three-year effort. This presentation will discuss evaluation findings from all three years with a focus on data from the third and final year (see list).

--Interviews
*Principal/Lead Administrator: 3, 2x year
*PRESS Coach: 4, 2x year

--Focus Groups
*Literacy Assistant: 5 groups, 2x year
*Teachers: 10 groups, 1x year

--Other
*Teacher Surveys: 56 and 68, 2x year
*Coach logs: ongoing (~2000 hours)
*Progress Monitoring and Achievement Test Scores: All K-3 students

First, we will discuss implementation of the reading initiative. Interview, teacher survey, and focus group data (coded using qualitative methodologies and NVivo software) reflect perceptions about the initiative, understanding of its components, and changes in perceptions activities, and emphases throughout each year and across the two years. Frequency data from the coach logs will describe the focus of component activities, and classroom observation data will be used to describe changes in instruction. This presentation will highlight Minneapolis’s unique approach of using intervention providers from a community service organization and a university.

Second, we will discuss achievement results. Goals established during planning were ambitious, and although no school met the goals during Years 1 and 2, there were signs of growth. Schools made some progress reducing the percentage of students below benchmarks on progress monitoring tests. In the first two years, the interrupted time series analysis (ITS) of study and matched comparison schools showed no significant differences. For the last year (data not yet available as of July 2014); authors will present the 2013-14 achievement comparisons.(*)

(*)New tests and standards for the Minnesota Comprehensive Reading Assessment made continuation of the ITS analyses impossible.

Authors

• Terry S. Salinger, American Institutes for Research

• Amy Elledge, American Institutes for Research

• Bradley Quarles, University of Maryland - College Park

• Feng Liu, American Institutes for Research