Data and accountability foundation
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Student assessments▪
Transparency to schools and/or public on school performance▪
School inspections andinspections institutions
▪
Transparency and accountability:Thesystem establishes student assessments and school inspections to create reliable data on performance and to hold schools accountable for improvement
▪
Improvement areas:The system uses this data to identify and tackle specific areas (e.g., subjects, grades, gender) with lagging performanceTheme Description Example interventions
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Optimization of number of schools or teachers▪
Decentralizing financial and administrative rights▪
Increasing funding and changing allocation model▪
Organizational restructuring Financial andorganizational foundation
▪
Organization structure:The system takes steps to make the school network shape and governance manageable, and to delineate decision rights accordingly▪
Financial structure:The system establishes an efficient and equitable funding allocation mechanism for schools▪
School model (number of years students spend at each education level)▪
Streams/tracks based on student outcomes and academic focus▪
Language of instruction Pedagogicalfoundation
▪
Learning model:The system selects a learning model consistent with raising student capabilities, and designs the necessary supporting materials for this new model (e.g., standards, curriculum,textbooks) Hong Kong (1983-1988) Jordan (1999+) LBUSD (2002-2005) Latvia (1995-2000) Poland (2000-2002) Singapore (1983-1987) Slovenia (1995-2005) Systems
included Armenia (2003+)Aspire (2002-2003) Boston (2003-2005) Chile (2006+)
Source: McKinsey & Company interventions database and system interviews
Reallocate system manage- ment Revise the school model Optimize schools/ staff Decentralise funding/ per- pupil funding model Data foundations (national assessments) Armenia
Armenia’s optimization of teachers, from 65,000 to 40,000:
• Second phase of reforms (1999-present) focused on ‘intra-school’ optimization
• Minimum teacher load of 22 hrs/week mandated
• Rise from 9:1 student ratio in 2000 to 14:1 in 2009
Latvia
Latvia reallocated system management roles:
• State Inspectorate established to conduct school inspections (1991)
• State Education Centre set up for student evaluation (2004)
Lithuania
Lithuania’s optimization program focused on closing small schools in order to concentrate resources within a reduced network
• 1998: 2600 school
• 2009: 1311 schools
• 2012: 1000 schools planned
Poland
Poland’s switch to a 6+3+3 model (from 8+4) required introducing lower secondary schools
• 4000 lower secondary schools opened in one year
• Required shutting down and reconstituting 3764 primary schools
Slovenia
Slovenia started expanding lump sum financing to schools in 2004. This gave schools more autonomy in distributing funds and bound them to carry out an ongoing process of self-evaluation
Source: McKinsey & Company interventions database and system interviews
in journeys from fair to good all used strikingly similar core interventions to those adopted in Poland (Exhibit 13). This similarity is not surprising given their context: all these systems faced similar challenges in how to create and manage their national education systems following the dissolution of the Soviet power bloc; and, all at that time also had very similar student outcomes.
An important emphasis in the fair to good improvement journey stage is the introduction of system-wide student assessment systems: data plays a powerful role in this stage in two ways. First, it enables system leaders to identify whether student outcomes are improving or not and thereby allocate attention and resources to the areas of highest need. Second, it holds educators across the system accountable for raising student outcomes, helping to shift the system culture “from teaching to learning.” The city of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts illustrate how these two forces combine. In 1998, Massachusetts launched the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), a statewide tenth- grade student assessment; this became a binding graduation requirement in 2001. MCAS is judged to have among the most stringent proficiency standards of any state assessment in the United States.15 During the 1998 MCAS pilot, roughly half of all students across the state failed the assessment. In 2001, at the point MCAS became binding on the state, Massachusetts used the test results to allocate resources to the neediest districts. Of the approximately USD 55 million in statewide funding that followed the first binding MCAS in 2001, USD 5 million went to Boston to fund double-block classes (whereby students stay in the same class for two periods in a row), summer programs, and after- school programs. Massachusetts also used the 1998 pilot data as the funding rationale for a professional development program for 1,000 urban principals in 2001. Starting from an initial 40 percent pass rate at their first sitting of MCAS in 2001, the class of 2003 achieved an 80 percent pass rate by the time they were twelfth-graders. According to one Boston leader from the early years of the program, “Without the additional resources for the class of 2003, we would not have gotten the improved results.”
To support its schools in achieving higher outcomes, the city of Boston created the MyBPS data system. This contained detailed student achievement data accessible to teachers, principals, and administrators. Boston’s district leaders reviewed this data and invited teachers with track records of demonstrated success to speak to the leadership about their teaching or to contribute to teacher study groups. Yearly targets were set for each school for increasing their student achievement levels and for closing any achievement gaps between socioeconomic sub-groups. Schools that were performing well were allowed more flexibility; those that performed poorly received greater intervention from the district office. This pattern of interventions is seen across systems on the fair to good journey; for example, England called this, “intervention in inverse proportion to success”. Massachusetts was able to take intervention further than most. The state had succeeded in removing its principals from collective bargaining, so the district held its principals accountable for their school’s performance. During Tom Payzant’s eleven-year tenure as Superintendent of Boston Public Schools, 75 percent of all the district’s principals were either replaced or retired.
Between 1998 and 2007, Massachusetts registered the highest gains in the United States on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), making the largest gains in math and the third-largest gains in reading of all U.S. states (Exhibit 14). By 2007, it was the top-performing state in the U.S. on both NAEP’s reading and math assessments. Within this much-improved state, the Boston Public School District is a much-improved district. As a four-time finalist and 2006 winner of the Broad Prize for Urban Education, Boston has raised the proportion of its students that pass the state exams in mathematics from 23 percent in 1998 to 84 percent in 2008, and those that pass in reading from 43 percent in 1998 to 91 percent in 2008.
The systems examined here, all of which are undergoing the journey from fair to good, show two distinctive but overlapping sets of objectives. The first group comprises the countries from Eastern Europe that only recently emerged from under communism; these systems focused on
8 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 10 11 11 12 13 13 13 14 17 17 19 Georgia California Wyoming Mississippi Tennessee Virginia Texas Louisiana Maryland South Carolina Arkansas Massachusetts Nation New York New Mexico Kentucky Vermont North Dakota Missouri
Source: National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)
Math score increase relative to national average gain, 2000-2007 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 5 11 Colorado Arkansas Wyoming Pennsylvania Minnesota Massachusetts Maryland Florida Delaware Nation Washington Virginia Vermont Tennessee Missouri Louisiana South Carolina Hawaii Georgia
Reading score increaserelative to national average gain, 1998–2007
Systems with above average increases in NAEP scores, 8th grade
2007 National average18thgrade
mathematics score was 280 2007 National average
18thgrade reading score was 263