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Progress Monitoring in an Inclusive Standards-based Assessment and Accountability System

Recommendations

There are several recommendations to consider as you implement progress monitoring in an inclusive standards-based assessment and accountability system.

1. Use multiple measures for progress monitoring. Each of the approaches discussed has strengths and drawbacks and none is a magic solution to the challenges facing schools. Commitment to just one measure can derail a well intentioned effort and may cause harm. Ensure the consistent use of monitoring devices over time.
2. Commit necessary resources to build skills and knowledge of all staff on how progress monitoring is used for improvement including time for training, practice, coaching, and collaborative problem-solving. Include parents and students in training as appropriate to ensure a full partnership with all the key stakeholders. Building a community of practice around a comprehensive progress monitoring improvement process—within the school and across the community—will ensure that a commitment builds for effective use of the process.
3. Find and use available resources. Technical assistance and research centers can provide resource maps and literature reviews for use by states and districts.  Existing state and district initiatives in the content areas can also be essential resources to schools. Examples of these include Reading First programs and state and local chapters of professional organizations such as the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the National Staff Development Council, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, International Reading Association, and the Eisenhower Regional Consortia for improving K-12 math and science education. (See the acknowledgement page for contact information for two national centers on progress monitoring, and one on accessing the general curriculum.)
4. Specifically articulate and address as a community the contextual issues of standards-based systems including: the historical limited access to challenging curriculum, instruction, and assessment; concerns about the target of measurement; and the need for effective provision of instructional strategies, interventions, and supports. Focus on research based curricular and instructional practices that are most effective in helping most students reach proficiency on grade-level standards. In addition to being used for identifying generally effective curricular and instructional strategies, assessment data also needs to be used to help identify students and staff who need something other than these generally effective strategies (e.g., more time, more help, a different approach). In identifying the particular needs of some students and staff, avoid meeting one academic need in a way that prevents a child from making progress on other academic needs (e.g., decoding vs. access to other content). Once an intervention strategy is determined, continue progress monitoring throughout the school year, to ensure interventions are working. Finally, when identifying students who need something besides the typical strategies, systematically address and circumvent educators’ tendency to translate an individualized need into a lowered expectation for performance.
5. Apply universal design for learning principles to the design of progress monitoring techniques to ensure that individual learner differences are considered from the start. As fully accessible curriculum materials become widely used in schools, and technology systems are developed that collect, present, and offer authentic and timely student data, the reality of on-going progress monitoring can be realized.
6. Given the resources required to implement these recommendations, there will be questions about whether the benefit of a comprehensive progress monitoring improvement process is sufficiently large to offset the additional time or cost required for implementation. Be prepared to have this discussion openly and enlist the partnership of practitioners who have had success.

The perspective that can guide this discussion is that progress monitoring encourages continued persistence and high expectations for all students. It moves educators and society as a whole away from accepting the notion that there are always going to be students who will be underachieving (i.e., at the low end of the spectrum), away from a belief that is "just the way it is." Instead, continual progress monitoring that informs instruction and intervention focuses attention on the essential effort to help each student reach grade-level expectations. It encourages continual tweaking of instruction to find what works for a student or group of students. It also encourages a sense of effectiveness in teachers—they are not powerless to help their students and they cannot simply accept the belief that they can do nothing. That sends a powerful message to the students: "We are not going to give up on you (as an individual or as a group of students). We are going to continue to monitor your progress because we want to see you reach the goal, and we are going to do what is necessary (make the necessary changes and add the necessary supports) to facilitate your progress because we believe in you."

This perspective—and this message—can profoundly change the dynamics of teaching and learning in a district and school. Progress monitoring in a standards-based system can be the key to unlock powerful skills and knowledge for teachers and for students and can result in success for the school, district, and state in inclusive standards-based assessment and accountability systems.

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